The articles review the strength of risk and protective factors for each of seven forms of family violence: partner physical, psychological, and sexual abuse; and child physical, psychological, and sexual abuse and child neglect. Protective as well as risk factors are discussed to aid in the identification of factors upon which to build in mitigating and treating the harm caused by various forms of family violence. The review of risk and protective factor research is one of the five stages for scientific approaches to intervention presented in the papers. The five stages discussed are defining the problem and assessing prevalence; reviewing risk and protective factor data; designing, conducting, and analyzing pilot studies of the preventive intervention programs; designing, conducting, and analyzing large-scale trials of the preventive intervention program; and facilitating large-scale implementation and ongoing evaluation of the preventive intervention program in the community. The papers are designed to provide stakeholders with a convenient summary from which to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current risk and protective factor knowledge. 12 references