Forms of abuse
The following are forms of abuse with definitions and examples. This is a non-exhaustive list, and some behaviours fall under multiple forms of abuse.
All forms of abuse carry risk.
Physical abuse
Physical abuse is deliberately hurting or injuring someone.
Examples include:
- hitting or smacking
- punching
- kicking
- biting
- scratching
- strangulation
- forcible restraint or isolation
- stopping someone from using the bathroom, eating or sleeping
- removing mobility aids
- restricting access to medication
- using objects or weapons to hurt someone.
Psychological abuse
Psychological abuse is used by perpetrators to harm someone, manipulate them with the intent of wearing them down, distorting their sense of reality or sense of self to benefit the perpetrator.
Examples include:
- gaslighting
- using threats
- grooming
- intimidation
- confusing or disorienting someone.
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse includes all behaviours from sexual harassment ( such as unsolicited sexual remarks or jokes and unsolicited pornography) to rape and sexual assault (such as kissing without consent or touching breasts or genitals without consent).
Economic abuse
This is controlling a person's money, finances or economic independence.
This can include controlling what someone spends or buys, restricting access to daily essentials like food or clothing, destroying property, restricting someone's access to work or education.
Emotional abuse
Emotional abuse is about damaging someone's confidence and self-worth. It can include name-calling and derogatory language, humiliation, shaming, blaming or being overly critical.
Controlling and coercive behaviour
Controlling and coercive behaviour are often used interchangeably and often feed into each other.
Control is about isolating someone, regulating their behaviour, making them dependent on the perpetrator or depriving them of the means for resistance or escape.
Controlling behaviour can look like:
- restricting someone's social life and who they see
- making it hard to maintain social relationships
- controlling access to food, shelter, clothing and regulating day-to-day activities.
Controlling behaviour is achieved through coercive behaviour, which is a pattern of behaviour of assault, threats, humiliation or intimidation to harm, punish or frighten the victim.
Controlling and coercive behaviours are wide-ranging, but an example might be that a perpetrator tells their victim that they cannot see their friends and family, and if the victim does this results in physical abuse.
Honour-based abuse, sometimes referred to as honour-based violence
Honour-based abuse and violence is abuse of any form (such as emotional, psychological or physical) perpetrated by a wider familial or cultural group to protect the perceived 'honour' of the victim in general, or where the victim is thought to have brought 'shame' to their family or culture by 'not adhering' to imposed beliefs or practices.
Honour-based abuse happens in a wide range of communities and is not specific to one community.
Someone may experience honour-based abuse if they:
- enter into a 'disallowed' relationship (for example with someone of a different race, religion or class)
- are LGB or T
- get divorced
- become pregnant or have a termination of pregnancy.
Faith-based abuse
Abuse linked to faith or belief is where concerns for a person's welfare have been identified which could be caused by a belief in witchcraft, spirit or demonic possession, ritual or satanic abuse features. Or when practices linked to faith or belief are harmful to a person.
Forced marriage
Forced marriage is where one or both parties are forced into a marriage that they cannot consent to due to:
- emotional or psychological abuse
- threat of violence
- their age
- their mental status.
Female genital mutilation (FGM)
Female genital mutilation is a procedure where the female genitals are deliberately cut, injured, or changed as a cultural or religious practice and with no medical reasoning.
Other terms
By-and-for organisation or service
By-and-for services are services that are led by people who are from the communities they service. For example, a service that supports Disabled victims and survivors that is staffed by Disabled people.
These might also be called 'community-led services' or 'specialist services'.
DASH (Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Honour-Based Violence Risk Identification Checklist)
Also called a DASH RIC or CAADA, DASH is a series of 24 questions based on factors present in high-risk and fatal domestic abuse.
It is a universal tool that can be used by any professional with training to understand more context about the abuse and relationship. It should be used in conjunction with professional judgement, and a holistic assessment of risk.
Domestic Abuse Champions Network
The Domestic Abuse Champions Network is a network of council staff with enhanced training in how to deal with domestic abuse. They lead on implementing and maintaining good practice within their teams and act as a point of contact for DA services and for staff who may be concerned about their own safety or the behaviour of a colleague.
Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) Accreditation
This is an accreditation programme run by Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse that aims to:
- improve the housing sector's response to domestic abuse
- better support victims and survivors
- hold perpetrators of abuse to account.
Gaslighting
This is destabilising a victim's sense of reality or sense of self by distorting their memory, perceptions or judgements.
Harmful practices
Practices and behaviours that are based on discrimination due to sex, gender identity, age, sexuality, disability and other grounds that involve physical and psychological harm or violence and suffering.
This include:
- honour-based abuse
- forced marriage
- FGM
- acid attacks
- faith-based abuse
- corrective rape.
Independent Domestic Violence Advocate (IDVA)
A person who works directly with victims and survivors at risk of harm from intimate partners, ex-partners, or family members to increase feelings of safety for both the victim or survivor and their children.
IDVAs often provide crisis intervention support and can help victims and survivors develop personal safety plans, access protective orders, or support them to access safe accommodation.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality refers to how social categories such as race, class, gender, sexuality overlap and compound disadvantage felt by each identity.
Intersectionality encourages us to consider identity as a whole when looking at disadvantage or oppression. For example, the identity markers of being a woman and being black don't exist independently of each other, and instead combine to create a specific form of oppression that isn't faced by all women or all black people in general.
MAPPA (Multi-agency public protection arrangements)
MAPPA is a multi-agency meeting, similar in function to MARAC, which focuses on assessing and managing the risk posed by violent or sexual offenders.
MARAC (Multi-agency risk assessment conference)
MARAC is a high-risk case conference that takes place monthly in Hammersmith & Fulham. It is a professionals meeting focused on intervention and safety planning around the most high-risk cases of domestic abuse in the borough where people are believed to be at risk of serious harm or homicide.
Victims and survivors of abuse do not attend and instead are represented by an IDVA.
Perpetrator accountability
Perpetrator accountability refers to how we will approach people using harmful behaviour by challenging them to take responsibility for their behaviours, and, if possible, supporting them to choose to end these behaviours.
Safeguarding
Safeguarding refers to the response that professionals take to protect children and adults with care and support needs from harm, abuse and neglect.
Statutory
Something the council is required to do by law.
Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)
Any act of gender-based violence that results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women or girls, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty.
Domestic abuse is considered a form of violence against women and girls, though it can affect anyone.