Introduction:
Domestic violence is a complex social phenomenon requiring multidisciplinary understanding and intervention. Despite the growing public awareness of it, and despite the rising attention to matters of equality, human rights and protection of vulnerable groups, its inclusion into academic programs stays fragmented. Including the theme of domestic violence into university programs is a vital component in educating future specialists in social work, psychology, law, medicine, sociology and pedagogy. This article will show how education in this sensitive matter is to combine academic knowledge with developing emotional intelligence, critical thinking and cultural sensitivity. Using interactive methods like case studies, role games, simulations, as well as analyzing personal stories and witnesses of survivors of home violence, considerably increases understanding its dynamics and consequences. Integrating it into a multidisciplinary perspective – legal, social, psychological and medical – and providing inter-institutional cooperation permits an overall understanding of the problem.

Methodology:
The study uses qualitative and quantitative analysis including:
- polls among teachers and students of Bulgarian universities;
- overview of study programs and pedagogical practices;
- interviews with experts in violence prevention.

Results:
Since 40% of interviewed students perceive the theme as ‘sensitive’ and 25 % of them share personal experiences of violence, which requires delicacy in speaking about it, the article proposes a framework for integration of the theme in study programs, based on data of local and international contexts. The main challenges in introducing domestic violence into university programs are related to the absence of standardized curricula. The study will show how combining theoretical lectures with interactive methods (cases, role games, guest lecturers) raises the effectiveness of teaching. Another important problem to stress is the established need of psychological support during sessions with students who have been themselves affected by domestic violence problems. Study results show the importance of partnerships with crisis centres for organizing practical apprenticeships to support the academic interpretation of this important social phenomenon.

The main conclusions that we are to mark in our articles are to the effect that education on domestic violence must be:
- obligatory for study courses related to human resources;
- practically oriented, with an emphasis on prevention and interdisciplinarity;
- standardized at the national level, with the respective teaching materials.

Keywords: Domestic violence, study programs, psychological support, interactive methods, inter-institutional cooperation.