I first met with Alice and Janice in April 2008. I was very concerned that due to Janice witnessing horrendous domestic abuse towards mum from her father that she herself was acting out her father’s behaviour. Janice was very physical at home with mum and on occasions was violent with members of the local community and at school. Furthermore, Janice was continuing to witness abuse when she had contact with her father at weekends towards his new partner.

Janice father also consistently told her that she was the reason behind his abusive behaviour and she was not his child. He often threatened her with his own suicide and the death of her or her mother.

This was having a huge impact on Janice behaviour and she was becoming more and more violent towards her mother and peers. She was becoming more and more frustrated and could not control her anger towards other people and property.

I talked to Janice about her behaviour and her feelings towards her father, mother and stepmother. We discussed her feelings and how she could manage her anger. Janice was very cross with herself because she had witnessed her father stuff a sock down her stepmother’s throat and then proceeded to throw her down the stairs. When the police arrived Janice was so upset with her father that she told the police she would write a statement witnessing what she had seen. However, due to family pressure she then refused to make a statement against her father. Janice was very angry and upset with herself as she had witnessed her father throw her mother out of the house naked, dislocate her jaw, fracture her cheek bone, and terrorize the whole family whilst living at home.

I spoke to Janice at length about responsibility and that she could not be held responsible for her father’s abuse. We also discussed that Janice had to take responsibility for her own violent response to other people and how this could be managed.

After 6 individual sessions I invited Janice to the KidzPace group workshop consisting of 12 sessions for 2 hours a week on a Saturday morning. Janice was very keen to join the group because she felt she was the only person who had witnessed such abuse at home and wanted to meet other young people who had similar experiences.

Janice attended all the workshops with 100% attendance. Since attending Janice mother has seen a huge difference in Janice. Mum reported that Janice no longer gets angry and discuses her feelings. The college Janice attends have commented that Janice is not the same girl she was as she is so much calmer, discusses difficult situations with staff to resolve issues, focuses on her work and has passed an English GCSE project on the Splitz KidzPace programme.

Janice father is also due a trial date for trying to strangle her stepmother and Janice has now got the confidence to be a witness against her father in court. She has managed to discuss her reasons for this without getting angry with family members and now they are going to support her actions.

Janice and Alice have had one meeting with comic relief to talk about their experiences and spoke on the local BBC radio regarding the support they have received and how grateful they are to Splitz and Comic Relief. Janice mother stated that “Janice would be in care by now if Splitz had not helped.”