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TECHNICAL REPORT
INTERVENTION MODELS FOR CHILDREN WHO WITNESS VIOLENCE: A NEEDS ASSESSMENT
EDUCON Marketing and Research SystemsToronto, Ontario
July 1998
tr1998-6e
UNEDITED
The present study was funded by the Research and Statistics Division, Department of Justice Canada. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Justice Canada.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
BACKGROUND
Historically, family violence has been ignored and minimized despite its seriousness and widespread prevalence in our culture. Children who witness violence, though sometimes not targets, are no less victims. Although many parents
within violent families believe that they have protected their children from the violence, between 80 percent and 90 percent of children indicate the opposite. Most children are not only aware of what has happened but they can also give
detailed accounts about the escalation of the violence. Children engaging in play therapy as early as two years old have been observed acting the violence they witnessed.
Although there has been a dramatic increase of empirical output in the past fifteen years, the area of family violence continues to suffer from a lack of research. We still know very little about the direct causes of battering and even less
about intervention, treatment, and prevention. Subsequently, we know even less about the effects on, and the intervention models for treating the children that witness this violence.
THE STUDY
Funded by the Federal Department of Justice, under the government's renewed Family Violence Initiative, this study was designed to:
Identify and scrutinize various intervention models for children who witness violence in the home.
This overall purpose was subsequently broken down into four distinct objectives, which guided the various activities of the study. Those objectives were:
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Obtain copies of various intervention models/program descriptions aimed at children who witness violence, along with any evaluation reports available;
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Develop criteria and subsequently undertake a meta-analysis of the viability and effectiveness of those evaluation reports received;
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Identify key factors about children who witness violence and the programs set up to serve them; and
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Propose possible future research and evaluation activities arising from the findings.
The data used in the study came from two sources:
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A comprehensive review of empirical literature on children who witness violence; and
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A bilingual National survey distributed to 200 urban and rural agencies, organizations, and groups providing services to children.
For the purposes of the study, the key concepts of child, witness, and violence were defined as follows:
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Child - Any individual under the age of 18 years, as per the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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Witness - An individual who observes an act of violence.
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Violence - Violence occurs when persons willfully and knowingly engage in practices that pose an unreasonable risk of physical or emotional harm, or death to others.
The researchers utilized six Internet search engines and eleven library data bases, focusing on the key identifiers, children and family violence. This resulted in several hundred written accounts of studies since 1980. Eighty-five articles
and books dealing specifically with children who witness violence were subsequently identified. From that number, twenty-five articles and books were selected for a detailed review since they dealt with the research topic in some detail.
A response rate of 60 percent (N= 120) representing all regions of the country was obtained from the surveying, which is very high for a mail-out/faxed survey method. Generally, any responses over 28 percent is considered
quite acceptable from a research design and methodological stand-point. Surveys were returned within four weeks from the initial fax-out date. The respondents were representative of a selection of urban and rural communities in all provinces
and territories, and included agencies, organizations, and groups offering services to children such as: (a) youth, child protection/welfare (n=50), (b) women (n=12), (c) church (n=6), (d) Aboriginal (n=14), (e) police (n=16), (f) education
(n=6), (g) hospitals (n=4), (h) medical professionals/clinics (n=4), and (i ) other professionals (n=8).
CONSIDERATIONS FOR ACTION
Some of the key Justice-related considerations for action emerging from the analysis of both the literature review and the survey are as follows:
Research Considerations
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The results of the literature review must be viewed cautiously due to possible methodological limitations, including: sample selection biases, retrospective biases, inadequate control groups, the lack of standardized measures of family
violence, and often the lack of verification extant among some of the populations under study. Much of the research is of a cross-sectional or retrospective nature. Although these designs can inform us about associations with battering,
they tell us very little about processes, sequences, or causality. Future research within this domain must be designed to overcome these limitations.
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It is rare to find a published evaluation, or even an unpublished systematic evaluation, of treatment strategies or intervention models that have been tried with child witnesses. Since many shelters have children's programs and other
mental health facilities treat this group, it will be critical that funding of comprehensive evaluations of these programs be considered.
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Women's shelters are well placed to comment on the issues of children who witness violence and about the implications of legislative changes if they were to include child witnesses as "at risk" and "in need of
protection". Future Justice research in this realm is warranted.
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The collection of follow-up data from abused women and their children about the impact of family violence on the child's cognition and behaviours will provide direction for developing policies and interventions for those children who
witness violence. In addition, treatment models can be proposed to meet their immediate needs and serve to reduce the long-term incidence of assaults against women.
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Abused women and child survivors ought to be given the opportunity to provide input into future research projects on the effects of children witnessing violence.
Policy Considerations
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The community and court system need to increase recognition of the plight of children who witness violence in the home; and, subsequently, propose a co-ordinated approach involving legal, mental health, medical, and social service
resources.
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Protective custody provisions were viewed by survey respondents as a serious threat to parents who wish to maintain custody of their children. The inclusion of mandatory reporting to child protection agencies in cases of women battering
where children are present might deter battered women from seeking the help they need. Given the limitations of the public child welfare system, social intervention with child witnesses of violence may best be carried out by private,
non-profit services, with support from both private and public funding sources.
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The field lacks basic incidence and prevalence information about child witnesses as well as information about the interrelationship between witnessing violence and experiencing other forms of child abuse and neglect. There is only a rough
estimate about the numbers of child witnesses based on extrapolation from national survey data on violence against women, and no data is available about children witnessing violence in extended families. It is essential that detailed
information on trends and patterns of incidents of child witnessing be gathered to assist policy makers in developing effective legislative and program responses to this problem
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