Positive Intervention for Children Affected by Domestic Abuse (PICADA)

… helping children and their mothers begin to heal from the impact of exposure to abuse.

Mission Statement

  • To provide children with an opportunity within group settings to tell their stories – to be heard, validated and believed, and to begin to understand and heal from exposure to domestic abuse.
  • To provide mothers with an opportunity to understand their children’s experiences and to validate and support their healing.
  • To assist women in creating links and building bridges between themselves and their children.
  • To provide a nurturing, safe, and positive environment for children and their mothers.

Vision

  • End domestic abuse and lessen the effect on children exposed to domestic abuse.
  • Through intervention at the child’s level, help children to begin to heal by providing them with the opportunity to attend groups.
  • Engage and support mothers to validate, inform, and support their children’s healing.
  • Address the intergenerational effects of violence and to impact the values and beliefs that enable violence, power, and control to occur in families, the community, and society as a whole.

Guiding Principles

  • While both women and men can experience domestic abuse, the theoretical underpinning of the group model is based on the understanding that women are more likely than men to experience domestic abuse and to experience severe and/or repeated incidents of violence and abuse. This said, where possible, the children’s group should have at least one male facilitator to provide a positive role model to the children as well as demonstrating respectful working relationships between the genders.
  • Women and children should be able to live their lives free of violence and abuse.
  • The safety and well-being of children and their mothers is of paramount importance when offering this service.
  • Groups should be available to children and their mothers from diverse cultural communities, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities, and differently abled persons such as hearing impaired, developmentally, or mobility challenged.
  • The service provided is nurturing, non-judgemental, and well-informed. 
  • Research and evaluation are valued as a means of ensuring an effective, quality service.