ارزیابی مواجهه کودکان با خشونت خانگی بزرگسالان

The emerging interest in children's exposure to adult domestic violence has brought about calls for better methods to assess such exposure. Currently no assessment tools exist that adequately measure the diversity of children's experiences with domestic violence. In this article we identify several factors affecting children's experiences and consequent outcomes, including concurrent victimization and various risk and protective factors. We then review several measures that include at least one question regarding adult domestic violence and that assess child exposure to and/or perception of domestic violence. We conclude that existing measures do not comprehensively identify factors related to child exposure and thus call for the development of new tools that more thoroughly and accurately assess child exposure to adult domestic violence.

Child exposure to adult domestic violence has increasingly become a concern for both practitioners and researchers. For example, new research in child welfare systems has revealed that large proportions of children under protective supervision are exposed to adult domestic violence but that screening and investigation of the violence is often inadequate (English et al., 2005 and Hazen et al., 2004). Juvenile and family courts struggle to understand and assess the significance of child exposure when making decisions concerning custody and visitation (Jaffe et al., 2003 and Kernic et al., 2005). Law enforcement leaders have questioned their own responses to children who are present when police respond to adult domestic assault reports (International Association of Chiefs of Police, 1997). And, finally, battered women's shelters and other domestic violence prevention programs have increasingly recognized and expanded their responses to the needs of children in the families they serve (Saathoff & Stoffel, 1999).