Substance misuse, trauma and domestic abuse perpetration: The perspective from Family Drug and Alcohol Courts

Domestic abuse is one of the key drivers of child protection involvement in the UK. But there is a real lack of evidence around effective ways to with domestic abuse perpetrators. Recent research has highlighted the importance of substance misuse and the experience of trauma amongst perpetrators, and suggests that interventions which take these three issues together may be more effective than many of the current strategies.

This project aims to contribute to our understanding of how to effectively work with perpetrators of domestic abuse by focusing on Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs), a non-adversarial, trauma-informed alternative to standard care proceedings which works with many domestic abuse perpetrators. Parents within FDAC proceedings receive therapeutic support from a multidisciplinary team and have regular review hearings with a dedicated judge.

This report compares the lessons learned from a systematic review of the evidence around the links between abuse, trauma and perpetration of abuse with the way that these three issues are understood and responded to by FDAC teams and judges.