Children living in abusive households are being offered a lifeline.

For one six year-old boy, the threat was from his father - who said he would set fire to the family home if the youngster spoke out over his mother's abuse.

The child, from Glasgow, was one of more than 150 youngsters referred to a project set up to help children and their parents deal with the devastating after -effects of domestic abuse.

The Children Experiencing Domestic Abuse Recovery (Cedar) project starting running groups in April last year following a successful Scottish pilot.

Since then they have had referrals for 97 mums who have suffered violence or abuse at home, and 151 children.

As the Evening Times reported, the project was praised in parliament by Glasgow politicians, including Kelvin MSP Sandra White and Cathcart MSP James Dornan.

Cedar Glasgow - a partnership between domestic abuse advocacy service ASSIST and Glasgow Women's Aid - has been funded by the Big Lottery until September 2015. The project is run by Kirsty Calderwood, who is children's co-ordinator and Isla Guild, who works with the women involved.

There are two 12-week group programmes - one for the mums and a separate group for children - but they do some activities together.

At the project's base in the Community Safety Glasgow headquarters in London Road, the organisers told how they had worked with children who had severe anxiety issues, behavioural problems and felt guilty because their mums were being subjected to violence and manipulation at home.

In one heartbreaking case Isla said a six-year-old boy's dad told him he would "burn the house down" if he told anyone what he saw.

Isla said: "This child was very anxious and fearful to be away from his mother.

"He had been told a lot of frightening things by his dad in the past.

"He had seen his mum hit and be threatened by his dad, and his dad had threatened him that he would burn the house down or take away his favourite toys if he told anyone.

"As his parents had been separated for some time, he still felt as though his mother wasn't safe and didn't like to be away from her. He needed to know where she was all the time in order to feel safe."

Through the Cedar group the youngster felt safer and eventually told the organisers about the threats.

Isla said: "Coming to Cedar group and knowing his mum was going to the mothers' group helped him to feel more secure.

"Because he felt safe enough to tell about the threats his dad had made in the past, Cedar workers and his mum were able to reassure him that his family were safe.

"By the end of the group we were getting feedback that he was much more outgoing and was getting more vocal at home."

The project helps young people aged from four to 16.

ISLA and Kirsty use discussions, one-to one talks, fun activities for the younger age groups and home visits to help reconnect families.

The majority of parents suffering from domestic abuse are women, but the team said they would discuss setting up a group for men or carers if there was a demand for it.

People can refer themselves, and referrals also come from schools, social workers and other agencies.

Cedar works with families who are recovering from domestic abuse - so the perpetrator must not be living with the mum and child.

Kirsty said: "Often mothers might be struggling to understand why the child doesn't feel safe even when they're living in a secure environment now and the threat has passed.

"But it's part of the recovery process and we help them understand how to support their children."

Among the other cases the workers have seen is a young teenager forced to call the police because her dad was battering their mum.

Kirsty said: "Young people often have to take an active and adult role in keeping the family safe.

"But they can feel guilty about it because they see their father being taken away by police."

Isla said the aim is to increase communication between the family, which results in happier and con-fident youngsters.

She said: "Mothers have had such a hard time that they want to put it behind them but children need to talk about things - and so do the mums. We've found that by the end of the course children sleep better, are less anxious, more confident and less angry."

Project organisers said they hoped to continue after their funding ends.

The Cedar network runs groups in other parts of Scotland, including Lanarkshire and Ayrshire.

Isla added: "It's still early days in Glasgow but we're amazed with the response.

"From day one we've getting a lot of referrals so the demand is there."

Head of ASSIST Mhairi McGowan praised the project.

She said: "If we don't look at the effects of domestic abuse and children then we're failing the next generation.

If we're going to stop it we need intervention at a number of levels.

"We need support as soon as it happens, we need services for when its ongoing and we need to be doing prevention work.

"And we also need for there to be somewhere for that child's experience to be recognised and Cedar is a really good place for that to happen."

FOR MORE INFORMATION call 0141 276 7718 or visit http://www.cedarnetwork.org.uk