Thank you for the question.
One of the benefits would be to enable children to understand what they are experiencing sooner, to take the responsibility off their shoulders and let them know that help is available for them somewhere. I spoke earlier about difficulties in accessing help, but there are a lot of benefits in offering specialized services. When children can talk about what is happening, when they are able to understand the situation, when they can distinguish the violent behaviour from the person engaging in it, when they know it is unacceptable and it doesn't happen in all families, then certainly that will enormously reduce the impact of the violence.
The research that has been done in the last 30 years has shown that the impact of exposure to spousal violence was as serious as suffering the violence directly. This is a well-known fact, but it seems that this information has not been absorbed by the general public and by services that don't specialize in violence. As well, that information doesn't seem to be taken into account in assessing these children's needs. My research with young adults and a lot of other studies have shown that the consequences of exposure to spousal violence last beyond the age of 18.
Services have to be offered more proactively by going and getting the young people where they are, in school, for example. My colleagues have talked about prevention, which is very important. But we also have to offer help when young people disclose the troubles they are experiencing. On average, four to six children in a class are exposed to spousal violence. The school could be a good place to offer proactive services.