The lack of support from the Garda, schools and the wider community for children living in situations of domestic violence was highlighted yesterday at the sixth annual conference of the Western Regional Planning Committee on Violence Against Women in Galway.
Director of the Masters in Social Work programme at Trinity College Dublin, Stephanie Holt, highlighted the importance of asking these children about their experiences and listening to what they had to say.
She told the conference: "A timely, appropriate and effective intervention can change the equation for these kids from a bleak cycle of violence to a more hopeful and productive future."
Ms Holt told of some of the emerging findings of new research, in which she and her colleagues at the Child Research Centre at Trinity are involved, on the effects on children of violence against women.
Involving 18 focus groups, including children aged between eight and 20, this research will inform the development of an integrated service for children and young people attached to a refuge in Co Mayo.
While research has been carried out with mothers and workers in the area of domestic violence, this is the first time researchers have talked to children.
Ms Holt stressed that children who lived in households where their mother was being abused were seriously affected by this experience.
At a very basic level, living with such abuse could be a form of abuse itself.
"At its most extreme, violence against women may result in the death of a child.This has happened in the UK but has not happened in Ireland that I am aware of," she said.
Ms Holt said the end of an abusive relationship did not necessarily result in an end of violence for the mother and children, as this often continued post-separation.
She outlined how children exposed to violence in the home were affected differently.
"Intervention should take the form of three strands: eliminating the abuse, reducing other adversities the family is coping with, and engaging a holistic and developmental approach to assessment with the child when needed."
Highlighting the lack of support for children from the Garda, schools and communities, Ms Holt spoke of teachers who failed to pick up on children with problems and communities that preferred to turn a blind eye to what they knew was going on.
She told of one child in the study who had run a mile and a half in his bare feet to the home of the local garda in a rural area and told him that his father was going to kill his mother.
The garda went to the house, told the father to get back to bed and the mother and children to get back into the house, and went away again.
Other children complained that gardaí had called to their home in a situation of domestic violence but never spoke to the children and never called back to check on the situation.
The other keynote speakers at the conference were independent social care consultant Tony Morrison and senior research officer at the Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit in London, Linda Robson OBE.
