After the violence

Bending over the tiny cot, the little girl gently lays down her dolls and places a blanket over them. "I'm trying to keep them warm so they can go to sleep," she explains. Behind her, an 11-year-old is hunched over a table as she concentrates on cutting out a strip of shiny gold paper for her card. "I'm making it for Christmas," she says, as she glues the strip to the edge of the paper.

The playcentre is full of toys and books, and nothing about it suggests that there is anything out of the ordinary about it – or its young inhabitants. But the address is a closely guarded secret. No sign marks its entrance and visitors are only allowed through the intercom-guarded front door after strict vetting.

The centre, attached to one of the 15 safe houses run by domestic violence charity Refuge, is a unique place for the children of women who have fled domestic violence.

Domestic violence is a core housing issue. Yesterday, minister for women Barbara Roche announced new figures showing that domestic violence is an issue for seven out of 10 households that are accepted as homeless. Every year, domestic abuse is directly accountable for 16% of the people on local authority homelessness lists.

The three members of staff at Refuge's playcentre care for up to 45 children at a time, ranging in age from two to 11 years old. Refuge's children's programme also includes a holiday club and counselling service. They are vital in adding stability to the lives of mothers and their children, which helps families fleeing abuse to sustain their tenancies once they have been rehoused and to return to normal life. Staff help the youngsters cope with their feelings of confusion, anger and frustration.

The playcentre is a place where they can release their emotions. Seven-year-old Jamie says: "Before I came to Refuge I had butterflies in my tummy all the time and now I feel like they have flown out of my tummy through my mouth."

Like many other children caught up in domestic violence, Jamie was too scared to tell anyone what was happening. He simply looked on in horror as the shouting between his parents got louder and the blows from his father became more and more frequent.

Unable to speak out because they are scared, frightened of upsetting their parents or sparking more abuse, children like Jamie keep their fears bottled up. They arrive at the refuges having left behind everything that is familiar to them – their homes, school, toys and pets – and the effects of this stress can manifest in a number of ways.

"Children can react in a variety of ways to what they have witnessed," says Ruth Aitken, an educational psychologist at the charity. "They can become withdrawn, aggressive, afraid. Some may blame their mothers for making them leave everything behind and many of them will have been keeping what was going on at home a secret for years and they can be suffering from low self-esteem and a lack of confidence."

Refuge's children's programme uses play as a form of therapy and encourages children to take part in role-plays, drawing and painting. The youngsters also learn to build trusting relationships with adults and to relate to their friends without the fear of abuse – a factor that has been such an integral part of their young lives.

Although there is only one play centre, the counselling service is based at two Refuge locations and they work with children at all of the charity's refuges. The counselling continues after they and their mothers have moved into permanent housing.

Refuge's aim is that the children's programme should be available to children in all of its safe houses. Expanding the service is important because many of these children find it hard to sustain friendships because they can't go out or invite friends back home. Leaving a violent home can also mean being pulled out of school so that the children can't be tracked down by their father. Aitken has met eight-year-olds who have no concept of what it is to have a friend or to be a friend.

A child can live in a Refuge for as much as 18 months before the family is rehoused. As the family move around, the children's education inevitably suffers, all the more so if they have special needs.

Aitken says there is a need for a joined-up approach to help families mix into a community: "There are so many kids that we need to help and we need to branch out into health, social services and housing through a coordinated strategy."

In the course of a year, Refuge's services help up to 600 children – but there are more that need help, and that can't happen without more money.

Reflecting on what a playcentre like this can achieve in the long term, one worker says simply: "A few of the kids who have come here have returned to visit us and it's just amazing when you see how they have moved on and got on with their lives. That gives you a great feeling of achievement."