A peer-reviewed study on our BRIC program reveals what we've long known: connection heals.

Every week at The Family Co., we see women who have survived things that should never happen to anyone. They arrive, often quietly, often cautiously, carrying not just their own pain, but the weight of wondering what it has meant for their children. Whether the damage can be undone. Whether the relationship they want with their kids is still possible.

This week, we received news that matters, not just to us, but to everyone who cares about how Australia supports women and children recovering from intimate partner violence (IPV).

A peer-reviewed study evaluating our Building Resilience in Children (BRIC) program has been published in Child & Family Social Work, one of the leading international journals in our field. Conducted by independent researchers from the University of Wollongong and Western Sydney University, the study explored women's own experiences of the program, and what they found is both deeply affirming and, we believe, deeply important.

What is BRIC?

Building Resilience in Children (BRIC) is a therapeutic program The Family Co. has been delivering since 2011. Designed for mothers and their children who have experienced IPV, it consists of three successive group programs delivered over 18 weeks: Healing Connections, Circle of Security, and Growing Resilience.

It is grounded in attachment theory and trauma-informed practice. It recognises that intimate partner violence doesn't just harm the person it's directly inflicted upon. It fractures the relationship between a mother and her children, disrupts children's sense of safety, and can undermine a mother's confidence in her own parenting. BRIC exists to help rebuild all of that.

This isn't a program that treats symptoms in isolation. It wraps therapeutic support, practical tools, peer connection and individual counselling around the whole family, and it does so with the understanding that healing happens in relationship, not in a clinical vacuum.

From 2025, and building on over a decade of learning from BRIC, this work has evolved. It now lives under a new banner: our Therapeutic Domestic and Family Violence Services, providing high-quality, wraparound therapeutic support for women and children impacted by trauma, disadvantage, and domestic violence. The foundations are the same. The reach is greater.

What the women said

The researchers interviewed 15 women (ten who completed the program and five who did not) to understand their experiences in their own words. What emerged was both moving and instructive.

Women who completed BRIC described feeling safe, heard, accepted, and genuinely understood, many for the first time since leaving an abusive relationship. But what stood out most powerfully was what happened when they were in a room with other women who truly got it.

"Domestic violence can be one of the loneliest things that you go through. I felt that all of a sudden like I had a blanket wrapped around me, and it was a blanket of women who were supportive of me and saying, 'It's okay, we get it, we get you and we get what's going on, and it's okay'."

-BRIC participant

This sense of not being alone, of being believed, and of not being 'crazy' as abusive partners so often convince their victims, was transformative for many women. One participant described how hearing other women's stories reset her thinking entirely:

"At times I thought I was crazy in the relationship and started believing that it was me. I was able to talk about those things that I would not normally talk about. So, it was kind of a bit of clarity to know, you are not crazy like they were making you out to be."

-BRIC participant

This is the insidious work of coercive control. It doesn't just hurt, it makes you doubt yourself. BRIC's group model, built on empathy, safety and shared experience, directly counters that. It restores something essential: a woman's trust in her own perception of reality.

The relationship that matters most

But the study doesn't stop at the women's own wellbeing. Its most significant findings are about what changed between mothers and their children.

Women described learning to read their children differently, to understand that challenging behaviour wasn't defiance, but distress. They learned to sit with hard feelings rather than rush to fix them. They learned that being emotionally present and regulated themselves was the most important thing they could offer their kids.

"I got to understand where they were coming from. Once you start to learn about how trauma affects children and how the children's minds work with trauma, and how they can repair from it, I think it was one of the most important things that we learned."

-BRIC participant

One mother described how the program's Three Rs model (regulate, relate, reason) changed her instinctive response to her son's distress. Instead of trying to fix everything immediately, she learned to simply be present first. Another described becoming more emotionally available to her children as a result. And one participant described learning to forgive herself, perhaps one of the most difficult and most necessary steps in recovery from trauma.

Healing happens in relationship, and these women rebuilt two at once: their relationship with themselves, and with their children.

Something the research hadn't found before

The researchers note one finding that, to their knowledge, hadn't been identified before in the literature on post-IPV parenting programs: BRIC helped women manage boundaries with their ex-partners.

This matters enormously. For most women leaving a violent relationship where children are involved, the relationship with their abuser doesn't end. It continues through custody arrangements, court processes, and the countless ways an ex-partner can continue to exert control. The research found that completing the program helped women respond differently, more centred, less reactive, more focused on their family's wellbeing.

"I've learnt how to deal with him, and I've learnt how to deal with me. It's the change in how I react to him now, water off a duck's back. You know he does not hurt me anymore; his words do not hurt me."

-BRIC participant

This is wraparound support in the truest sense. Not just addressing the immediate wound, but equipping women with what they need to navigate the ongoing reality of life after violence.

The bigger picture

This research doesn't exist in isolation. In our previous blog post, we wrote about a landmark UNSW study finding that two thirds of people who experienced childhood trauma still maintained strong mental wellbeing into adulthood, and that the right support, at the right time, makes a profound difference. This new research from the University of Wollongong and Western Sydney University is, in many ways, its companion piece. It shows exactly what that right support can look like in practice.

The BRIC program is evidence that community-based, trauma-informed, relationship-centred intervention works. That women and children don't just survive, they rebuild. They reconnect. They thrive.

But the researchers also raise something we feel strongly about: programs like BRIC are resource-intensive, and they require sustained government investment to exist. The paper notes that in the absence of programs addressing the broader context of a child's experience of violence, rather than just treating symptoms, children risk receiving care that misses the root cause entirely.

We need policy that invests in prevention and recovery, not just crisis response. The evidence is there. The will needs to follow.

We are proud of what BRIC does for the families in our community. We are proud that independent researchers have found it works. And we are grateful to the women who participated in this study and allowed their experiences, their pain, their growth, their courage, to contribute to evidence that will help families far beyond our own.

Our commitment

The Family Co. has been walking alongside women, children and families for 38 years. BRIC, now evolved into our Therapeutic Domestic and Family Violence Services, is one of the clearest expressions of our belief that healing is possible: that the relationship between a mother and her child, even when it has been tested by violence and trauma, can be rebuilt with the right support around it.

If you work in health, education, community services or government and want to understand more about our Therapeutic Domestic and Family Violence Services or how we can support families in your community, we'd love to connect. And if you or someone you know needs support, please reach out. We are here.

Read the full study: 'We Get You': Women's Perceptions of the Impacts of Dyadic Groupwork for Women and Children After Intimate Partner Violence, Walsh, Spangaro & Spurway, Child & Family Social Work (2026). DOI: 10.1111/cfs.70153

Ready to make a difference? Donate at thefamilyco.org.au, or reach out to our partnerships team at [email protected] to explore how we can work together.