In 2021, the amendments to the Domestic Abuse Act marked what felt like a long-overdue shift in how we support and protect child victims of domestic abuse. For the first time, children were formally recognised as victims in their own right—a move many of us in frontline services hoped would come with sustainable, long-term funding. Four years later, that promise remains unfulfilled. At EdShift, and among fellow community-based organisations, frustration and urgency are growing. We deliver life-changing, trauma-informed support to children and young people, trusted by schools, families, and professionals. Yet despite being deeply rooted in our communities, we remain shut out of the very funding streams meant to support this vital work.

This isn’t just our story. It’s the reality for countless small and mid-sized organisations across the UK, all facing the same question: if the government won’t fund local councils to commission our work, and if central pots are only accessible to national giants, how are we expected to survive? In this blog, we’re raising the alarm on a broken system, and calling for a fairer, more inclusive distribution of domestic abuse funding. One that recognises the essential role of grassroots organisations and ensures that children and young people aren’t the ones left paying the price.

The Crisis Unfolding: Community-Based Domestic Abuse Services at Risk

At EdShift, we’re seeing a troubling trend that threatens both our ability to deliver specialist support and the survival of grassroots organisations across the UK. We regularly speak with other small, community-rooted leaders facing the same crisis: we’re handling most statutory referrals and specialist support with shrinking resources and without the recognition or funding we urgently need. Despite national recognition, the lack of sustainable investment is pushing smaller services to the brink. According to Women’s Aid’s 2023 Annual Audit, over 61% of domestic abuse services operated all or part of their services without any dedicated local authority funding. Even more concerning, nearly half of services reported no funding at all for children’s support, despite the Domestic Abuse Act placing a clear duty to recognise and support children as victims. This funding gap hits small, specialist organisations hardest, particularly those serving marginalised communities. Services supporting BAMER, LGBTQ+, or disabled survivors often rely on short-term grants that hinder strategic planning and staff retention. Despite being best placed to deliver culturally competent, trauma-informed care, these organisations are left scrambling in a system that prioritises size over local impact.

Local and national commissioning frameworks often favour larger charities with national infrastructure. While these organisations have a role, this model ignores the fact that community-rooted services are often the first and most trusted point of contact for survivors. When grassroots organisations are underfunded, it’s not just services that suffer. Survivors are turned away, waitlisted, or pushed toward unfamiliar, centralised systems that lack local understanding. At EdShift, we know our community. We support traumatised children and young people daily, offering the consistency and empathy they need. Yet even with years of proven impact, we, like many others, are still fighting for survival. The result is a support system that’s both unjust and unsustainable.

A Policy Shift Without the Support: When Recognition Fails to Reach the Frontline

The 2021 amendments to the Domestic Abuse Act marked a turning point. For the first time, children were legally recognised as victims of domestic abuse in their own right, not just witnesses or secondary sufferers. It was a powerful step forward that acknowledged the trauma children experience when exposed to domestic abuse, and it carried the promise of more robust, tailored support services for young people. But four years later, that promise has yet to be fulfilled in any meaningful way. Despite the legal shift, there has been no corresponding increase in ring-fenced funding for therapeutic services aimed at children and young people. The services that do exist are patchy, inconsistent, and deeply under-resourced, a reality laid bare in the “Victims in Their Own Right?” report released in 2024. The report highlights a lack of national standards, no strategic delivery framework, and a postcode lottery that leaves countless children without access to the trauma-informed care they need to heal and thrive.

Children’s support continues to be sidelined in domestic abuse commissioning. Funding still prioritises crisis accommodation and adult survivor services. While vital, this neglect of early intervention and therapeutic recovery for children undermines the very legislation intended to protect them. Without infrastructure, staffing, and funding, legal recognition becomes an empty gesture. At EdShift, we welcomed the Act’s amendments with cautious optimism. We saw it as a call to action, reviewing our programmes, strengthening our trauma-informed approach, and committing to child victim-survivors. But like many others, we’re still waiting for the system to meet us halfway. Sustainable funding has yet to appear. In fact, the landscape has grown more restrictive. Despite our proven impact, EdShift struggles to access government funding and is repeatedly overlooked in favour of larger, often London-based organisations removed from our local reality in Calderdale.

Rebalancing the Scales: Why Community-Based Services Must Be Funded Fairly

If we’re serious about protecting children and young people affected by domestic abuse, then we must also be serious about how we fund the services that support them. Right now, the system is failing to recognise the vital role that small, local organisations play, and failing the families who rely on them. The current funding model leans heavily toward large, national providers, often centralised, London-based, and removed from the everyday realities of communities like ours in Calderdale. These organisations may have the infrastructure to handle large grants and complex reporting, but they don’t always have the local roots, trust, or responsiveness that community-embedded services like EdShift offer. Reports such as the Centre for Justice Innovation’s 2023 briefing have made this clear: sustainable change requires devolved, direct funding to local, trauma-informed organisations that can act early, flexibly, and holistically. This is echoed by the growing success of approaches like SafeLives’ Whole Lives model, which shows that outcomes improve dramatically when support is community-led and coordinated across different areas of someone’s life, long before things reach crisis point.

At EdShift, we’ve spent years designing and refining programmes based on local need and impact. Everything we offer is evaluation-led, trauma-informed, and built on lived experience. Yet demand now far outstrips what we can deliver. Our waiting lists for therapeutic support can stretch up to two years. Behind those numbers are real children, waiting for help that should already be there. The longer grassroots organisations like ours are overlooked, the wider the gap between policy and reality becomes. What we need is a funding system that values proximity, trust, and flexibility, one that sees community-based services not as a backup plan, but as a central pillar in the national response to domestic abuse.

When the Domestic Abuse Commissioner released the “Children in Their Own Right?” report, we reviewed our services and found we were already meeting many of its key recommendations, with plans to go further. We hoped it would prompt renewed government investment. While £20 million was released, it was ring-fenced for large national charities, again sidelining the small and mid-sized organisations on the frontline. More recently, we applied for £38,000 a year through the Children in Need Main Grants Programme, only to be rejected because this work is now seen as a statutory responsibility under the Domestic Abuse Act. But if local authorities lack the funding to commission our services, and national charities dominate central pots, how are organisations like ours expected to survive?

It’s Time to Act: Children Can’t Wait

The Domestic Abuse Act was a milestone in recognising children as victims in their own right, but the funding and infrastructure needed to support that recognition still hasn’t followed. Community-based organisations like EdShift, rooted in local knowledge and trusted relationships, are being left to carry the system without the resources to sustain it. Decision-makers must grasp the serious consequences of the current funding model. There is no sustainability in a system that sidelines local services delivering trauma-informed support to children and families.

Children’s voices have finally been recognised in law, now that recognition must be matched with action. We need a fairer distribution of domestic abuse funding that values grassroots organisations. The children of Halifax, and beyond, shouldn’t bear the cost of a broken system.

We urge those in positions of power to help close the gap, and build a system that truly supports every child, in every community.