More Children in Battered Women's Shelters than Women?

In Brian Martin's book Invincible, he quotes Renee McDonald's point of how "There are many more children in battered women's shelters than women." When I read these words, my heart sank. What a disgusting, alarming point this makes. When we think and hear about domestic violence, most of us think about adult victims. It escapes our attention that children can be part of this equation, and in fact there are more children than adults being negatively impacted by this controlling abuse in battered women's shelters. Martin goes on to discuss how children are not just a "witness" to domestic violence because that word has an implication of passivity and we now know that children are directly impacted from growing up in a home with childhood domestic violence occurring. These children need help, they need a voice and they need someone to hear them and to let them know it is not their fault. If we as a society want to stop domestic violence we need to be focusing on prevention. We need to educate our children and our communities on what domestic violence is and allow children to share their experiences. The childhood domestic violence association created a Change a Life program. Anyone can visit their website found here https://cdv.org/tools-and-resources/the-change-a-life-program/ and become "The One" in a child's life to help them to deal with and over come childhood domestic violence. This is a great resource for all of us, anyone who comes into contact with a child can help that child through conversations and this evidence based program can give you the words, direction and confidence to help. It just takes a few minutes to complete and it's free! 
Take care everyone, I hope you feel encouraged to help where you can.
Have a great week and thanks for reading...

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