THE West Swindon Family Centre in Freshbrook is a worthy recipient of a £3,000 grant from the Police and Commissioner’s Fund.

Thanks to the funding boost, the development of parenting skills among mothers who have survived domestic abuse will be given some welcome help.

The sheer breadth of the effects of domestic violence is often difficult to comprehend.

Those who perpetrate domestic violence almost always affect not just the bodies of those they attack but also their minds.

In many cases the targets of that violence have their self-esteem destroyed, and that destruction becomes a distorted lens through which they look at every aspect of their lives.

This can in turn affect their relationships with others, including their children.

In an added cruel twist, those children are often traumatised as a result of the abuse they themselves have witnessed or suffered.

The West Swindon Family Centre and other places like it work to tackle these issues as early as possible, a function so vital that the financial structures under which they are often compelled to operate is bewildering.

Without these places, a great need would go unmet and the results would be felt in years and generations to come.

We therefore salute the Police and Commissioner’s Fund for a wise decision.

As ever, we also implore any of our readers currently undergoing domestic abuse to seek help without hesitation.

No matter what an abuser says, the abuse is always but always their fault.