New Directions
New Directions is a 22 week psycho-educational program providing groups for women and children who have experienced and witnessed domestic violence. It offers separate group sessions for women and children, joint family sessions (mother and children) and parenting sessions for women. In these settings, women and children receive information regarding domestic violence, the cycle of abuse, responsibility for abuse, safety planning, non-violent problem solving skills and parenting information, to name a few topics covered. The first half of the program focuses on issues related to experiencing violence in their intimate relationships, while the second half explores parenting issues unique to children who have witnessed abuse.
For the children New Directions provides a safe place for them to discuss the violence they have witnessed or experienced and to support the children to begin to heal from the effects by understanding it is not their fault or their responsibility