ACADEMICS, social workers and government officials will gather this week to discuss ways of combating family violence.

The National Family Violence Networking Symposium will focus on child abuse, the impact of spousal abuse on children, and the role of professionals, such as social workers, in breaking the cycle of violence.

Dr Sudha Nair, an assistant professor in the National University of Singapore's department of social work, said broaching the subject of children in abusive families is important 'not only for the children's sake, but for the parent's sake as well'.

She said if parents realised the harm they were doing their children through spousal abuse, they might stop.

A single violent episode can have a profound impact on children, she said.

According to a pilot study she conducted for the Centre for Promoting Alternatives to Violence, children as young as three remembered incidents of abuse.

Abusers on the other hand, were not aware of the psychological impact of spousal abuse on a child.

The 2006 study of nine families shows that the abuser and the child had different recollections of the event.

For example, children remembered the details of a fight more vividly than the abuser or the victim.

Although only nine families were studied, Dr Sudha said she hopes to continue the research once she gets approval from the Institutional Review Board, which monitors the ethical aspects of research involving human subjects.

Said Dr Sudha: 'There is a general lack of awareness that the parent's behaviour has impact.If parents become aware that they are affecting the child, then that might make a difference. We hope it might make them stop the abuse.'

Organised by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports and the Singapore Police Force, the conference will be held this Thursday.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Sep 30, 2008.