Children & Young People

Through Domestic Abuse, Recovering Together (DART™), children and mothers can talk to each other about domestic abuse, learn to communicate and rebuild their relationship.

Our clients are able to refer their children to the programme once they've completed Peer Mentor Support for 12 weeks.

The service, which has been recognised by the Home Office, also provides children and mothers with an opportunity to meet others who have lived through similar experiences.

Coming in Spring 2025

How DART works

Over ten weeks, mothers and children aged 7-12 meet for a weekly two-hour group session.

Children and mothers work together for an hour at the start of the group, and then take part in activities in separate groups. At the end of each session, they join together again.

Women learn more about:

How domestic abuse happens
How it affects children

They’ll also explore experiences and strategies that can be used as a parent.

Children take part in activities together that help them build their own understanding of domestic abuse and how they’re feeling.

Key findings

DART scale-up sites were equally as successful as the NSPCC at helping families achieve positive outcomes following domestic abuse

Families who took part in DART at a scale-up site benefited from the programme to a similar extent to families who originally attended DART. They also showed significantly greater improvements in most outcomes than mothers and children who received no intervention during the same period

Additional findings

Improvement in the mother-child relationship

After taking part in DART at a scale-up site, mothers had significantly greater self-esteem and felt more supported in their role as a parent. Children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties had reduced, and there were improvements in the mother-child relationship.

Visit their website for more information

NSPCC | The UK children's charity | NSPCC

Domestic Abuse, Recovering Together (DART) | NSPCC Learning - Evaluation

Child protection plan statistics: England 2019-2023 (nspcc.org.uk)

Podcast: helping children recover from domestic abuse | NSPCC Learning

Source: NSPCC