NCJ Number
202200
Date Published
2001
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This handbook for early childhood educators in Ontario, Canada, focuses on the dynamics of domestic violence and its effects on children, interventions, implications for the child-care setting, community support, and helping organizations.
Abstract
In portraying the dynamics of domestic violence (physical and sexual), a "power and control" wheel is depicted. The hub of the wheel is the perpetrator's drive for power and control. The spokes of the wheel are described as using coercion and threats; intimidation; emotional abuse; isolation; minimizing, denying, and blaming; using children; using male privilege; and using economic abuse. The paper advises that children are victimized when the perpetrator of domestic violence uses them as part of the control tactics against the nonoffending parent. Factors that influence children's adjustment following exposure to domestic violence are listed, as are factors that help children cope when they witness domestic violence. Also listed are factors that pose increased risk for problems in children who witness domestic violence; and signs of traumatic stress reactions in children are listed as well. Potential impacts of domestic violence on children at different ages are outlined. Interventions for child witnesses of domestic violence encompass community responses and parent responses. Implications for the child-care setting focus on responding to disclosures of domestic violence, safety planning, strategies for handling behaviors that may be associated with exposure to domestic violence, and when staff should report suspected domestic violence. The presentation of the findings of the 1999 General Social Survey in Canada focuses on the prevalence and nature of domestic violence as well as the prevalence of child exposure to domestic violence. Agencies that can assist in the provision of services for children and families exposed to domestic violence in Ontario are listed.