NCJ Number
190270
Date Published
2000
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This Australian study reviewed the research pertinent to the prevalence and impact of children's and youth's experience of domestic violence.
Abstract
The introduction describes the ways in which children and youth experience domestic violence and outlines the available data on the prevalence of this issue in the lives of Australian children and youth. The second section provides an overview of research on the impact of domestic violence on children and youth and discusses frameworks within which these impacts are being understood. The third section describes efforts to improve ways of working with children and youth through counseling, support, and prevention, with an emphasis on Australian initiatives. The fourth section argues that the problems documented cannot be addressed solely through counseling and that a "multi-system response" is required. Such a system would monitor the impact of a broad range of social systems on outcomes for children and youth who had experienced domestic violence. The child-protection and family-law systems were discussed as examples of two such systems that were grappling with the issue of children and domestic violence. The final section of the paper identifies current challenges posed by the increasing knowledge about children, youth, and domestic violence. The challenge for future research is to provide better understanding of the factors that enhance the resilience and coping of youth, since such knowledge can be incorporated into both preventive and therapeutic efforts. 169 references