September/October 2016Vol. 17, No. 7Promising Futures Website

It is estimated that domestic violence is present in 30 to 60 percent of all child abuse cases.¹ Given this rate of co-occurrence, it is vital for domestic violence programs to prioritize interventions that address the needs of all family members exposed to domestic violence—both parents and children. Futures Without Violence developed the Promising Futures—Best Practices for Serving Children, Youth, and Parents Experiencing Domestic Violence (Promising Futures) website to help programs do just that. Funded by the Division of Family Violence Prevention of the Family and Youth Services Bureau at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under the Expanding Services for Children and Youth Exposed to Domestic Violence Program, Promising Futures offers resources—including best practices, evaluation tools, research-informed strategies, and more—to help advocates and domestic violence programs improve and advance their trauma-informed and developmentally appropriate practices. The website is divided into five main sections:

• What Do Kids Need?: Includes general information and statistics about the effects of domestic violence on children and parenting and outlines guiding principles for enhancing services for children and youth
• Program Guidelines: Helps programs examine their infrastructure, physical environment, policies, and practices to better support the mother-child relationship
• Interventions for Children and Youth: Offers a searchable database of promising practices and evidence-based clinical interventions for children and youth to help programs promote healing and resilience among mothers and children together
• Advancing the Field: Provides information for advocates on implementing research-informed practices and trauma-informed strategies and partnering with researchers to document success, as well as a section highlighting innovative leaders in the field
• Tools: Offers resources to assist programs in capacity building (e.g., training curricula, resources for families, tools for research and evaluation)

Access Promising Futures at http://promising.futureswithoutviolence.org/.


¹ Edleson, J. L. (1999). Children’s witnessing of adult domestic violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14, 839–870; Herrenkohl, T. I., Sousa, C., Tajima, E. A., Herrenkohl, R. C., & Moylan, C. A. (2008). Intersection of child abuse and children’s exposure to domestic violence. Trauma, Violence and Abuse, 9, 84–89.


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Futures Without Violence, the Family and Youth Services Bureau's Family Violence Prevention and Services Program, and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence collaborated to publish a new guide for improving services to children who have been exposed to domestic violence. Read more in this month's issue of CBX.