Children’s experiences of domestic violence: a teaching and training challenge

In this chapter we explore the complexities of training and teaching students and practitioners about children’s experiences of domestic violence. The research conducted on children’s experiences has tended to focus on negative outcomes, representing these children as damaged and vulnerable (Callaghan and Alexander, 2015; Øverlien, 2013). Such research outlines that children have elevated lifelong risk of mental health difficulties (Bogat et al., 2006; Lamers-Winkelman et al., 2012; Stover, 2005); interpersonal difficulties (Baldry, 2003; Holmes, 2013; Renner and Slack, 2006); educational difficulties and educational drop out (Byrne and Taylor, 2007), and physical health problems (Bair-Merritt et al., 2006). Despite this research representation of children as vulnerable and damaged, services for children who experience domestic violence are often underdeveloped and underfunded (Statham, 2004; Willis et al., 2010), typically additional to adult domestic abuse services, for instance as part of the services offered in family shelters. In contrast to the established narrative, which positions children as passive witnesses to domestic violence, and as inevitably pathologised, our research on domestic violence (in common with the work of Katz, 2015; Øverlien, 2014; Øverlien and Hydén, 2009) has focused on children as agents who experience domestic violence (Callaghan and Alexander, 2015). The “Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies” project (UNARS) was a two phase research project, funded by the European Commission and developed in four European countries (Italy, Greece, the UK and Spain). The first phase of the project had two aims: to build an understanding of children’s experiences of domestic violence, with a particular focus on exploring their capacity for agency and resistance; and to develop an understanding of the service and policy landscape that provided a social context for young people’s experiences. In this phase, researchers spent time embedded in domestic violence services and related contexts, and conducted interviews with 107 children and young people, focus groups with adult carers and with professionals who worked with children and young people, and a policy analysis, focused at the regional, national, and European level. Based on the material generated in this phase, in the second phase we developed and evaluated two interventions: one to provide a therapeutic programme, rooted in young people’s experiences, focused on building their existing strengths and supporting their understanding of themselves as agentic, meaning making and creative; the second to provide a training intervention for practitioners who worked with families who had experienced domestic violence and abuse. This research explored children’s capacity for agency and their ability to resist the controlling and coercive practices inherent in family life when domestic abuse occurs (Callaghan et al., 2016e). In addition we explored how children who experience domestic violence challenge the normative presumptions of developmental psychology and its applications to practice (Callaghan et al., 2016g). Their capacity to care-take for others (Callaghan et al., 2016f), their ability to manage physical and emotional pain (Callaghan et al., 2016b), their monitoring and management of abusive familial dynamics (Callaghan et al., 2016e), and their complex emotional responses (Callaghan et al., 2016a) exceed our assumptions about ‘normal’ childhood (Burman, 2016) In a two year project, we interviewed 107 children and young people who had experienced domestic abuse, conducted focus group interviews with professionals and carers, and this material formed the basis for the therapeutic and training interventions