A ‘victim-focused’ plan to support domestic abuse and violence survivors has been ratified by Buckinghamshire Council.

It aims to help ‘victims feel comfortable to come forward’, receive support and ‘break free’ of abuse to ‘lead healthier and happier lives’.

The Buckinghamshire Domestic Abuse Partnership Board’s three-year strategy for ‘domestic abuse and violence against women and girls’ – which also includes men and children – was approved during a cabinet meeting this week.

One of its main three priorities focuses on ‘improving systems and processes to ensure they are easier for victims, survivors and their families to navigate’.

The other priorities focus on holding perpetrators to account and supporting them to change their behaviour, as well as tackling abuse before it starts by changing harmful attitudes and behaviours and ensuring that abuse can be disclosed at the earliest opportunity.

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The strategy includes the voices of abuse survivors who were consulted on the development of the plan, along with key groups such as Women’s Aid, Thames Valley Police, health bodies and charities like Wycombe Homeless Connection.

One survivor said: “After the ordeal and subsequent aftermath, the lack of support afforded to me at that time in forms of education, justice, survivors’ network and wider understanding from people around me, I quickly fell into my next encounter with a perpetrator of abuse.”

The strategy says that in the UK a woman is killed by a man every three days and that less than 24 per cent of domestic abuse crimes are reported to the police.