Art as intervention in serving child victims of family violence: a parent-child art therapy approach

How it works

The project adopts a parent-child based, psycho-educational approach. An inter-professional team of 4 social workers, 1 art therapist and 2 researchers oversee the project, which includes:

• Two series of 14-session group creativity workshops in a joyful, playful and safe setting
• Training sessions for parents to understand their children’s developmental needs
• Training seminars on art facilitation for professionals
• A handbook will be compiled for social workers and other professionals

Impact

The project makes use of the arts to provide a joyful, self-directed and safe platform for child victims of family violence to release their inner feelings through creative activity, facilitate effective counselling, and promote developmental growth.  At project end, the children and the parents will show improvements in expressiveness, engagement and social interaction.

Training seminars will be conducted to share the structure and execution of parent-child art facilitation workshops for social workers and other professionals, so that beyond this programme, they can continue to use art with child victims of family violence with reference of the handbook.