Children's Counselling

It takes determination and great courage to leave a violent relationship and make the move to refuge. Once there, any woman who is fleeing an abusive partner will have many personal and emotional issues to resolve. One of the most important of these is the well-being of her children.

Thanks to support from a grant from BBC Children In Need, Fresh Visions provides a counselling service for children living within refuges in Swale, Medway and Ashford. Through this service, individual counselling (or play therapies for the very young) is provided for children living in refuge and, where appropriate, for those who are leaving a refuge or still living in the local community.

Domestic violence brings with it a whole range of effects on mother and child. Our counselling service can help the long path to strength and recovery by:

• Offering regular 1:1 counselling sessions to every child and family that moves into the refuges covered for as long as it is needed
• Providing play therapy opportunities for younger children
• Facilitating mother and child sessions to help re-establish the balance and trust between children and mothers
• Extending counselling support to families who have been re-housed

Appropriate counselling can make – literally - a life changing difference to children who have experienced domestic violence. There is always more we could do to help; if you would like to help us to do so, please contact Casa Support on 0845 072 7625

The terrible truth about domestic violence

Domestic violence is sadly very common. Research shows that it can affect one in four women in their lifetimes, regardless of age, social class, race, disability or lifestyle. Between one in eight and one in ten women experience it annually. Two women each week in the UK are killed as a result of domestic violence, which may consist of physical, sexual, mental, emotional and financial abuse. 

The vast majority of the victims of domestic violence are women and children and at least 750,000 children per year witness domestic violence (Department of Health, 2002). In 80% of cases, the children are in the same or the next room. In about half of all domestic violence situations, the children are also being directly abused themselves.

If you are concerned about domestic violence:

999 - Emergency services

If you are concerned for your own or some else's immediate safety ring the Police on 999

0808 2000 247 - Freephone 24 Hour National Domestic Violence Helpline (Run in partnership between Refuge and Women's Aid Federation of England)