Concerns for children as a factor in battered mothers' decisionmaking about change

Recent attention to the problem of children witnessing domestic violence requires social workers and other multi-disciplinary professionals to identify appropriate policy and practice responses. Battered mothers' safety decisions are often the focus of interventions to address the problem. Yet, the research is inconclusive about how battered mothers make decisions about change and how children affect those decisions. Research has linked concerns about children both to battered mothers' decisions to stay in relationships and decisions to leave relationships. This study explored those contradictory findings and examined the influence of children on their battered mothers' decisionmaking over time. Cognitive theory provided the framework for understanding how concerns for children affect battered mothers' assessments of their relationships and lead to changed attitudes and behaviors. Feminist theory explained the social context in which battered women make choices. Prochaska's transtheoretical model of change and the Kingdon policy change model provided constructs for understanding change processes at the individual and policy levels. In a qualitative design, twenty-one battered mothers completed Brown's Process of Change in Abused Women Scales (PROCAWS) and participated in open-ended interviews. The PROCAWS clustered participants into four profiles of change in their decisions about relationships with abusive partners. These profiles provided a framework for analyzing the role of change in the qualitative data themes. Mothers in all change profiles described concerns about children and took protective action on behalf of their children. Mothers' perceptions of the effects on children of witnessing domestic violence, and the extent to which children influenced their mothers' decisionmaking about change, were affected by the mother's change profile. Qualitative analysis revealed that children influence their mothers' decisions throughout the following five step change process: commitment to the relationship; reassessment, letting go of the hope that her partner will change; catalyst and choice; and change. Mothers who did not go through the essential reassessment and "letting go" steps were less likely to be catalyzed to change by child related concerns. The findings have implications for understanding the influence of children on the decisions of battered mothers, and targeting support to battered mothers' needs in each stage of change.