Helping professionals see domestic violence through a child's eyes
For more than a decade, child welfare, social work, and justice organizations in the Netherlands have used Enliven's programs to change how professionals and parents act for children in homes affected by violence. Enliven now opens these programs to organizations in the United States.
The 2027 US partner intake closes November 30, 2026.
Inside the experience
You are eight years old. It is late, and the voices downstairs are getting louder. Your little brother is standing in your doorway.
What do you do?
Every choice has a consequence in the scene. Professionals make this call from the child's position, and the facilitated dialogue that follows turns what they felt into actions they take with families the next day.
Built on one mission
Enliven was founded to protect children from the domestic violence its founder, Alex Tavassoli, lived through as a child.
In 2018, the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security recognized this work with its innovation award. Research partners including the Ministry, TNO, Saxion University of Applied Sciences, and Jeugdbescherming Overijssel, the regional child protection agency, have evaluated the programs.
Each session ends with actions professionals apply the next day
The change happens in the facilitated dialogue. The immersion makes that dialogue possible, because participants arrive at it having made the call themselves and seen its consequence.
Priming
The facilitator sets the context and the questions participants carry into the scene.
Immersion
Participants experience the situation from the perspective of a child or client and make the call at the critical moment.
Dialogue
The group connects what they felt to the families they work with and to their own professional choices.
Activation
Each participant leaves with named behaviors to apply in their next home visit, session, or case.
Families who had made no progress after years of therapy have reached breakthroughs, with parents recognizing the impact of the violence on their child.
Work with parents and families
Family practitioners use the domestic violence experience directly with parents. Inside the scene, a parent experiences the home from their child's perspective. The recognition comes in the dialogue that follows.
In other cases, practitioners report that progress which typically takes six months now takes a matter of weeks.
Where organizations use Enliven
Probation and intervention programs
The Dutch Probation Service (Reclassering Nederland) uses Enliven's domestic violence experience in its programs for people who have used violence, so participants recognize the impact of their behavior on their partners and children.
Child welfare and family services
Caseworkers, family coaches, and practitioners use the experience to recognize what children in violent homes need and to act on it in their next contact with the family.
Professional education
Universities and training academies build the experience into their programs, and Enliven certifies their facilitators to run sessions with their own staff and students.
Higher education
Social work, nursing, and pedagogy programs make the experience part of their curriculum, so students experience their future clients' perspective before their first placement.
Enliven's library also includes experiences on high-conflict divorce and on supporting people with mild intellectual disabilities. Partner organizations are currently shaping two new experiences, on autism and on sexual boundaries among young people.
Register for the 2027 US partner intake
Enliven is scoping its 2027 US program year with child welfare, victim services, and justice organizations. This intake takes about four minutes.
After you submit, Enliven contacts you to schedule a briefing. The intake closes November 30, 2026.