|PIC1|Churches donate £6.5 million pounds every year towards tackling domestic abuse, as well as counselling 71,000 victims and providing up to 370,000 nights of accommodation, a new survey has indicated in the run-up to Christmas – the most violent time of year in the home.

The Evangelical Alliance, which surveyed 230 of its member churches on domestic abuse, found that 81 per cent of churches feel they have a responsibility to address the issue in their communities.

Steve Clifford, General Director of the Evangelical Alliance, said: “Domestic abuse is a huge problem in this country, but it is an issue churches often find difficult to tackle. We are encouraged that so many churches are seeking to respond in practical ways and we hope that more will be motivated to engage further.

“Domestic abuse often increases at Christmas, so we would particularly encourage churches to be ready to respond at this time.”

The survey found 30 per cent of churches give an average of £540 a year to charities supporting victims of domestic abuse, while 43 per cent of churches also donate gifts such as food, toys and clothing to refuges. If these figures are typical of churches in the UK, including an adjustment for church size, then the UK church provides £6.5 million to domestic abuse charities and organisations a year.

More than half of churches (55 per cent) are providing counselling to victims of domestic abuse – to a projected total of around 71,000 people per year in the whole of the UK. Twenty-two percent of churches have also counselled perpetrators of domestic abuse.

Sixteen percent of churches have provided on average 290 nights accommodation each year to victims. Again, if this is typical of UK churches, we can estimate that churches provide approximately 370,000 nights’ accommodation per year to those suffering domestic abuse.

Both church goers and non-church goers recognise that the church can be a source of support, with almost a third of churches seeing people who were not members of the congregation asking for help.

The problem of domestic abuse was widely recognised, with 58 per cent of churches saying they could be doing more to respond. Only 5 per cent felt they were doing enough already. Problems hindering churches doing more included a lack of volunteers (71 per cent), lack of knowledge about how to help (58 per cent) and lack of finances (32 per cent). Forty-one percent felt the issue of domestic abuse needed to be talked about more in their church.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, churches with women in overall leadership were more likely, than male led congregations, to donate money (29 per cent v 50 per cent), send volunteers to help (12 per cent v 14 per cent), donate gifts (41 per cent v 52 per cent), provide counselling to victims (56 per cent v 73 per cent), provide mentoring to perpetrators (22 per cent v 41 per cent), provide accommodation (15 per cent v 23 per cent), refer victims to other support agencies (33 per cent v 59 per cent).

Most interesting was that female-led churches also seemed to make it easier for people to come forward asking for help, especially among members of the congregation. In almost half (47 per cent) of female led congregations someone in the church had asked for help, where the figure was 34 per cent among male-led congregations.