By Mike McNabb
It is an age-old problem but it is only in the past 30 years or so that domestic violence has become accepted as a major social issue.
And the understanding of the effect it has on children is even more recent.
Joy Smith, a consultant to the Westminster Domestic Violence Forum, described how her experiences of domestic violence and how she came to terms with it. She said those experiences had convinced her to become a social worker.
She said that If it wan't for her daughter she would still be in the abusive relationship as she didn't realise there was so much help out there. There was also fear the fear factor. Yet for a long time she thought her partner was a good father.
Her daughter had been witnessing the violence since she was a child. Smith described them both as wearing a mask to conceal the abuse from other people.
Prof Gill Hague, of
The 1970s saw the coincidence of an active women's movement with an active child protection movement, which proved a crucial connection.
But there is a difference between perceptions of domestic abuse - seen as a criminal issue - and child abuse, which is often blamed on family dysfunction.
She cited the risk of violence after a couple had separated as a court is likely to issue a contact orders so that the father can see the children. So even ending a relationship is no guarantee that the violence will stop.
Hague described survivors as heroes of their own lives.
She said social workers should take notice of children more. Their resilience and wisdom could be key resources but too few were tapping into them.
Positive practice would support mothers to be safe, but also focus intervention on violent men, multi-agency working while avoiding knee-jerk punitive responses.
Among the best approaches were the development of suppoprt networks, advocacy and refuges. The importance of children's work in the refuges was emphasised along with groupwork with children.
But funding remains an issue and more resources were needed that are empowering to survivors. She showed that domestic violence sevices aimed at ethnic minorities were under threat.