The Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015

Part of 2. Questions to the Leader of the House and Chief Whip (in respect of her policy responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 3:05 pm on 18 April 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:05, 18 April 2018

Yes, I couldn't agree more. I had the great pleasure of going with the police and crime commissioner around the multi-agency service hub, over in Cardiff central police station. I don't know if the Member's had the chance to do that, but I'd recommend it to all Members, if you haven't had the chance. That shows the real leadership that the police service, in particular, has given to that collaborative approach. I was able to see for myself how they were able to make sure that they responded much more quickly and appropriately to all of the incidents that they were dealing with, and make a lot better use of the wealth of data, and different professionals all working side by side to make sure that they had the best possible outcome in the circumstances that were presenting to them.

We collaborated with them, and with—as I said—a large number of our other statutory public sector and third sector partners, in rolling out our 'ask and act' training and our e-learning, which we launched just earlier last year, and that's been very successful as well. The idea is to make sure that all of our first responders and the people who deal with people on a day-to-day basis pick up the early signs of this sort of domestic abuse. So, our teaching staff, our teaching assistants, our fire and rescue services, our police services, our ambulance and other responders, are all going through the 'ask and act' training. There are several layers of the training, so the front-line responders get a particular set of training, and then there are co-ordinated training packs for the people dealing with the results—with actual live incidents in, for example, the multi-agency safeguarding hub.

We also have a number of other campaigns because we're trying to tackle the cause of much of this as well. So, we launched our This is Me campaign back in January. I was very pleased to be able to launch it down in Gower College, with an incredibly enthusiastic set of middle-range teenagers who engaged very enthusiastically with it. That's been one of the best received campaigns we've ever run, I think, as a Government. The response to it has been amazing. Because this is a big society issue as well, and the purpose of that—. We know that gender stereotyping is a large part of what drives domestic violence, as people try to live up to stereotypes, which are not realistic or live-uppable to—if that's even a word. You see the point I'm making. It's extremely important that men don't feel that they have to be strong and whatever, and women don't feel that they have to be submissive in circumstances in which domestic violence occurs. That's just to give one example. There is a large range of others. So, that's been a very successful campaign.

I hope that Members have all had the chance to see it. It runs on lots of social media platforms. We've had more response to it than we've had, I think, to any other campaign. It's been extraordinary. Because we do see this as a need to change. Societal change is required in order to change some of the stuff, and in the meantime, of course, we continue to provide services for those incidentally affected by it.