Group Treatment of Children in Shelters for Battered Women (From Battered Women and Their Families, P 49-64, 1984, Albert R Roberts, ed. - See NCJ 92747)

• NCJ Number: 92750
• Author(s): J J Alessi; K Hearn
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 13 pages
• Sale Source: Springer Publishing Co
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Children in shelters for victims of domestic violence need treatment and can benefit from a short-term treatment model consisting of 6 sessions which include a crisis model component, an accelerated model component, an educational component, and the 10 curative factors of groups as identified by Yalom.

Abstract

This treatment model helps these children cope with the crisis they are experiencing and gives them both information and problemsolving skills that will be useful once they leave the shelter. These children are in crisis because they have lost their school, friends, neighborhood, home, and usually the significant adult male in their lives. They are experiencing acute feelings of separation and loss and have difficulty coping with these feelings in a healthy fashion. They may also feel responsible both for the violence and for their mother's leaving the home. Their initial method of solving problems is by hitting. They tend to be aggressive and verbally abusive. The treatment model developed at one shelter focused on children aged 8 to 16 providing support for the immediate crisis and on helping children learn to identify and express feelings, develop problemsolving skills, and develop modes of healthy coping behaviors. The treatment permitted the ventilation of feelings, focused on the immediate situation and the future, and provided accurate information. Each of the six sessions had its own focus: identifying and expressing feelings; violence; unhealthy ways to solve problems; healthy ways to solve problems; sex, love, and sexuality; and termination and saying goodbye. Twenty-three references are provided.