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The paper highlights tensions within the health visitor's role between welfare and surveillance, as well as differences between lay and professional perspectives.

Domestic violence is a serious issue that adversely affects large numbers of women and children. Despite having an adverse impact upon health and welfare, women experiencing domestic violence face a number of difficulties seeking help about their situation from statutory health and welfare agencies. The present paper is based upon a study of British health visiting in relation to women experiencing domestic violence. Drawing upon interview data from 16 women who experienced domestic violence and were the mothers of small children, this paper explores their accounts of contact with the health visiting service. All of the 16 women who participated in this research described difficulties in seeking help about domestic violence. These included practical concerns such as fears for their own safety, lack of knowledge regarding appropriate sources of support and protection, and concerns about losing custody of their children. Given these concerns, some women concealed their experiences of domestic violence from their health visitors. For those who disclosed the domestic violence to their health visitors, they did not always receive appropriate support or protection. Of particular concern was the absence of information about accessing more specialist services. The research findings suggest that there is considerable scope for practice development in order to ensure that women experiencing domestic violence are able to receive safe and appropriate responses from health visitors.

Recent developments at policy, legislative and practice levels have led to the mainstreaming of domestic violence as a child welfare issue. However, research evidence would suggest that familiar and well established tensions in service provision to women and children continue to be recycled. Moreover, there remains a central dichotomy in relation to men. Constructed as perpetrators or offenders, their identities as fathers remain invisible with serious consequences for the development of policies and practices which engage with them as `domestically violent fathers'. The discursive removal of violent men from the category of father or indeed parent needs addressing in order to support women and children, but also to offer possibilities for men to develop non-violent parenting and partnering relationship patterns.