On the road with Babo: learning to deal resiliently with stress and conflicts in the family

1 in 4 young children is exposed to stress, conflict and violence in the family. This violence becomes serious in 1 in 10 children. Due to corona, children recently atend less school, which impacts the degree and severity of the prevalence of violence. For instances, 1712 receives 70% more reports last months. Almost 90% of the children who suffer psychological injuries due to domestic violence remain unnoticed. This is because we do not really know how to talk about this theme with young children. Because stress and conflicts in the family are stressful for the development of children, it is important that we create a context in which it is possible to discuss domestic violence with young children. The school can play a prominent role in lowering the threshold around this theme, by talking to children (and their families) about concern and providing a learning environment where they learn to deal resiliently with difficult situations at home. This becomes all the more important when we can systematically guide children back to school after corona. That is why we are developing a 'Babo discovery journey' to lower the threshold for youg children (4-8 years) for talking about stress and conflict situations in the family (week 1). Afterwards, the teacher (supported by the care coordinator) will work with Babo during 4 theme weeks. For these theme weeks we develop teaching materials (based on the BABOtoolbox - see also www.ucll.be/babo) in which we invite the children to talk about their family, learn skills to stand up for themselves and provide tools for what they can do in the event of domestic violence (weeks 2-5). We end with a Babo classroom intervention in which each child processes difficult home experiences, and we do a Babo class dance (week 6). We evaluate the impact of the Babo intervention on the basis of the decrease in the perceived burden of the children's reported difficult family situations.