Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence

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After many studies researchers have confirmed that when children are exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) it significantly effects their social emotional development (Hughes & Chau, 2013; Herman-Smith, 2013). This raises a concern; if IPV was to be measured emotional abuse should children be removed from their families. If we consider that the majority of children that witness IPV are under six and would not be able to fully understand what is happening we can conclude that they would not be able to report their maltreatment (Hughes & Chau, 2013). If either partner also chooses not to report the abuse it may continue and it would impact the child; the child could experience mental and behavioral problems. Therefore programs should be introduced to care givers that are dealing with aggression problems so that they can understand that their temperament and actions do affect their children both directly and indirectly.
In order to understand IPV we need to look into what it is defined as; it is described as psychological and physical violence that occurs in the context of a dating relationship, marriage or common law (Schwartz et al., 2012). It can range from a single incident to recurring and ongoing abuse and from verbal abuse to the more severe assaults where the end result is death (Schwartz et al., 2012). Therefore practitioners would argue that since children in these environments are not yet able to fully understand IPV and the affect it has on them they would not be able to protect themselves from the emotional maltreatment. This results in IPV reporting to be low which would make it hard to determine whether or not a child is at risk unless it is an extreme case. However before things progress to an extreme scenario s...

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...d protection workers' practices and interventions with families experiencing intimate partner violence. Children & Youth Services Review, 35(4), 611-617. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.01.003
Statistics Canada. (2013). Section 3: Intimate partner violence. Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2013001/article/11805/11805-3-eng.htm#a1
UNICEF. (2006). Behind Closed Doors: The Impact of Domestic Violence on Children. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/protection/files/BehindClosedDoors.pdf
Royal Canadian Mounted Police. (2013) The Effects of Domestic Violence on Children: Where does it hurt? Retrieved from http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cp-pc/chi-enf-abu-eng.htm
Boston University Medical Center. (2013). Silent victims -- an epidemic of childhood exposure to domestic violence. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131030185719.htm

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