A CHARITY which helps transform the fortunes of victims of domestic violence has received a £400,000 funding boost.

The Children's Society Waves project won the grant from the Big Lottery Fund to continue its work.

Area manager Roy Koerner said Weymouth and Portland is 'probably in the top ten' places in the country for incidences of domestic violence.

In 2014/15 there were 1,080 reported incidents, and children were witnesses or victims in 734 of these.

But the charity, based in St Mary Street, aims to break the cycle of abuse. It's already had an 85 per cent success rate in the three years it has been running and the £406,990 grant will help to continue and develop this.

Mr Koerner said: "We have slightly changed the perspective so the focus this time is far more on children and young people. We are going to be operating three different types of groups, some held at Waves and some at local schools so they don't have to travel."

He added that while there is a lot of support in the area for adult victims of domestic violence, there is little which helps children and young people directly.

With the grant money, the charity, which is part of the national Children's Society, will run a healthy relationships programme, a group called 'you and me, mum', which is a nationally prescribed group for parents who may have been brought up with domestic violence. This programme aims to break the cycle of abuse.

The third programme works with young people who are in violent relationships to prevent ongoing abuse.

One-to-one support is also on offer, which uses a type of therapy known as human givens. This brings together counselling and psychotherapy.

Mr Koerner said: "Domestic violence can cause a lot of anger management problems with young people, as well as low self esteem. This can impact on their schoolwork.

"It's a huge problem. Everyone blames everyone else, but once you start to tackle the problem, it does get better."

Waves measures its success on improved school attendance rates and better behaviour at home and school, but also on wellbeing, happiness and conflict resolution skills.

In the first three years of the project, the charity aimed for a 75 per cent success rate across all the areas, said Mr Koerner.

"We actually managed 85 per cent. We were delighted."

Other causes in the area which have been awarded grants include Strangways Hall in Abbotsbury, which has been granted £10,000 to refurbish the cloakroom and toilets, and Blackdown Village Hall in Beaminster, which has received £10,000 for kitchen and toilet improvements.

Okeford Fitzpaine parish council has received £4,500 to install a fence and gated area at the Bowey playground.