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Almost a third of children exposed to domestic violence live with a disability, research shows

About 30% of children exposed to domestic violence live with a disability, new research has estimated.

A report by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (Anrows), to be released today, analysed administrative data covering a period of about two decades to make the finding.

Hospital records showed that of the children whose mothers were hospitalised for assault, 29% had a disability.

The report said children with disability were also far more likely than children without disability to have contact with the child protection system and to enter out-of-home care.

And they were twice as likely to have a mother hospitalised due to a domestic/family violence assault (8% compared to 4%), according to the data from Western Australia.

Researchers also interviewed dozens of children and young people, parents and service providers, with participants telling of being on support service waitlists for up to a year, having trouble getting support from government agencies, and fearing they would be harmed during a violent parent’s access visits.

Lead researcher Sally Robinson, of Flinders University, said:

In our study, children and their families had unmet needs for support [and] experienced unresponsive service systems and intersecting disadvantage relating to violence, poverty, housing crisis and discrimination. Their complex, compounding circumstances often included disability, but disability did not drive domestic and family violence.

The Anrows chief executive, Padma Raman, said:

Children’s access to disability and domestic and family violence support must not rely on their family and practitioners’ ability to continually negotiate barriers on their behalf.

A study from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research last week found people living with disability were more than twice as likely to be the victims of violent crimes compared to the total population.

The Albanese government is expected to release the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children next month.