“When I needed you to protect me, you gave him more power instead.” Covid-19 lockdown and domestic abuse

Domestic abuse is a deep-rooted problem that attracted greater recognition during the first national lockdown than perhaps ever before. Globally, one in three women have experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime, and more than a third of femicides are committed by an intimate partner. In the UK, over the last decade, a woman has been killed by a man approximately every three days. The global coronavirus pandemic, sweeping across the UK in March 2020, led the Government to issue orders for people to stay safe by staying at home. Sadly, for many women, those subjected to domestic abuse, home had never been safe. In response, Solace Women’s Aid (Solace), in partnership with Southall Black Sisters and other specialist services that support survivors of violence against women and girls (VAWG), set up emergency crisis refuge provision with funding provided by London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and the Julia and Hans Rausing Trust. To further understand the impact of the pandemic on those escaping domestic abuse, Justice Studio, and Solace decided to partner on a piece of pioneering research. The University of Greenwich provided additional support to the research. The research took place from April to November 2020 in London. In total, 23 in-depth qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted; 13 with female survivors in emergency refuge accommodation and 10 with Solace staff and management. An extensive literature review supplemented the primary data collection

How did the COVID-19 lockdown impact domestic abuse in London, UK?

This video summarises a small research study conducted in London, UK during the first COVID lockdown of 2020. Researchers at Justice Studio collaborated with Solace Women’s Aid and Dr Camille Stengel (University of Greenwich). The research aimed to understand how the lockdown impacted both victims of domestic abuse and the charity workers responding to victims’ needs

Violence against women and girls at home: domestic abuse and the pandemic

Dr Camille Stengel was joined by Justice Studio’s Director Marianne Moore, Southall Black Sisters’ Director Pragna Patel, and a Rebecca Goshawk from Solace Women’s Aid to discuss domestic abuse and the impact the pandemic has had on Gender Based Violence. The speakers will share some research findings from their London-based study conducted over the first 2020 lockdown, and reflect on the larger implications of these findings for their own work

Families in Tower Hamlets, 2020

The Families in Tower Hamlets project included a repeat online survey of households with children under five. The first wave of the repeat online survey ran from mid-July to end November 2020. The 126 item survey was drawn from previous sources: i) a parallel ‘Born in Bradford’ survey of job, housing and food insecurity, children’s home learning, health and care service access, and mental health, and ii) the 'Gender (In)equality in Times of COVID-19' survey run by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research (INLPR) using validated instruments to examine work-family conflict and parental coping strategies, and iii) items from a national longitudinal household panel study called Understanding Society. The second wave of the repeat online survey ran from February-to May 2021. As with wave 1, the 126 items in the wave 2 survey were drawn from previous sources: i) a parallel ‘Born in Bradford’ survey of job, housing and food insecurity, children’s home learning, health and care service access, and mental health, and ii) the 'Gender (In)equality in Times of COVID-19' survey run by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research (INLPR) using validated instruments to examine work-family conflict and parental coping strategies, and iii) items from a national longitudinal household panel study called Understanding Society.Adverse direct and indirect impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic will disproportionately fall on individuals and families from poorer backgrounds, those in public facing jobs and living in higher density housing. Tower Hamlets, the site of this study, with its pre-existing stark income and health inequalities is already a high-risk inner city area, placed in one of the richest global cities. This project will focus on the impacts of the lockdown, and its aftermath for the borough's young children, who are likely to experience new health and educational inequalities as a result of the unprecedented restrictions on mobility associated with slowing the spread of COVID-19 introduced on 23 March 2020. Tower Hamlets has a highly diverse population profile, with residents from a wide range of ethnicities and social and economic backgrounds, which offers an opportunity to identify how families deploy their interpersonal, economic and social resources to manage risks associated with living in lockdown and in recovery from lockdown. In close partnership with the borough Public Health and children's services team, we will run a repeat survey of 2000 couple and single parent families with children aged 0-4, and pregnant women; a longitudinal qualitative panel with approximately 60 household members including fathers and wider kin; and examine changing family support services, and emergent community resources such as mutual aid and peer networks. We are interested in families' cultural and inter-personal assets as well as their vulnerabilities: what new forms of managing family and community life have emerged and how are these novel methods helping young children? We will include two groups defined as vulnerable; pregnant women and shielded children. The survey tools chosen are those being run by the concurrent Born in Bradford (BiB) cohort study and by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research offering robust comparisons. Findings will help guide the borough's deployment of scarce resources in the recovery phase of the pandemic and will have relevance to all inner-city areas.</p

Families in Tower Hamlets, 2020

The Families in Tower Hamlets project included a repeat online survey of households with children under five. The first wave of the repeat online survey ran from mid-July to end November 2020. The 126 item survey was drawn from previous sources: i) a parallel ‘Born in Bradford’ survey of job, housing and food insecurity, children’s home learning, health and care service access, and mental health, and ii) the 'Gender (In)equality in Times of COVID-19' survey run by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research (INLPR) using validated instruments to examine work-family conflict and parental coping strategies, and iii) items from a national longitudinal household panel study called Understanding Society. The second wave of the repeat online survey ran from February-to May 2021. As with wave 1, the 126 items in the wave 2 survey were drawn from previous sources: i) a parallel ‘Born in Bradford’ survey of job, housing and food insecurity, children’s home learning, health and care service access, and mental health, and ii) the 'Gender (In)equality in Times of COVID-19' survey run by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research (INLPR) using validated instruments to examine work-family conflict and parental coping strategies, and iii) items from a national longitudinal household panel study called Understanding Society.Adverse direct and indirect impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic will disproportionately fall on individuals and families from poorer backgrounds, those in public facing jobs and living in higher density housing. Tower Hamlets, the site of this study, with its pre-existing stark income and health inequalities is already a high-risk inner city area, placed in one of the richest global cities. This project will focus on the impacts of the lockdown, and its aftermath for the borough's young children, who are likely to experience new health and educational inequalities as a result of the unprecedented restrictions on mobility associated with slowing the spread of COVID-19 introduced on 23 March 2020. Tower Hamlets has a highly diverse population profile, with residents from a wide range of ethnicities and social and economic backgrounds, which offers an opportunity to identify how families deploy their interpersonal, economic and social resources to manage risks associated with living in lockdown and in recovery from lockdown. In close partnership with the borough Public Health and children's services team, we will run a repeat survey of 2000 couple and single parent families with children aged 0-4, and pregnant women; a longitudinal qualitative panel with approximately 60 household members including fathers and wider kin; and examine changing family support services, and emergent community resources such as mutual aid and peer networks. We are interested in families' cultural and inter-personal assets as well as their vulnerabilities: what new forms of managing family and community life have emerged and how are these novel methods helping young children? We will include two groups defined as vulnerable; pregnant women and shielded children. The survey tools chosen are those being run by the concurrent Born in Bradford (BiB) cohort study and by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research offering robust comparisons. Findings will help guide the borough's deployment of scarce resources in the recovery phase of the pandemic and will have relevance to all inner-city areas.</p