PowerPoint Presentation

Renee-Claude Carriere, Kaushees Place: WhitehorseShelly Bonnah & Allan Wade, Centre for Response-Based Practice

Working with Children in Transition House & Counselling Settings1 in 10 children under the age of 18 have witnessed a family assault in the past 12 months and 1 in 5 have witnessed a family assault at some point in their lifetime.

Victims of Crime Org/2013Supporting mothers to be mothersAbility to ProtectIt Just Makes SenseWorking with children together with their mothers just naturally seemed like the right thing to do. For a time, there was push to take kids aside, to interview them and to do programming with them apart from their mothers. Working in a transition home, I saw that as not productive. I was not comfortable with that way of working. Many of the women I had worked with had had their children apprehended. For many of our First Nations clients in particular, if I was to take their children aside, I could be seen as a child protection worker, as a threat. I did not see that as productive.Where we begin to break the so-called inter-generational cycle of violence is where we help children see their mother as a good mother, as a mother who protected them.

Why we work the way we doMen who use violence often aim to invalidate the woman as a mother and damage the mother-child bond, both during the relationship and often long after separation. In this context, it is especially important to respect and restore the relationship between mothers and children. This principle is central to the work at Kaushees Place.Wife-assault is parental alienation.

Supporting them, TogetherMany women, especially First Nations women, have had their children apprehended, or were themselves apprehended as children. The threat of Ministry involvement is ever-present in their relationships with their children, and in their communities.

In this context, separating the women and children can create fear and doubt. The transition house worker can begin to look like a child protection worker. This is not productive.

30 daysIn transition houses we have only 30 days to work with mothers and children.

Its usually more beneficial to spend time with women and children together, work with the conversations that come up naturally, and use the opportunity to support the women as mothers.

Shopping tripsI found that when I hung out with moms and kids, on shopping trips and car rides, they would open up and talk a lot about important concerns.I saw that helping children see their moms as good and strong individuals, as someone who protected them, not as someone who failed to protect them.The more we hang out and have conversations, the more I can point out: Your Moms not lazy and Look how hard she works.They are often very small and subtle comments, but very helpful for children and mothers. Children start to see that their mother works hard, is not stupid and does love them.

Shifting the messageThis is where Response-Based ideas came in handy. We were already trying to change the messages the children were hearing, and talking to other service providers about why that was important. Children were hearing their mothers being blamed and they were very confused.

Say what you see, spell out the good things, in front of the child, the positive things the mom does to keep him safe and how shes a good & hard working mom.

Children can begin to see that the things Dad was saying were not true. We can go further to work on the confusion and I would say: Yes maybe what Dad said about Mom isnt true. Its Okay to be mad at Dad for that and you can still love him.

Childen may fight these positive statements, but time and continued reinforcement will help, and using more subtle ways like directing the comments toward the mom can be useful. Gently stirYou cannot push praise on the mother or challenge the childrens feelings.

But you can gently and almost imperceptibly provide another view; another way to understand and therefore another way to feel.We protected each otherHaving conversations with mothers and children about incidents and the way they responded will allow them to see the way:They always had each others backThey protected each otherThey always had each other interests at heartHer children were protecting herTheir mother did not fail to protect themWorst time in your lifeMom still has a lot to deal with:SeparationCustodyHousingHealth issueGrief Its not time to teach or give tools, but to be an ally and strategize with her.Creating an environment to support the mother-child relationshipWorking with mom and childNot separating mom and child during crisis modeHonour time when mom and child need to talk about what happened and how each respondedHonour how they work as a team to keep each other safe.Parenting at time of crisisReframing perspective on mothers parenting skills during crisis by:Identify how hard-working she is and has been managing a terrible situationHow she pushed back violence and minimized its impactsBy speaking about how she responded and resisted to the violence, she will see all the ways he was abusive and she will stop second-guessing her assessement of the situation.Parenting in safetyHave a conversation of what parenting looks like when you are safeHow it can be different than when you fight to keep your child and yourself safeHow children may start acting like children and be loud, rowdy and playful. How they may act out as they start to feel safe.

Children and response-basedChildren respond well to the Response-Based approach because it is concrete.Ask them what they did, and they will tell you the stories of how they protected their siblings, their mom and themselves. This will help to identify and outline all the ways in which each member of the family respond to violence and worked to minimize the danger and uphold dignity.Safety planning with childrenYou did just that

When you asked them what they didWhen they told you how they protected their siblings, their mom and themselvesAll the ways they responded and resisted to violence

Joce ExampleUniversal Abilities to Respond & Resist ViolenceNathans StoryNathans Story (Age: 10 yrs)Mom, dad, Sarah and me lived in a house all together for 3 yearsWhat was that like?I used to hide in my room a lot. Sarah would come running in and hide under my bed.What did you do when she would come running into your room?After the first 10 times I got used to it, so it was nothing new. I also hid under the bed sometimes.Why do you think she came into your room?Sarah did have her own room, but she didnt like hiding in it. If she wanted me to when she was under my bed, then I triple sealed my doorTriple sealed your door How did you do that?I got pillows and duct tape. I put duct tape on the top and bottom so no one could open the doorto keep dad out. Then I put 3 pillows on all the sides of the door to keep out the noise. The only time we could hear was when they were really yellingThose times I would play my video games really, really loud.I dont know if Ive ever heard of anything so smart before to keep out noise and protect a sisterYano one could get in unless they had a knife.Hmmm.I play video games. It makes me content so I dont so I dont go out there and separate them.

How did you learn that its a better idea to keep yourself as content as possible, rather than go out there and separate them?Ive tried to separate them. To defend mom would be suicide. Everytime I tried I got red marks. Sometimes he wears his bootshe would kick me or slap me. Once he smacked me so hard the red marks didnt go away for a week. I didnt do anything for thatI didnt deserve it.Sounds like you have tried to defend your mom, yourself and Sarah. Sometimes it works but sometimes it really doesnt. What else do you do?One time me, mom and Sarah all hid in moms room and locked the door. We watched Mario brothers. We were going to have a Christmas party, but he phoned everybody so that they didnt come to our party. I showed mom how to barricade the door. Sarah cries and hides when she is scared. I usually be quiet to Gino [dad] because he would slap me if I said something to him.Do you want to keep talking about this? Like where you were when everything happened?I came to the balcony while they were by the van. I yelled Mom when she got pushed down. Tears were coming down my face. I knew it wouldnt stop things. I knew that for a fact. I wouldnt expect him to stop because I yelled. It was kind of obvious that this would happen.What did you do then?I stayed and watched the rest. He drove away with Sarah and my mom was lying on the ground crying and then she looked up and saw me there.Then what happened?Mom came in and talked to me. I tried to support her. I said Everything will be alright and she said No. everything wont be alright.Responding to Social ResponsesJustins StoryVIOLENT ACTRESPONSE/RESISTANCESOCIAL RESPONSEIf you dont put on a show for me, I will show ur boobs (blackmail, distribution of child pornography)I got really sick, anxiety, major depression and panicKnock at my door at 4 am from the police.

He knew my address, school, relatives, friends, family names (stalking)I got into drugs and alcohol. My anxiety got worse.I lost all my friends and respect.My photo was sent to everyone (blackmail)My anxiety got worse. I couldnt go outThen nobody liked me.Amanda Todd: Bullying is not an accurate descriptionVIOLENT ACTSRESPONSE/RESISTANCESOCIAL RESPONSEThe guy made a new facebook pagemy boobs were his profile.I cried every night. I started cutting.They started name-callingjudging meThe girls saidlook aroundnobody likes you.I thought nobody deserves this.I didnt have any friends and I sat at lunch alone.She threw me to the ground and punched me several timesI wanted to die so bad. I drank bleach.I saw on facebook she deserved it. I hope shes deadObscuring Violence With LanguageOBSCURING VIOLENCEACCURATE LANGUAGECyber-bullyingExtortion/blackmailDate RapeRapeSex TourismRape of ChildrenAbusive RelationshipViolence used against (her)Overly AttentiveStalkingFit the Word to the DeedConflictTeasingBullying HarassmentAbuseViolenceExtortionStalkingBlackmailRape3 houses. . . and a rickety response-based shed (Wade, 2010). Good things Worries DreamsNicki Weld & Maggie Greening (in Turnell & Essex)Karin (15)

Carolina: Can I ask in those situations when you were scared and felt like something was wrong, did you feel like you could do something then? Karin: No, that was the thing. I was so little and had so many feelings. Sometimes I could say to daddy, please dad please be quiet, dont be bothered by what mummy says. I played along with him for a while and played along with him and thought this will help and pretended that mummy was the one who was sick. So I said that if you could only be quiet dont be bothered by what she is saying you know she is wrong (pause) so be quiet and go outside and be angry.

Lotta (9)

Margareta: Have things been okay at home? Lotta: Yes, but then yesterday mum and dad started fighting about something, but I just closed my ears.Margareta: What do you do when you close your ears? Do you use something to put in your ears? Lotta: No, I try not to care or try to talk to them about something else. Then I listen to really loud music so theyll get angry at me instead.

What joint and individual capacities are revealed in mothers andchildrens responses to violence?

How can we work to honour these capacities in the course of our daily work?

How do we acknowledge mothers ability to protect their children?