ABSTRACT

Children and Adolescent’s Experiences of Violence and Abuse at Home is a unique book that explores some of the main controversies and challenges within the field. The book is organised into three sections, the first covering work that has focused on the experiences of living in DV settings as a child or young person, the second offers overviews of the impact of child victimisation and the final section is about working with children in practice and service-based settings.

It includes extensive reviews of the literature, empirical research and practice observations, all of which provide compelling evidence of a need to change how we construct victims and design services. It provides evidence for the need to work sensitively, inclusively, and responsively around issues of victim identification, support, and prevention. Moreover, the evidence urges us to include children’s and adult victim/survivor’s experiences and contributions in the creation of services.

Concluding with a series of recommendations for both future research, and ways in which we can help use the research findings to inform practice, it is a must-read for researchers, practitioners and educators working with children and young people within the field of domestic violence and abuse. It will also be of interest and value to policy makers who are reviewing legislation and those involved in commissioning psychological services, and victim services that work with child and adolescent victims.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

The importance of this volume

part I|67 pages

Children and young people's experiences of DVA

chapter 1|13 pages

Children's experiences of domestic violence and abuse

Resistances and paradoxical resiliencies

chapter 2|18 pages

The impact of exposure to domestic violence in childhood

What can reviews of the literature tell us about sex-differences?

chapter 3|15 pages

Growing up with domestic abuse

Retrospective accounts

part II|56 pages

The impact of DVA on children

chapter 6|7 pages

The impact of domestic violence and abuse on children and young people

Internalising symptoms and mental health

chapter 10|12 pages

The journey towards recovery

Adults reflections on their learning and recovery from experiencing childhood domestic abuse

part III|95 pages

Insights from practice

chapter 11|13 pages

Negotiating power, ethics and agency

Working towards centralising children's voices in the DVA intervention evidence base

chapter 12|19 pages

How children talk about domestic abuse in the home

Insights for practitioners

chapter 15|15 pages

Mind the blind spot

Accounts of fathering by domestically violent men

chapter |7 pages

Concluding thoughts

Future research directions and recommendations for practice