In being asked to write this article on children exposed to woman abuse from the perspective of the violence against women (VAW) community, we found ourselves in the midst of many controversies. Keeping the best interests of children in mind while also maintaining a VAW perspective is a minefield of competing tensions. One of the reasons we could even enter into the conversation is because we completely trust each other's point of view. This trust allowed us to take risks in articulating and exploring many points of view that when held together create the “Big Picture”, an essential starting off point for such a complex dialogue. We in the VAW community need to attend to the history of legal and social changes in response to the issue of woman abuse when we begin to look at the ramifications of child welfare reforms that bring the issue of children exposed to woman abuse into legal intervention territory.
Those of us who have worked with these issues for decades know that the work of ending violence against women is really in its infancy. A colleague and ally in the work, Ellen Pence, suggests that we are in the first quarter of a hundred year cycle of changing the social construction of relationships between men and women. We have a vision of how things could be in the post-patriarchal world, but in our day-to-day work with people we painfully face the reality that we all live in a patriarchal system where violence and power are glorified.
Most of us recognize that in order to really change things we need a BIG change. Riane Eisler describes the need for a dramatic shift in consciousness from the values of a dominator model to the values of a partnership model, where equity, cooperation and mutual respect are the cornerstone of all relationships. How can we apply these ideas to working in the best interest of children exposed to male violence in their families?
Since we both live and mainly work in Ontario , we began by exploring some of the history of the development of legal and social changes in this province. In 1982, following much VAW sector lobbying, the government of Ontario responded with a report adopted by all three political parties that endorsed three key concepts: wife assault is a crime, abusers are 100 per cent accountable for their behaviour, and the safety of women and children is a priority. These beliefs informed all government-funded programs across the province; we in the VAW movement orchestrated that development.
Twenty years later, we can now see the ramifications of those early choices. The focus on the criminal aspects of woman abuse has led the government to over-emphasize criminal justice system responses and ignore the reality that woman abuse is much more than a crime. This realization was most striking throughout the four-month inquest into the tragic murder/suicide of Gillian Hadley by her estranged husband, which culminated with 58 recommendations in February of 2002. Unlike the earlier May-Isles inquest (a previous coroner's inquest into another murder/suicide committed by an abusive male partner against his former spouse) recommendations, the Hadley jury recognized the importance of locating the woman abuse issue in an equality rights framework. It became clear that until all women in all their diversity have true access to affordable housing, adequate income support, accessible daycare and equal pay for work of equal value, all women will be vulnerable to male violence.
While we support the efforts of the criminal justice system to hold men accountable for their abusive behaviour, in the words of a colleague, Staff Inspector Brian Fazackerley, “the law is a blunt instrument”. When the law is applied individuals get hurt because their particular needs are not addressed adequately. How many of us have witnessed a woman's distress over a no-contact order when her real desire was to have the violence stop but maintain her family? How many of us have seen the anguish of a woman of colour who is terrified of the racist treatment her partner may face in the justice system? We need to hold the tension between the needs of individual families and the need for community accountability.
A striking parallel is now occurring with the child welfare system. In March 2000, reforms to the Child and Family Services Act have made exposure to woman abuse a reportable offence. These changes resulted from the findings of the Ontario Child Mortality Task Force and simultaneous urgings from child advocates within the VAW sector. For years VAW activists have noted the serious effects of exposure to violence on children. The early research by Dr. Peter Jaffe was done in collaboration with shelter workers and validated their concerns that the children they were seeing in shelters were exhibiting signs of distress as a direct result of their exposure to violence. Some of these children are at greater risk for harm and could benefit from child welfare assessment and intervention. This is not the case in all circumstances, but it seems once again the law is a blunt instrument. In his recent research on child welfare initiatives, Nico Trocme from the University of Toronto found that between 1993 and 1998 there was an 870% increase in emotional maltreatment investigations largely involving exposure to woman abuse. In Ontario , child welfare agencies are overwhelmed with this deluge of referrals and VAW workers are often not satisfied with their response.
Historically, the response of the child welfare system to woman abuse cases has been highly criticized by the VAW community. Criticisms have ranged from ignoring the problem all together to colluding with the abuser, blaming the mother by pathologizing her trauma and/or charging the mother with failure to protect the child. Recently there have been attempts through the Ministry of Community Family and Children`s Services and the Ontario Association of Children Aid Societies to bridge the gap between the two sectors through joint training. An excellent curriculum was developed incorporating input from CAS and VAW workers during a province wide needs assessment. This curriculum identified values guiding VAW and CAS collaborative work. These seven key values are:
•  Working together increases safety for women and children and decreases chances for re-victimization.
•  Child abuse and woman abuse are the result of abuses of power in family relationships. Neither women nor children can be responsible for changing the abuser's behaviour.
•  Children experience trauma in families where women are abused.
•  Ensuring the safety of children is paramount, as children are most vulnerable and have the least power in our society.
•  Increasing the safety of abused women will increase the safety and well being of children.
•  Perpetrators must be held accountable for their abusive behaviour.
•  CAS and VAW services can provide a community leadership role to influence system changes.
These values have the potential of providing a basis of unity for further dialogue. However, workers from each sector need to have a vehicle to come together in order to build trust so they can enter the minefield of competing tensions. From our point of view some of these tensions include:
•  Holding the male abusive partner accountable for his violence while also engaging him in a process to become a more responsible parent.
•  Respecting the woman's readiness to take protective steps while also ensuring the safety and emotional well being of the children.
•  Acknowledging the primacy of safety of both the abused woman and her children while also acknowledging the cumulative harm, which has been done, and the needs for treatment.
•  Recognizing the extent to which male abusers will continue their efforts to control their families post-separation, while appearing to be compliant to outside authorities. (Many abusers are experts in impression management.)
•  Understanding that the male abuser is solely responsible for the damage created by his abuse while recognizing that the abused woman`s relationship with her children may have been undermined and her ability to parent compromised.
In conclusion we would encourage workers from both sectors to take responsibility to hold the big picture as we work together to build trust, understand each other's concerns and develop new models of collaborative intervention. To enrich your dialogue we suggest the following readings:
Bilinkoff, J. (1995). “Empowering Battered Women as Mothers.” in Peled, Jaffe and Edelson (Eds.), Ending the Cycle of Violence: Community Responses to Children of Battered Women. Thousand Oaks , CA : Sage Publications.
Bancroft, L. & Silverman, J. (2002). The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics. Thousand Oaks , Ca: Sage Publications
Carter, J. & Schechter, S. (2000). Child Abuse and Domestic Violence: Creating Community Partnerships for Safe Families. Family Violence Prevention Fund. (Available online www.mincava.umn.edu/link/fvpfl.htm )
Eisler, R. (2002). The Power of Partnership: The Seven Relationships That Will Change Your Life. Novato , Ca: New World Library.
Groves , B. (2002). Children Who See Too Much: Lessons From the Child Witnesses to Violence Project. Boston , MA : Beacon Press
Jacobson, W. (2000). Safe from the Start: Taking Action on Children Exposed to Violence. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (Available online www.ncjrs.org/puborder)
Mathews, D. (1995). Parenting Groups for Men Who Batter, in Ending the Cycle of Violence/Community Responses to Children of Battered Women. Edited by Peled, Jaffe and Edelson (Eds). Thousand Oaks , CA : Sage Publications
Sinclair, D. (2000). In the Centre of the Storm - Durham Speaks Out: A Community Response to Custody and Access Issues Affecting Women Abuse Survivors and their Children. (Available online www.durhamresponsetowomanabuse.com )
Whitney, P. & Davis, L. (1999). “Child Abuse and Domestic Violence in Massachusetts : Can Practice Be Integrated in a Public Child Welfare Setting?” Child Maltreatment (4) 158. (Available online http://eon.law.harvard.edu/vaw00/whitney.html)

Susan Harris is currently the Clinical Program Manager at Catholic Family Services of Peel-Dufferin, where as part of her duties she manages the HEAL (Helping End Abuse for Life) Network.  HEAL is a fourteen-agency collaborative that offers services to children exposed to woman abuse and their mothers.  Susan has a long history of VAW work within family service settings and she and Deborah have been colleagues since 1978.

Deborah Sinclair, M.S.W., has been in social work practice and consultancy for last 24 years. She is a leading member of violence against women prevention work in Canada in its all aspects. Deborah currently has an independent practice in Toronto , ON . She has been working closely with EWA since its early years. dasinclair@sympatico.ca

Please contact EWA for a complete hard copy:
publications@womanabuseprevention.com
Telephone: 416.968.3422 x21