Children's experiences and voices are underrepresented in academic literature and professional practice around domestic violence and abuse. The project 'Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies' addresses this absence, through direct engagement with children. We present an analysis from interviews with 21 children in the United Kingdom (12 girls and 9 boys, aged 8-18 years), about their experiences of domestic violence and abuse, and their responses to this violence. These interviews were analysed using interpretive interactionism. Three themes from this analysis are presented: a) 'Children's experiences of abusive control', which explores children's awareness of controlling behaviour by the adult perpetrator, their experience of that control, and its impact on them; b) 'Constraint', which explores how children experience the constraint associated with coercive control in situations of domestic violence, and c) 'Children as agents' which explores children's strategies for managing controlling behaviour in their home and in family relationships. The paper argues that, in situations where violence and abuse occurs between adult intimate partners, children are significantly impacted, and can be reasonably described as victims of abusive control. Recognising children as direct victims of domestic violence and abuse would produce significant changes in the way professionals respond to them, by 1) recognising children's experience of the impact of domestic violence and abuse; 2) recognising children's agency, undermining the perception of them as passive 'witnesses' or 'collateral damage' in adult abusive encounters; and 3) strengthening professional responses to them as direct victims, not as passive witnesses to violence.

This article explores how young people see their relationships, particularly their sibling relationships, in families affected by domestic violence, and how relationality emerges in their accounts as a resource to build an agentic sense of self. The 'voice' of children is largely absent from domestic violence literature, which typically portrays them as passive, damaged and relationally incompetent. Children's own understandings of their relational worlds are often overlooked, and consequently existing models of children's social interactions give inadequate accounts of their meaning-making-in-context. Drawn from a larger study of children's experiences of domestic violence and abuse, this paper uses two case studies of sibling relationships to explore young people's use of relational resources, for coping with violence in the home. The paper explores how relationality and coping intertwine in young people's accounts, and disrupts the taken for granted assumption that children's 'premature caring' or 'parentification' is (only) pathological in children's responses to domestic violence. This has implications for understanding young people's experiences in the present, and supporting their capacity for relationship building in the future. 1Callaghan J, Alexander J, Sixsmith J & Fellin LC (2017) Children's experiences of domestic violence and abuse: siblings' accounts of relational coping, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 22 (4), pp. 649-668. Copyright © The Author(s) 2015. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. 2Children's experiences of domestic violence and abuse: siblings' accounts of relational coping This article explores how young people see their relationships in families affected by domestic violence (DV) and how relationality emerges in their accounts as a resource to build an agentic sense of self. In understanding children's experiences of DV, academic literature has typically positioned children as passive 'victims' and 'witnesses', 'damaged' or impacted by the violence they live with. Children who grow up in circumstances of DV are described as at risk of a range of psychosocial difficulties, including risk of mental health difficulties across the lifespan (Meltzer et al. 2009, Mezey et al. 2005, educational challenges (Byrne & Taylor, 2007), and interpersonal difficulties in their own future intimate relationships and friendships (Black, Sussman, & Unger, 2010;Ehrensaft et al., 2003;Siegel, 2013). They are also more at risk of both bullying and being bullied (Baldry, 2003;Lepistö, Luukkaala, & Paavilainen, 2011) and are vulnerable to a range of other possible abuses across their lifespan (Finkelhor, Ormrod, & Turner, 2007;Turner, Finkelhor, & Ormrod, 2010). They are represented as having more 'concrete' styles of relating and reduced emotional competence (Katz, Hessler, & Annest, 2007;Katz & Windecker-Nelson, 2006). Recently, literature has suggested that not only are children impacted psychosocially, but that the lasting traumatic impact of witnessing violence also raises...

The MPOWER programme is a resource oriented intervention to support children and young people (CYP) affected by domestic violence and abuse. It draws on principles from feminist informed systemic family practice and creative therapies. The intervention was delivered in 4 European countries (Greece, Italy, Spain and England), reaching 58 CYP. This paper reports on young participants' wellbeing outcomes and perceptions of the intervention. Participants completed the Children's Outcome Rating Scale, and the Children's Group Session Rating Scale (Duncan et al. Journal of Brief Therapy, 3, 3-12, 2003). A descriptive analysis of this data suggests improvement in subjective wellbeing as CYP moved through this programme. Qualitative interviews were also conducted with 21 CYP, exploring their experience of the group intervention and of its impact. These interviews were analysed thematically (Braun and Clark Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101, 2006). Three themes are discussed: These were BWorking Together: Building Trust and Sharing Common Experiences^; BDisclosures, creativity and working with emotions^; and BRoots and Branches: Working with relationships^.

Children who experience domestic violence are often described in academic and professional literature as passive victims, whose 'exposure' to violence and abuse at home leaves them psychologically damaged, socially impaired, inarticulate, cognitively 'concrete' and emotionally 'incompetent'. Whilst we recognise the importance of understanding the hurt, disruption and damage that domestic violence can cause, we also explore alternative possible ways of talking about and thinking about the lives of children who have experienced domestic violence. We report on interviews and drawings with 27 UK children, using interpretive analysis to explore their capacity for agency and resistance. We explore the paradoxical interplay of children's acceptance and resistance to coercive control, paying specific attention to embodied experience and use of space. We consider how children articulate their experiences of pain and coercion, how they position themselves as embodied and affective subjects, and challenge Scarry's (1985) suggestion that embodied pain and violence are inexpressible. Keywords domestic violence, interpersonal violence, children, embodiment, child witness, children exposed to domestic violence