Trauma supports lacking for Manitoba children who witness intimate partner violence: report

A Manitoba report into how family violence affects children who witness it suggests that every two hours, a child is exposed to a police-reported case of intimate partner violence.

Louise recalls how physical violence between her mother and father would escalate to the point where police were called to the family’s homes in Winnipeg and in the First Nations community where they lived for some of her childhood.

Now a young adult, she says officers failed to acknowledge her and she was scared of being taken from her parents.

Her parents never received the help they needed for anger management and addictions, and Louise says it wasn’t until she went into the child welfare system that she received mental health support to cope with the violence she witnessed.

Louise’s story is one of those featured in a report released Wednesday by the Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth’s office on how intimate partner affects children who witness it. To protect their privacy, the report used pseudonyms for the young people who shared their stories.

The research suggests that every two hours, a child in the province witnesses a police-reported case of intimate partner violence.

“This finding is deeply concerning because it is well established that exposure to intimate partner violence in childhood can be traumatic for young people. Growing up around violence can shatter feelings of safety and lead to mental health and other challenges that can be lifelong,” says Ainsley Krone, who is Manitoba’s acting child and youth advocate.

The report followed 671 children exposed to intimate partner violence during a one-month period in 2019 to better understand their contact with public systems and the responses from police and other agencies.

The report found Indigenous children and youth were overrepresented, making up 82 per cent of the cases where children and youth were exposed to intimate partner violence.