On average a woman will be assaulted by her partner or ex partner 35 times before reporting it to the police.

Yearnshire, S. 'Analysis of cohort', IN Bewley S, Friend J and Mezey G (Eds). Violence Against Women. London: RCOG, 1997.

Many of these women will be mothers, it is inevitable that the abuse will impact on their children, either directly or indirectly they will be affected.

In 90% of incidents involving violence, the children are in the same or the next room.   (Hughes, 1992)

Children of all ages often take some form of passive or active support to protect their mothers. (Hester and Radford, 1996)

Children from a very young age are usually aware of what is happening even if they don't understand it.  They become very sensitive to changes in atmosphere and  are far more involved than just witnessing the abuse.

If a child has been living in violent or abusive circumstances for some time it is likely that she/he will have learnt about the ‘trigger points’ in their parent’s relationship and the tension and the violence that can happen.

•Children living with violence will actively interpret, predict, assess their roles in causing violence

•Worry about consequences

•Engage in problem solving

•Take measures to protect themselves, siblings and mother, both physically and emotionally

Adoption and Children Act 2002

Section 120 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 extended the definition of what constitutes 'significant harm' to children to include ‘any impairment of the child’s health or development as a result of 'witnessing the ill treatment of another person such as ‘domestic violence’.  The act makes clear that ill treatment is broader than physical violence and includes forms of ill treatment that are not physical, such as seeing a person being harassed or intimidated by another person.

•The majority of domestic violence crimes occur within an ongoing pattern of psychological and physical abuse.

•The abuse often involves using children to control the adult victim.

•By the time police arrive, children have often been exposed to violence for a substantial length of time and may be experiencing the accumulated impacts of ongoing violence

•In 1998 a study of child protection cases 1 in 3 cases had a history of domestic violence

•38% of children who rang Childline to talk about domestic violence, talked of being physically abused themselves. (Epstein and Keep 1995)

Children are affected in different ways according to what age and stage of development they are at and what level of support they have outside the home.