The occurrence of emotional abuse is under-reported and under-diagnosed. Emotional abuse was rarely the reason for a child being placed on a child protection register, but was nevertheless described as a major concern by referrers. This paper describes the work of a family center that opened in 1989 as a multiagency project to assess and treat serious child protection concerns in young families. The paper explores a number of aspects of the first 156 families to attend the center: parents' own care/abuse history, mental health difficulties, substance abuse, death of previous children, and premature births. The article also reports on a more detailed study with a subsample who have attended a therapeutic assessment, using standardized checklists. Parents reported their children as very disturbed, with little change pre- and post-attendance. However, they rated themselves as significantly improved in negative symptomatology post-attendance. Where children were school age, their teachers rated them as far less disturbed than the parents had rated them, and rated the children's behavior as improving post-attendance. Tables, figure, references