The Links Group was joined by Dogs Trust/Freedom and Cats Protection/Lifeline at Stormont Estate last week for a joint meeting with Minister Long, Department of Justice, and Minister Muir, DAERA.
Together with the Ministers, departmental teams and representatives of the PSNI, we discussed ‘the link’ between domestic, child and animal abuse in general, as well as ways to plug potential gaps in knowledge, training and services to protect families and animals in Northern Ireland from abuse.
Laura Orr, Regional Public Affairs Officer for Dogs Trust (NI) was joined by Cats Protection’s Advocacy and Government Relations Manager (Devolved) Alice Palombo and Lifeline Co-ordinator Lauren Suitor (based in Belfast). The Links Group’s Dave Martin flew in, suited and booted, to provide a contrast, seated beside colleague Andrea Lynch, who drove up straight from the primary schools’ cross-country competition, still in her base layers and woolly hat!
Together, the team outlined the evidence based on the link between abuse of animals and abuse of people, highlighting the key research in this field internationally, and the researchers and advocates currently working in this area in the UK. The Links Group Accredited Specialist Domestic Abuse Animal Fostering Services have an understanding of this sector based on 75 years of combined experience and frontline support of thousands of families and animals escaping domestic abuse. They have turned this experience into hard data and ongoing research.
This joint ministerial meeting allowed us to highlight some of the UK-based data, including Northern Ireland-specific statistics, and to demonstrate the power of working in professional partnerships with charities that share vision and values. Together, we work alongside subject matter experts to create our training material and resources.
We were pleased to be able to highlight this aspect of our free online resource documents and videos, as well as our free modular training course Protecting Animals, Protecting People: in the Home – Northern Ireland. These resources and the course provide information which will help protect and support all victim-survivors of abuse in Northern Ireland, whether they have fur, feathers, scales or skin.
Thank you to the Ministers and their teams for hosting us and listening to this important message.
