by | January 6, 2026 · 4:01 pm

Inside the Kaleidoscope

Notes from a Pedagogical Study on Child-to-Parent Violence in Italy 

The first in our international contributions comes from Italy. Specifically, Monica Facciocchi, PhD Candidate in Education in Contemporary Society. Here Monica explores her journey into Child-to-parent violence research, and the importance of international collaborations.

  1. From a radical experience deeply rooted in the folds of educational practice

I enrolled on a three-year degree course in Education Sciences because I wanted to work with children in nurseries. Without downplaying the importance of this field of work, I never thought I would have to deal with violence and families whose wounds were so deep and fresh that they were still bleeding. I first encountered the lives and stories of troubled teenagers and their families about ten years ago. Having recently graduated, I was ready to enter the world of work as a professional educator. The first services I worked in were residential communities for minors from difficult backgrounds. However, I chose to change my path because I felt I needed to listen to and welcome what often no one wants to approach: what we pretend not to see, yet which affects us all with its devastating, disruptive impact. I wanted to accompany people to see not so much the light at the end of the tunnel — nothing so salvific — but at least a possible path, a possible way forward. I approached stories as carefully as I would handle crystal, to help people see the beauty that is always hidden somewhere. 

Violence. The kind I have witnessed first-hand, felt on my own skin, and had to acknowledge in my own story and in those of others. My desire has always been to break the cycle of ill-fated, predetermined destinies and promote metamorphosis. You only see the butterfly after it has been a chrysalis. How does the saying go? ‘The flutter of a butterfly’s wings can cause a storm on the other side of the world.’ Supporting those wingbeats is what I want to do. I believe this sparked my interest in such a delicate and complex issue as the one I am about to discuss. I am not a ‘classic academic’. I never have been. I ended up doing a PhD partly because of events that happened to me, partly thanks to important people and mentors who have influenced my life, and partly because of small choices that I made over time without any grand design or great aspiration to change the world. However, I have always striven for change and transformation. The path that led me to doctoral research was challenging, a turning point and a leap into the unknown.

A few years ago in October, I was in the office of my thesis supervisor, Professor Pierangelo Barone – one of the people I could never thank enough for encouraging me to take the leap I mentioned. At one point, Alessandro Rudelli, an honorary judge at the Milan Juvenile Court – a brilliant, sensitive and humble figure, which is no small thing – entered the office and began talking about an issue he had conducted quantitative research on in court: child-to-parent violence. This marked the beginning of a collaboration between individuals and professionals who were directly involved in working with ‘difficult’ families and adolescents. When I started researching child-to-parent violence in Italy, I had no idea where this path would lead. I had encountered a form of violence towards parents by their children in the lives of the people I had worked with as an educator, but I hadn’t really dealt with it. In Italy, I found very little literature or research on the subject: just a few articles in the fields of criminology, sociology and psychology. However, as an academic in the field of education, I was struck by an absence: where was the voice of education in all this? My research essentially arose from this absence, and ultimately from a desire to restore pedagogy to its central role as a space for reflection and mediation between disciplines and translation between worlds. This would enable it to engage with the complexity of situations rather than reducing them. 

  1. The beginning of a search: points of light and areas of shadow

So I began my research. Understanding the subject was extremely difficult: there were multiple definitions, characteristics and risk factors, and few studies on how to prevent this type of violence. The first step, therefore, was to collect case files from the Juvenile Court of Milan, which had privileged access to the tortuous paths of families with violent children. After receiving approval from the court’s president, Dr Maria Carla Gatto, in the summer of 2024, I visited the court almost daily to read what are known as ‘administrative files’ in Italy. These files contain documents and reports written by various professionals, such as psychologists, social workers, educators, psychiatrists and doctors, as well as law enforcement officers. These documents aim to narrate and capture, from a specific disciplinary perspective, the turbulent journeys of families in difficulty. Particular focus is given to the re-educational dimension that characterises the interventions to be carried out with minors.

At the same time, I undertook another investigation guided by a different question: what interventions are currently being implemented in Italy to support families, parents, and adolescents experiencing these challenges? The answer lay in a single project that explicitly addressed this type of violence in Italy: the ‘Le Querce’ project, run by the ‘Gruppo Abele’ non-profit organisation. Le Querce offers psychoeducational support to parents and provides a safe apartment where they can stay when the situation at home becomes unbearable, when “home” is no longer safe, secure, familiar or habitable. Immersing myself in the project was particularly significant for me. I witnessed first-hand the suffering, the boundless love bordering on self-annihilation and the sacrifices bordering on martyrdom. Essentially, it was a moving story of pain, but above all of boundless love and lost hope. 

I wondered what the widespread perception was of a phenomenon so often confined within the family home in Italy, and what the public narrative surrounding it was. I discovered that many parents were asking for help on the online forum Quora. This forum allows anyone to ask questions of any kind, which anyone can answer. Setting aside the possibility that these questions could have been posted by fake profiles, I was struck by the hundreds of responses from the public. Many responses praised a return to violence as a method of education and blamed parents who were unable to educate their children in a way that was often harsh and stigmatising. This secondary victimisation meant that not only did parents feel guilty for not being the ‘good parents’ they had imagined themselves to be, but they were also criticised for being victims of violence. They went from being victims to being guilty of that same violence.

  1. The challenging and necessary task of narrating violence: the birth of the blog “incatrAmare”

The blog ‘incatrAmare’ was born out of a total lack of accessible, curated, filtered, valid and concrete information and content for the general public regarding the phenomenon of child-to-parent violence. I realised the need for greater dissemination of informed information through the interviews I conducted with professionals and parents as part of the ‘Le Querce’ project, as well as from the devastating lack of effective, welcoming and understanding support highlighted by comments on the Quora platform. The name ‘incatrAmare’ is made up of two Italian words: ‘tar’ and ‘love’. It is the term that a mother used in one of my interviews to describe her experience with a violent son: tarred, entangled and trapped, yet still full of love. Inspired by the content and structure of Helen Bonnick’s blog, ‘Holes in the Wall’, I decided to start this informative blog, and I am now delighted to contribute a fragment of my work and research history to it. ‘IncatrAmare’ was created to act as a bridge between academic research, work and training experiences in Italy, local scientific publications, and the wider public: parents, professionals, students, and individuals interested in understanding more about a widespread yet rarely discussed phenomenon. The blog includes a section dedicated to mapping organisations and professionals in Italy who devote part of their work to responding to child-to-parent violence in terms of training or intervention. Additionally, the site hosts research, publications, and events related to the topic within the Italian context.  One section of the blog recounts my research journey and the publications I have produced on the subject. Another section hosts articles that I have written with a popular science focus. Finally, there is an open section where anyone can contact me directly to publicise an initiative, request help or ask for further information.

  1. A glimpse into the methodology

My research gradually expanded to include various fields, such as the Milan Juvenile Court, the Le Querce project, and the online forum Quora, as well as various objects, including administrative files, interview transcripts, and Quora blog comments. These differences were reflected in the various methods used to collect data: document analysis, mediated interviews and netnography. The mediated interview is characterised as both a semi-structured interview and a process involving the use of black-and-white photographs chosen by the researcher to evoke the symbolic and unconscious dimensions of lived experiences. Netnography, on the other hand, is characterised as the systematic, interpretative and contextual analysis of conversations published by users within the questions and answers on the platform. The aim is to understand the communities that form around the topics covered, and their attitudes, values, discursive practices, motivations and social dynamics. Therefore, the research takes the form of a multiple case study in which different narratives and perspectives coexist, beginning with some common ground. First and foremost, the study’s queries: 1) How can the pedagogical perspective contribute to the theoretical understanding of child-to-parent violence? 2) What methods and tools for education can be used to support interventions in cases of child-to-parent violence, and in what way? Secondly, all the collected data is textual in nature. I have decided to conduct a thematic analysis through the lens of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach. I chose this approach because literature on educational and family pedagogy, as well as research into child-to-parent violence, has often used this framework successfully to understand family dynamics. This framework considers family dynamics as a whole, rather than focusing on one element, and highlights the elements that co-occur with specific phenomena within families.

  1. Research abroad: the approach of Nonviolent Resistance in Ireland

During my studies of existing interventions for cases of child-to-parent violence, I was most interested in the Nonviolent Resistance approach, which was initially developed by Professor Haim Omer. This approach involves working directly with parents to establish what the aforementioned scholar calls ‘new parental authority’ by being present for the child and resisting violent behaviour. Parental responsibility and duty should not be understood in an individualistic way, confined within the family sphere, but rather as a task that parents undertake with the support of the wider educational community. From an educational point of view, I found Professor Declan Coogan’s development of NVR training for social workers in the Irish context particularly interesting. I met Professor Coogan at a conference in Amsterdam, and I am currently at the University of Galway. I conducted research with Declan and Maria Power from the Western Region Drug and Alcohol Task Force on the strategies and learning contexts that characterise NVR training for social workers. I also had the opportunity to learn more about some of the services Ireland has developed to provide professional support to struggling parents, such as Parentline — a free, confidential helpline offering support, information and guidance on all aspects of parenting.

  1. Between the cracks: an opportunity for discussion

In the stories I have collected from courts, social centres and online posts, violence never appears as an isolated act. Rather, it is an extreme form of communication, a desperate cry for help. A child who screams, pushes and breaks things does not necessarily want to destroy; often, they simply want to be heard by a world that no longer knows how to welcome them. A parent who defends themselves, remains silent, or gives in is not just a victim; they have lost their voice and are unable to express their pain. If we understand pedagogy in its deepest sense as the art of relationships and transformation, it can help us precisely here: to interpret violence without justifying it and to give it human meaning beyond pathological or legal considerations.

In the face of such intimate and painful suffering, I believe that pedagogy should not offer immediate solutions, but spaces for thought. Pedagogy is not only the science of ‘how to do’, but ‘how to think’ – and perhaps we need the latter more today. Thinking pedagogically does not mean intervening to ‘correct’ the family, but rather accompanying it in generating meaning and significance within a broader framework. This blog is aptly titled Holes in the Wall: the walls represent silence, shame and isolation. However, it is the holes and cracks that allow us to breathe, look outside and glimpse the other. In a sense, my research seeks precisely this: gaps in the Italian discourse on child-to-parent violence. Every story, if we really listen to it, can become an opportunity for learning. Perhaps when we start to consider violence as something to be understood rather than merely endured or judged, we have already begun to transform it.

Thank you to Monica for this blog, and we are sure her reflections will be the first of many blogs from across the world demonstrating how violence must be understood, and through this understanding we can attempt to prevent it.

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by | December 11, 2025 · 1:51 pm

International perspectives on CAPVA

Since retiring last year, I have continued to maintain a close interest in “Holes” and particularly the
idea of themes being developed through a number of different posts. Both Adoption and
Mothering have been covered recently, and we move on now to an exploration of “International
perspectives on CAPVA.”
I have been looking through old notes and blog posts thinking about the way awareness of both
the issue and – importantly – the work of people in other places has grown over the years. When I
wrote my Masters dissertation in 2006 I had come across some limited research papers from
Europe and Australia, the United States and Canada, as well as Japan, and news reports from
elsewhere around the globe; but there was a sense of breaking new ground and of being met with
scepticism and of isolation.
Writing in 2013, (https://holesinthewall.co.uk/2013/05/29/child-to-parent-violence-insights-fromspain/ ) I was aware that the research body was already much larger and that Spain in particular
had a rich library of work and had hosted an international conference in 2011 following a real
growth of interest around the world.
Since then, personal contacts, conferences and Google Alerts have brought to my attention the
interest and awareness across all continents. International research groups have formed. And of
course not just research but the realisation that this is indeed a worldwide issue, not confined to a
particular profile of parent or society. A realisation that causes both great excitement and great
sadness.
Recent publications (all listed on the Reading List page if you would like to peruse them) come
from Central and South America, different countries in Africa, western and eastern Europe, Asia,
China, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Different ways of organising society, different
models of family, different global circumstances, different levels of provision … new questions,
new angles, new learning.
Each new insight adds a new piece to the jigsaw puzzle as we strive – as a common community –
to understand the issue and most importantly to bring hope and healing to families.
I look forward to reading the posts over the next weeks as this new theme develops and hope you
will too. Please do join in the conversation – write something for us, let us know about other work,
add your comments

Helen Bonnick

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by | December 8, 2025 · 4:30 pm

The right support

For the final part of our series on motherhood, we have a submission from ‘Kelly’, who found herself “rock bottom” in 2023…

“We now have a situation in which staff feel they are compelled to give your child exactly what he wants, on his own terms, in order to avoid an outburst.  He does not appear able to cope with a situation in which he does not get his own way.”

Email from my child’s headteacher, March 2023.

Just re-reading that email has brought back how I felt when I read it, prior to my son, age 7, being excluded from school due to his harmful impulses.  I felt at rock bottom – totally desperate and alone.  In the months that followed, I wasn’t sure we would ever be in a position where we could have any kind of quality of life.  My child was at home, with me, and I was left to manage these behaviours for the most part, alone.  I wasn’t sure how he would ever be able to access any kind of education.  I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to my job – something I had worked hard for and loved.  We were in a deep, dark hole and I could not see any way out.  My son had started to internalise that he was ‘bad’ and ‘naughty’ and I constantly felt judged as a parent (something which I now realise is a common, shared experience).

As I write this and reflect on a traumatic time, I feel very emotional.  How I felt then, could not be further from how I feel writing this today.

In September 2023, after 6 months away from education (which felt like such a long time, but now I speak to parents who have children in similar situations who have been out of school for years), my son joined an SEMH (Social, Emotional, Mental Health) primary school. To say that our experience with this school has been life-changing is not an exaggeration.

Going back to school, after a period of time away, is difficult for any child; especially for a child who associates education with a negative experience. Those first few weeks, getting him into school was tough. The difference? Professionals who understood his needs and supported him.  The difference for me – no longer getting at least one phone call a day (another shared experience, I’ve found, is the feeling of your heart sinking when you see ‘School’ flash up on your mobile!). 

We are now two years into our SEMH specialist education journey and my son is happy and confident. I always say we are now thriving, not just surviving. Here are our highlights:

  • Amazing, amazing, amazing staff.  Working with SEMH children isn’t easy.  The staff fully understand the needs of each individual child – in mainstream, it always felt like my child’s behaviour was something to be controlled, rather than understood, for the sake of the other children in the class. Smaller classes and more adults allow each child to focus on learning.
  • Opportunities – behaviour was such a concern that things like trips and experiences would be limited in mainstream.  SEMH school has allowed my son to fully partake in school life – the joy of seeing your child perform in a school Christmas production when you didn’t think that would ever be a possibility – or the confidence to send him away for a residential.  Just amazing!
  • Reflection – children are encouraged to reflect on harmful behaviour both in school and at home. I can communicate with school, so he is held accountable by a professional he respects.  We have benefitted from parent-school meetings with the parent support advisor, teachers and the CAMHS worker attached to the school. We discussed behaviour as a family and came up with a clear plan for home.  This has really supported our home relationships to be positive. I’ve never felt judged, only supported.
  • An opportunity to meet other parents in the same position.   

I hope that this post has demonstrated that it is possible, as both a parent and child, to come out of a dark place.  I’m sure we will face more challenges in the future but I now feel supported by professionals and able to face these.

I know not all families are lucky to have fantastic SEMH provision. I think it is so important to recognise that mainstream can not always provide this targeted intervention.  I believe that proper investment from the government in SEMH provision and staff, would support children who are at risk of exclusion or disengaging from school (and therefore more likely to be at home engaging in harmful behaviours that involve family or carers), to be happy, understand themselves and positively contribute to society.  It is my dream that all families can benefit from this in the way we have.

‘Kelly’ and her family are the perfect example of how small changes (such as an appropriate school provision) can have a profound impact on quality of life of a whole family. Do you have such positive examples? Do let us know if you do!

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by | December 4, 2025 · 2:08 pm

1,000 children

It’s taken a little while to pull together some thoughts regarding the recent BBC article on the adoption crisis which has forced many children back into care: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0kdv1x83gko

You can read Jane Griffith’s eloquent response on behalf of CAPA to this here: Jane’s response

This piece seems to solidify much of what we have spoken about over over two recent themes: adoption and motherhood. Whilst the focus of the article is very much on parents, and we should never minimise the impact on fathers (indeed we plan to have this as a focus soon!), it was Verity who was arrested after her son accused her of assault, it was Verity who felt suicide may be her only option for escape; and both parents were threatened with prosecution for abandonment. Overall, the piece is a frustrating demonstration of what adoption activists have been talking about for well over a decade. Why has so little changed?

The article is harrowing, and the journalism and efforts of the families to explore the complexity families are often having to juggle alone is done with sensitivity for everyone concerned. As Fiona Wells and PATCH frequently state, if the money is there to place children back into care, the money is there to support the families to prevent this from happening. Traumatised children and teenagers not only require, but deserve compassion and support, and by leaving this the sole responsibility of their adoptive parents means that trauma is prolonged and experienced vicariously.

In the article, Liam, a teenager who was returned to care reflects “I think if social services had sorted themselves out, and I think if we had sorted ourselves out, personally, we could have pushed through and maybe it would have been a different situation“. This is an important reflection by Liam, who recognises a family’s desire to improve their circumstances (“if we had sorted ourselves out“), but this cannot be done without services stepping in to provide the required support (“if social service had sorted themselves out“). Thus, this is not about blame, but about recognising the value of working together to support traumatised children and the parents who love them. If a 17 year old can understand that, why does the law find it so difficult?

John Stuart Mill (English philosopher) famously stated that a moral society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. Reflecting on this idea in the context of the article, where traumatised children are left without intervention, and parents seeking support are threatened with police action… it’s a damning indictment of where we may and how far we have left to go.

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by | November 22, 2025 · 9:00 am

Mothering, a series

This series on motherhood has been incredibly evocative.

Mothering is often as much an identity as it is a title, and there is something deeply painful when things go wrong. Sophie Cero’s work captures this agony beautifully in her PhD work; that living with filial harm can feel like being stuck in a horror film, particularly as a mother. Artistic representations of child-to-mother conflict, violence, abuse have been captured in so many ways that it feels deeply meaningful that Sophie was able to capture this in a variety of artistic modalities… capturing more than words alone ever could.

The mother as both “the victim and creator of the problem” is also something captured in Kia Abdullah’s “what happens in the dark”, reviewed by Sarah Griffiths. Centralising the mother and her relationships within the story, brought to the fore the complexity of what it is to be a woman; to have a career, a marriage, friendships, a child and so many experiences that remain untold. Many experiences remain hidden and “child to parent violence and abuse” feels very much hidden by a woman who is trying to be the best in every aspect of her life. An experience which resonates with many mothers, I am certain.

Mothers often have to advocate for themselves and their child(ren), and having allies in this area is important. That’s why we were so please to see the Oxford University piece of Professor Rachel Condry. Rachel has been a firm supporter of mothers navigating justice systems and safeguarding systems. Her work has been ground-breaking in recognising the challenges experienced by mothers, and how much of the harm they endure is due to the position they need to take up as caregiver. This role of ‘mother’ is often viewed by services as their primary identity, ignoring the complexity of women. This subsumed mothering identity was also explored by Abi Jones in her heart-wrenching blog highlighting how important it was for her to make sense of what was happening to her and her children when services ignored her desperate need for help.

We will soon come to the end of our Motherhood series, but it is clear this will not be the end of us talking about mothers.

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by | November 12, 2025 · 4:38 pm

A personal story

As part of our series on motherhood, we have the great privilege of hearing from Abi. This is a very personal story, and an important one to hear about.

Ten years ago exactly, I fled my comfortable, affluent south-west London home in the face of continued and increased physical violence, threats of violence, control and intimidation by my then 16-year-old son (his GCSE year) and verbal abuse from my then 19-year-old daughter (enduring her first year at university).  I fled because no one helped or explained what was actually going on, and my social circle had been stripped away by their father.  I was already estranged from my equally abusive family and, because I’d left my life partner, his too.

I fled because social services declared that “nothing had happened yet” when I phoned for immediate help (as recommended by social services )when I discovered two curved Swedish hunting knives under my son’s pillow and a copy of Andy McNab’s book, “The Good Psychopath’s Guide to Success”.  I fled because my GP wouldn’t come near.  I fled because six officers from the Metropolitan Police, who arrived at teatime in a small cul-de-sac, declared (after consulting with my children upstairs) that I was the problem and took my children away to be picked up by their dad for a few days, only for the very real and personal threats and/or indifference to continue, nevertheless.  Eventually, I left the country and “went travelling” for three months to try and make sense of the unimaginable.  I’m still working on that one.  Heartbreak and inner conflict doesn’t touch the sides.  However, at least I can now put it, when some people do ask what’s gone on, as “I exceeded my use-by date”. 

Only recently did I become aware of Helen Bonnick’s book, this website and, therefore, the other online resources and support systems that are out there.  It’s such an overwhelming relief to know I’m not actually alone with all this.  My latest GP practice and local mental health services are now very open to listening to my opinions and experience, rather than their analysis; which is a big leap forward, in my view.  That TV drama is also highlighting this cause is a great help in wording the unwordable.  I only have to ask, “Did you watch Adolescence?”

Ten years later, I’m grateful to be very alive, sane and healthy.  Many of us don’t make it, quite understandably, or become lost in the psychiatric system and/or — just as painfully — complete loneliness, exhaustion and alienation.  I’m glad to be contributing to this conversation and cause.  My MP listened to me recently and has presented my/our case in Parliament this session.  So, there will be a definition of CAPVA in the upcoming Violence Against Women and Girls strategy.  I’ve been promised continued updates and have offered my continued input, as I believe this should go far wider than VAWG, to include fathers as well.  However, it is, at least, a start and discussions are being had.

This is just a fraction of what I’d like to say, but I hope it resonates and might help you also make a bit of sense in the chaos of things.  Thanks for reading.

Abi Jones

Thank you to Abi for sharing her experience, and I hope by reading her story, you feel less alone if this is similar to your own experiences. The giant leaps forward in understanding that Abi highlight have only been possible thanks to the parents advocating for themselves and sharing their stories with those in a position to create change. We can only hope in the next 10 years we see an even greater shift thanks to women like her.

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by | November 5, 2025 · 1:19 pm

From pubs to pioneer – Adolescent-to-parent violence research from Professor Rachel Condry

It was wonderful to see this piece on Professor Rachel Condry. Published by the University of Oxford, highlighting her journey into academia, her pioneering research into adolescent-to-parent violence, and her upcoming research project.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/pulse/politics-business-economy/rachel-condry

Rachel has been a long time advocate for challenging assumptions around family harm, a supporter of HITW, and we particularly like this quote from the piece

“‘What we need is for people to be asking the right questions and, for that to happen, the problem has to be named in policy and in local authority documents. Families shouldn’t automatically be seen as part of the problem. Professionals need the curiosity to understand what people are really experiencing.”

Let us know what you think.

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by | October 24, 2025 · 10:49 am

Book review – What Happens in the Dark, Kia Abdullah, 2025, published by HQ

We were very pleased to receive this book review to contribute to part of our mothering series.

Book Review

Helen [Bonnick] asked me to review this book because she knew I would enjoy the style. It’s a court room drama but with lots of other stories woven through. The author is compared favourably to John Grisham on the cover so that was a good omen! I read it in a couple of days, but that’s partly because I have some spare time at present. It was very gripping though and every time I put it down I was wondering what happened next. 

The characters are full of colour and very believable. I really warmed to some of them and wanted to carry on reading about their lives after the end of this story.

I knew that Helen had given the author some advice on the story line, as well as Penny Willis and Michelle John, and so I had an idea there would be a child to parent violence and abuse angle. Ostensibly it’s about a famous woman caught up in a domestic abuse tragedy. She is hiding so many things in her life, not just about the abuse, but also about her background and relationships. Even with my suspicions about what was really going on at home, I was intrigued how the twists and the great reveal would work out and I kept looking for little hints. Kia Abdullah really keeps you waiting though!

When it came at the end, I was pleased that here was a mainstream novel covering such an important issue, but a bit disappointed that it all felt a bit rushed and a bit like a lecture – giving facts and figures. Family violence like this is rarely straightforward and there was some thought about the different things that might have led the characters to behave as they did. It does portray a very particular aspect of child to parent abuse though, at the very extreme end, and not everyone will find it a comfortable read. If it opens up discussion and questions though that’s got to be a good thing! I would definitely recommend it both as a gripping read in its own right, and as a way of starting to think about what is happening behind closed doors in too many families around the country. 

Sarah Griffiths. 

https://www.hqstories.co.uk/books/what-happens-in-the-dark-kia-abdullah-9780008570026/

As Sarah states, it’s great such a high profile author is covering these themes, and we hope to see more stories exploring the very individual aspects of filial harm in the future.

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by | October 13, 2025 · 9:42 am

Sophie Cero PhD- Holes in the Wall update.

We last heard from Sophie Cero in October 2018 (https://holesinthewall.co.uk/2018/10/31/an-eye-for-detail-an-interview-with-sophie-cero/) when she was starting her Fine Art PhD, taking a unique approach to investigating the violence from a child to their parent. Now that this is completed, Sophie has written us an update and included some art work from the research. While other people have used art work as part of the therapeutic process, as a diary record, or as a method of illustrating research, this was the first time that the whole project has been undertaken from a visual point of view. 

You might find it helpful to reread the earlier blog first to remind yourself about her work.

Sophie is the first in our ‘mothering’ series, and we are happy to welcome her back to HITW

Explored through my artistic practice, in writing, film and objects, my Royal College of Art, PhD research project ‘Little Horror. At home with filial violence’, sought to make visible the maternal experience of CAPVA, which, as perhaps the last taboo, is one of the few instances where it is almost impossible for a mother to own and tell her own life story. Revealing it challenges the very nature of motherhood and places the mother in the role of both victim to and creator of the problem. Someone who she may love and fear simultaneously, and who above all, she wants nurture and to keep safe. To turn away from nurture and to reject the child for reasons of safety is almost impossible, every turn has a devastating consequence, every aspect of life into trauma in waiting, making the mother trapped in an impossible life with an impossible child. This mother must both protect and survive her child.

In the seven years of study, the most compelling finding I have encountered is how commonplace the experience is. When describing my research, I found it astounding how many people had had an encounter with it in some form, be it from a sibling, a neighbour or their own child. On the opposite side to this, I had several instances of open disbelief, of misunderstanding, of incredulity, with the listener being convinced that surely, I had mis-spoken, I must have meant the mother being abusive to her child. 

Working through art practice as opposed to more traditional research strategies, allowed me to develop my own methodology and to form an inquiry that would be hard, if not impossible to replicate through usual research gathering approaches. It allowed me to think around the spaces of events within the home, and to find common themes that occur within objects and places, and commonalities across different ages of mother and child. 

Finding no existing direct artistic representations, my research sought out contemporary parallels that held elements of the experience within them, in art, film and literature, taking a wide frame of reference from disparate sources ranging from Lacan to Family Guy. This study was initially underpinned by the idea of CAPVA being akin to ‘the maternal unheimlich’, considering Freud’s writing on The Uncanny, when viewed through a maternal frame. This led to the realisation that CAPVA bears resemblance to the horror film genre, relating to key elements such as ‘the scary place’, ‘the final girl’ and ‘the ominous atmosphere’. This applied to all horror tropes except for that which makes horror exciting, enticing and unpredictable, ‘the jumpscare’. Here the scares are expected and known.

I worked with existing testimonies from mothers that highlighted domestic objects as being integral to violence within the walls of the home, the objects acting as if witnesses to events. This methodology allowed for difficult stories to be retold and represented through a universalised, fictional birth mother and her (ungendered) child, Mymmy and Vic, as holders of trauma events.

I used a process of writing and diagrammatic drawing to analyse and represent the episodes of abuse, with the final outcome being to assimilate the ‘object events’ into a film script, which documents a day/18 year period of the relationship between Mymmy and Vic. It is my intention to further the research and to find funding to realise the film script in the near future.

Since embarking on the project in 2017, when research was sparse and awareness very limited, it is heartening to see that interest in the subject has increased and I hope this will continue.

Suggested Image(s)

Sophie Cero. Safeguarding wallpaper (Christmas edition) 2024

Sophie Cero. Object Event (crockery) 2021 – diagrammatic timeline drawing

Sadly it is not possible to read the final paper as it has been embargoed to protect those involved, but Sophie is on Instagram as sophie_cero and you can view more of her work there.

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by | October 3, 2025 · 9:40 am

Post-Adoption Support in Crisis: Families Speak Out 

If you are at all interested in Adoption and LinkedIn, you will already be aware of Claire Agius, a PhD student from Manchester Metropolitan University, who has recently submitted her PhD and kindly created a post on her emotionally-aware research with adoptive parents for the final blog on our adoption series.

Adoption is one route to permanence for children who cannot remain with their birth families. Many have lived through neglect, abuse, or significant early adversity. Adoptive parents step forward to provide stability and care, but they cannot heal trauma alone. When systems delay, misdirect, or fragment support, families are left carrying unbearable burdens, and the stability adoption promises is put at risk. 

My doctoral study explores the impact of raising a child with trauma on adoptive parents’ mental health and examines how systemic structures help or hinder families. Conducted between 2022 and 2025, the research combined in-depth interviews with adoptive parents and post-adoption professionals with a participatory, film-based process that enabled parents to revisit and re-interpret their own stories. Parents co-edited emotional “touchpoints” from their filmed interviews, first for emotional processing, and later for collaborative meaning-making. This innovative two-stage process revealed not only what families said in the moment, but how they later understood their struggles, providing rare insight into why problems persist across time. 

Methods and Approach 

The study engaged adoptive parents and post-adoption professionals across England. A distinctive feature was the use of filmed narrative interviews, later revisited with parents through an adapted Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) process. Parents co-edited their most painful or telling moments, “emotional touchpoints”, which became the basis for deeper reflection and co-analysis. Importantly, emotions often shifted between the first and second viewing: what was raw distress initially was later reinterpreted with new perspective. This temporal dimension offered a richer understanding of how families live with and make sense of ongoing struggles. 

Key Findings: Five Causal Mechanisms 

The research identified five systemic mechanisms that help explain why adoptive families encounter the same challenges again and again: 

Crisis-Led Logic → Invisible Early Struggle 

Services are triggered by visible breakdown, not early distress. Parents described desperate pleas for help that went unanswered until crisis loomed. Professionals echoed this dynamic, explaining that thresholds and funding criteria meant they were often forced into reactive rather than preventative roles. 

Unsupported Care Work → Relational Burnout 

Parents’ own emotional needs are rarely recognised. The relentless labour of advocating, soothing, and managing daily crises falls heavily on them, with little formal or informal support. Professionals noted that while therapeutic resources might be offered for the child, parental wellbeing was considered a lesser priority in post-adoption support planning. 

Mistrust and Marginalisation → Silenced Insight 

When parents seek help, they are too often met with suspicion or blame. Instead of being recognised as experts on their children, they are treated as the problem. Several professionals reflected on how mistrust erodes open communication, acknowledging that risk-focused cultures can silence parents’ perspectives. 

Systemic Fragmentation → Constant Bureaucratic Burden 

Families must navigate siloed services, repeated assessments, and defensive institutions. Parents spoke of becoming “experts by necessity” in order to access what their children required. Professionals described a fragmented landscape that left them struggling to coordinate support or act decisively across organisational boundaries. 

Service-Defined Progress → Residual Struggle 

Support is often withdrawn once narrow service criteria are met, even if families continue to struggle behind closed doors. Services may focus on keeping placements intact while overlooking the wider toll. Professionals described similar frustrations, noting that time-limited interventions often forced them to close cases prematurely, even when they suspected families would continue to need help. 

Impacts and Implications 

Together, these mechanisms explain why adoptive families experience persistent strain. Parents’ mental health suffers, siblings carry secondary trauma, and placements teeter on the edge of breakdown. For government, the cost is twofold: the human suffering borne by families, and the financial burden of avoidable crises across social care, education, and health. 

The findings carry important implications at multiple levels: 

  • For families: parents’ mental health declines under unsupported care work, and siblings experience secondary trauma that remains invisible to services. 
  • For systems: a crisis-led, fragmented model means resources are mobilised late, at greater human and financial cost. The Adoption Support Fund, while valuable, is shaped by bureaucratic gatekeeping. Parents described decisions made by staff without sufficient trauma knowledge, leading to inappropriate or stop–start provision. Trauma-informed practice must extend from top to bottom of the system, including commissioners and fund-holders as well as frontline practitioners. 
  • For knowledge and practice: by marginalising adoptive parents’ perspectives, services lose access to vital expertise. This study shows that film-based, participatory methods can surface and revisit lived experience in ways that expose persistent problems and open space for collaborative solutions. 

Recommendations 

Based on these findings, five preliminary priorities for reform are proposed: 

  1. Invest in early relational support – Commission services that intervene proactively, building resilience within the first year post-placement. 
  1. Support the whole family – Embed provision that includes parents’ mental health and siblings’ wellbeing alongside the child. 
  1. Reduce bureaucratic gatekeeping – Simplify and standardise access to the Adoption Support Fund so families can receive timely help. 
  1. Embed trauma-informed practice system-wide – Extend trauma awareness beyond frontline therapists to commissioners, fund-holders, and policymakers. 
  1. Value lived expertise through co-design – Involve adoptive parents directly in shaping provision, policy, and evaluation frameworks. 

Conclusion 

Adoptive families are willing partners in the work of healing trauma. But they cannot do it alone. By using filmed interviews and a co-interpretive process, this study demonstrates both the human and systemic costs of current approaches, and the potential of participatory, trauma-informed methods to generate change. Adoption will remain a sustainable route to permanence only if support is early, relational, and family-centred, and if adoptive parents’ lived expertise is recognised as central to system redesign. 

Claire’s ’emotional touchpoints’ will no doubt resonate with many families, and what we really like about her work is the relevance to practice. The recommendations may seem common sense, but they highlight the very real challenges experienced by adoptive families. Do connect with Claire if you are interested in learning more.

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