Collaborating for Family Safety

Abstract

Over the past three decades, children exposed to domestic violence have moved from being considered “invisible victims” to being the focus of extensive social science research and the target of innovative interventions. Class action suits such as the Nicholson case have accelerated attention to these children and their families as well as accelerated changes in policy and practice. As this interest was growing nationwide, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), supported by the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, convened a national working group in the late 1990s to focus on the fragmentation of services provided to families with children where adult domestic violence was occurring. The children in these families may have been direct victims of child abuse and neglect and/or exposed to the violence between adults in their homes. The result was a set of best practice guidelines published in 1999 as Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment: Guidelines for Policy and Practice. This document has become known as the Greenbook, deriving its name from the color of its cover.