"The three instruments, that is, questionnaire, interviews and focus group discussions were used inthe study for the purpose of confirming the information collected from various respondents.Sample of mothers The sample of mothers consisted of women ranging from 20 to 50 years of age, from both urbanand rural backgrounds, across the social class, Traveler and settled womenMothers of very young children (0-4 years)Mothers of children aged 5-11 and 12–17, Mothers who had come into contact with community-based services Interview with mothers focused on: 1. The nature and extent of the domestic violence that led them to seek support from aparticular agency; 2. Perceptions of the impact of domestic violence on their children;3. Service responses to their children; 4. Adequacy of such responses;5.Recommendations for service provision.Sample of professionals The professionals interviewed were drawn from a variety of agencies. The sample includedprofessionals working in refuge services, supported housing services and community supportservices.Interviews with professionals followed a systematic interview schedule, which addressed thefollowing main areas: 1. Overview of services; 2. Nature and scope of child-centered services; 3. Outcomes for children; 4. Aprofessional assessment of the impact of domestic violence on children;5. Therisks posed to children as a result of living with domestic violence; 6. Inter-agency work; 7. Limitations to services; 8.Recommendations for child-centered service provisionResearch into child’s experiences in contexts of childhood and development Somesocial policy and legal systems have become concerned with children‘s rights inrecent time, most children‘s rights to be recognized as people. This recognition of the rightsof children has resulted in a growing awareness of the importance of giving a voice tochildren on matters affecting them. However, the manner of engaging, listening to andmaking sense of children‘s views is somewhat challenging. According to Greene and Hill,2005Approaches and Methods, offer a contribution to the theoretical debates, ethical issuesand practice implications of researching children‘s experiences. As one looks from anhistorical perspective at the vast amount of empirical research conducted on, and withchildren in the social sciences field, it is evident that the emphasis has been on children as theobjects rather than children as the subjects; on child-related outcomes rather than child- related processes; and on child variables rather than children as people . While the study of =the child‘ has traditionally been the domain of psychology, sociology has over the past twodecades rediscovered childhood. In the study We are concerned not to treat children as beingless than adults in any way.We were also concerned not to patronize them in any way byspeaking as if we saw them .Hence, primary focus has always been to privilege the child‘snarrative of self as central to this study‘s findings and recommendations. This , is thusformed with a vision of children — even those who have, as in this study, experiencedviolent and fractured childhoods — as being competent subjects in a social world, rather thandeficit objects to be randomly abused and manipulated. We struggled about how we couldengage children of different ages, gender, social class, etc. and how we might make sense ofand present their stories.Difficultiesin interviewing young childrenThrough meeting with and interviewing young children in the age group 5-11, we feelconfident that we have learned something about the process of engaging with them on such asensitive topic and about the need to establish rapport and trust with them. We came to theinterview prepared with drawing materials and often found that talking with a child as theydrew a picture =about living in the refuge‘ or =about when they lived with their dad‘ was avery constructive way of engaging them, especially the younger ones. Given that we wererecording the interviews in order to transcribe them, some of the children respondedparticularly well to =speaking into the microphone‘. We also combine playful techniqueswhile conducting a narrative interview with young children.having developedrapport withthe children, next come is the challenge to develop a practice of asking them about theirexperience of domestic violence.It is important that domestic violence issues are discussedand acknowledged if children are to make sense of their experiences and gain the appropriate support … [in order to do this] … practitioners need to ask the ?right? questions, to show asympathetic attitude and to be patient if the child is to feel that they are able to disclose anyinformation. A strong recommendation from the literature is to specifically name the issueand speak in very direct language with children about the violence, given that children, too,may for various reasons try to avoid making public the fact of the violence. It is necessary toask specific questions and to draw explicit conclusions about the traumatic event. Directnessis necessary to provide cognitive structure, to interrupt avoidance about the details of thetrauma and to explore and reframe beliefs about guilt, helplessness. (interview a number ofsibling groups together for various reasons and with various results) LISTEN TO CHILD’S EXPERIENCES OF THEIR LIVING WITH DOMESTICVIOLENCEA gap exists in the current research on children‘s experiences of domestic violence and itconcerns what children actually say about the violence themselves. In this study, we werespecifically concerned with addressing this deficit. This offers a specific focus on whatchildren have to say when asked about their experience of living with domestic violence andthe impacts of that violence on their lives. All of the children interviewees were able to givevery clear accounts of their experience of witnessing domestic violence. However, accessingchildren and developing a trustworthy environment for the interview was most challenging,given the nature of the subject, how hidden and controlled the issue is in society in generaland how many of the gatekeepers, professionals and mothers wished to ‘draw a line under‘the domestic violence and move on with their lives.we were concerned in this study notsimply to explore children‘s experiences of physical violence, but to frame a research samplespecifically focused on children who had experienced a range of abusive behaviours.access a "