Showing teenage mothers how to keep themselves and their babies safe is the most important lesson taught by the teen parenting unit at Mangakahia Area School.
Unit head Fiona McGrath said the unit's main focus was teaching young mothers strategies for keeping their babies safe.
That included being aware of possible dangers
in the home and how to cope when they had problems with their partners.
"We teach our mothers about conflict resolution and how to deal with disagreements with their boyfriends," she said.
School principal Anne Stead stressed that the school also wanted to show that parenting could be fun.
"We have a strong focus on the happiness of the baby and we teach their mothers the positive side of motherhood."
Women's refuges in Northland are also working to combat family violence - even if it means just getting the women out of the cycle of abuse.
Poppy Yates, a child care worker with Maori women's Refuge Te Puna O Te Aroha, said most of the clients that refuge staff and volunteers worked with were victims of domestic violence.
Staff were trained to look out for signs of injury or other harm on clients' children too, Ms Yates said.
Refuge workers' training included child protection studies and other programmes aimed at breaking cycles of abuse, Ms Yates said. However, while the refuge networked with other agencies, the first priority was providing a safe haven for at-risk women and children.
Regarding recent claims by lobby groups such as Family First that domestic violence was a Maori problem, Kia Ora Ngatiwai mobile health nurse Maudie Paul said the problem had more to do with socio-economics than race.
"And even if it affects Maori most, I don't think it's just a Maori issue. I think it's everyone's problem when our little ones are in danger, whether they're Maori kids or not."
She welcomed media attention on the problem, even if it reflected badly on Maori.
"I think having it under scrutiny in public forces everyone to face the issue and be accountable. It's been hushed up for too long which is why people have got away with it and other people have learned to behave the same way."
