Program Profile: Kids Club

A multicomponent approach designed to improve behavioral and mental health in children exposed to intimate partner violence by targeting their knowledge and attitudes about family violence, their emotional adjustment, and their social behavior. The program is rated No Effects. There was no statistically significant improvement for the treatment group in measures of children’s internalizing or externalizing problems or their attitudes about family violence, compared with the control group.

A No Effects rating implies that implementing the program is unlikely to result in the intended outcome(s) and may result in a negative outcome(s).

This program's rating is based on evidence that includes at least one high-quality randomized controlled trial.

Program Goals

The Kids Club is a multicomponent approach designed to improve behavioral and mental health in children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) by targeting their knowledge and attitudes about family violence, their emotional adjustment, and their social behavior. The program focuses on promoting resilience and improving behavior for children who have witnessed IPV in their homes. The goal of the child-training component is to help children cope with their exposure to violence and change their attitudes and beliefs about violence, particularly family violence.

The program also aims to improve emotional adjustment and social behavior among children. Since being exposed to violence affects children’s ability to have positive social interactions, the program goal is to help these at-risk children adjust to a social environment, and reduce both behavioral (externalizing) problems and emotional (internalizing) problems. 

Target Population/Eligibility

The program is targeted at children who have been exposed to intimate partner violence. Children do not have to be diagnosed with clinical levels of behavioral or emotional issues to be eligible. They can be identified as having subclinical levels of behavioral issues or merely be at risk for these problems.

Program Components

The 10-week long program provides a supportive group environment for children to share their experiences, including group activities and group therapy. Children are divided into two groups by age (6 to 8, and 9 to 12) and mixed by gender. Each group has approximately five to seven children and two trained therapists to provide support. By participating in group activities, children are able to learn that they are not alone in their exposure to violence and learn social skills. Many of the group activities address family violence through displacement by using drawings, puppets, and movies.

Early therapy sessions focus on providing the children with a sense of safety, to develop a therapeutic alliance and to help them make sense of emotions related to violence exposure by creating a common vocabulary of emotions. Later sessions focus on managing emotions, conflict resolution, and strengthening family relationships.

Key Personnel

Specially trained therapists implement this program, including graduate students in clinical psychology and social work.

Program Theory

This program is based on the theory that exposure to intimate partner violence causes distress and anxiety in children. As a result of observing violence, they learn destructive patterns of behavior, attitudes, and beliefs. Children are then more likely to engage in violence and believe that it is acceptable. They are also placed at a high risk for future delinquent behavior. This program attempts to combat these negative attitudes by promoting the idea that violence is not acceptable and offers alternatives to aggression (Graham–Bermann et al. 2007).

Other Information

This program is often implemented in conjunction with the Moms’ Empowerment program. The program is also featured on the CrimeSolutions website: https://crimesolutions.ojp.gov/ratedprograms/579

Study 1

Graham–Bermann and colleagues (2007) conducted a study to evaluate the impact of the Kids Club program on children in Michigan. Children were recruited through their mothers from local social service agencies, battered women’s shelters, and through flyers and newspaper advertisements. To be eligible for the study, children had to be between the ages of 6 and 12 and have a mother who had experienced physical conflict in her relationship over the past year.

The study sample consisted of 110 boys and 111 girls, a total of 221 children. The children were randomly assigned to three conditions: child-only intervention (Kids Club), child-plus-mother intervention (Moms’ Empowerment), and a control group. First, seven children were assigned to the child-only (CO) group, the next seven to the child-plus-mother (CM) group, and the next seven to the control group (CG), with this pattern repeated until they were all assigned. The CG children were placed on a waiting list and did not participate in either intervention. CM and CO groups did not differ from CG participants in ethnicity, income, maternal age or marital status, education, child age or gender, or exposure to intimate partner violence.

The CrimeSolutions review of this study focused on the comparisons between the child-only condition and the control group.

There were 62 CO and 58 CG children who participated in the study. Both groups were interviewed at baseline right before the program began and interviewed a second time at the end of the program. The CO group was interviewed a third time, 8 months after the program ended. At the end of the 10 weeks, those in the CG group were offered a chance to participate in the program and were not interviewed a third time. Some children who received the treatment were not interviewed a third time, refused the interview, or dropped out after the program ended. The remaining 56 in the CO group participated in all three interviews.

Externalizing and internalizing behaviors were assessed, using the Child Behavioral Checklist. Mothers completed this 113-item questionnaire, rating statements about their children’s behaviors from 0 to 2, as follows: 0=“not true,” 1=“somewhat or sometimes true,” and 2=“very true or often true.” The externalizing scale includes statements about aggression and delinquency, while the internalizing scale includes statements about anxiety, depression, withdrawal, and somatic complaints.

Attitudes toward violence were also assessed, using the Attitudes About Family Violence scale, an instrument that was created for use in this study. The children were asked to rate 10 statements about violence on a 5-point scale and how much they agreed with the statement. Positive statements were reverse scored, so the higher the overall score, the more negative their attitudes toward violence. The study authors did not conduct subgroup analyses.

Training manuals are available to outline how to properly implement this program. Therapists are trained in clinical and social work and ethical issues in dealing with people exposed to violence and at-risk populations. Training is recommended to implement the program. A 6-hour training program is available on DVD.

These sources were used in the development of the program profile:

These sources were used in the development of the program profile: