Talking About Domestic Abuse: A Photo Activity Workbook to Develop Communication Between Mothers...

DVRCV STAFF PICK from Ellen Fish.

The Talking to My Mum resources are appropriate for use with mothers who have suffered domestic violence and who want some assistance on how to go about communicating with their children who have witnessed this violence. Based on research, these resources were designed to facilitate quality communication between children and their mothers and to assist mothers to help their children understand and talk about what has happened, and explore their feelings in a safe and paced way.

The main idea behind these resources is that building upon and strengthening the relationship between a mother and child can be very beneficial to helping a child’s recovery from witnessing and growing up in an atmosphere of show more domestic violence. These resources may also assist to rebuild and strengthen the relationship between mothers and their child or children after domestic violence. The positive and constructive interaction between mothers and children is vital for the social growth of abused mothers and their children and so these resources can help them with ways to work through the experience of domestic violence together. However, they are also about mothers and their children spending some relaxed and fun time together.

Each book has three sections titled Section 1: Early days, Section 2: Talking about things that matter, and Section 3: Moving on and both contain exercises for mothers and children. The authors found that generally children between the ages of five and seven preferred this workbook with its use of woodland animals. The photo activity book is designed for older children particularly those from ten years old and up. However, the researchers found that some children at this age preferred the use of woodland animals from the picture workbook. It is really dependent upon the child or young person which workbook is more appropriate to use. Both workbooks have some guidance about how best to use the resources. For example, the authors discuss the idea of ‘readiness’ in relation to when is the most appropriate time to use this resource for both mothers and children. show less