Operation Encompass

Women’s Aid is working in partnership with Operation Encompass to improve local responses to domestic abuse, and to ensure that schools are supporting children and parents experiencing domestic abuse at the earliest possible point.

In local areas signed up to Operation Encompass, the police must inform a ‘key adult’ at the relevant local school if they have been called to an incident of domestic abuse at a child’s home before 9am the next morning, or before 9am on the Monday morning if an incident occurs over a weekend.

This enables schools to provide support to the child(ren) involved and offer practical help and information to the child’s mother in a safe space.

We are encouraging all police forces in England to take up Operation Encompass and work with us to make women and children safer by engaging with schools at the earliest possible point.

Women’s Aid’s new model of responding to domestic abuse Change that Lasts, provides routes to earlier intervention and support for women and children affected by domestic abuse. Our work on Operation Encompass provides an innovative intervention for school aged children within the Change that Lasts framework, and will also help provide valuable support to mother’s and a route for referral to specialist services.