§ Sandra GidleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what research her Department has carried out regarding the link between child physical abuse and domestic violence. [99036]
§ Jacqui SmithThe Department of Health's policy research programme is currently funding a research project which focuses on existing child protection practices and procedures and explores their ability to respond to children who have experienced domestic violence, or drug or alcohol misuse within their families.
In addition, Government funding has, over the last few years, been used to support the following two studies, which are now complete: A health needs and health-care assessment of a population of children resident in refuges for women victims of domestic violence (Dr Elspeth Webb, 2000), a project which focussed on the children of women who were victims of domestic violence, within the refuge setting; and Children's Needs—Parenting Capacity, the impact of parental mental illness, problem alcohol and drug use, and domestic violence on children's development (H Cleaver, I Unell and J Aldgate, 1999), a study which examined how factors such as domestic violence, alcohol and drug misuse and mental illness, may impact on children and may affect a parent's capacity to respond to their child's needs.