by | July 16, 2026 · 12:20 pm

Reframing Child to Parent Abuse: What Black Mothers’ Experiences Reveal

By Dr Anu Adebogun

Child to Parent Abuse (CPA) remains one of the most stigmatised and least understood forms of family harm. There is little empirical exploration of how this hidden harm is perceived, experienced and navigated within families of diverse ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds. My PhD research, completed at the University of Oxford, empirically documented for the first time the lived experiences of Black (African and Caribbean) mothers affected by this harm. My study drew on conversations, surveys and focus groups with 19 African and Caribbean mothers, alongside interviews with 26 professionals across social care, youth justice, education and mental health. What emerges are pertinent realities around how race, gender, culture and religion not only shape harm but also dictate Black maternal coping mechanisms and help-seeking efforts, often resulting in a deliberate avoidance of services.

Cultural Scripts and the Hiding of Harm

At the Reframing Professional Practice conference, I noted that the overrepresentation of mothers as victims of this harm is widely observed in research and theorised as resulting from the sexism and gender inequality that perpetuates the acceptable control, dominance and subordination of women. In the experience of Black women, however, gender power dynamics are but one structural force shaping the social constitution of their motherhood. Their motherhood is racialised, classed, surveilled and culturally scripted, and that intersection is precisely what keeps CPA hidden.

A central part of my presentation outlined one of six cultural scripts (narratives and expectations) shaping Black maternal identity and its implications for how CPA is experienced. One illustrative example was the script of “Matriarchal Providers”, which centres labour and provision in the carework of Black mothers. This encapsulates mothering across borders, including cultural financial obligations to support extended families in countries of origin, colloquially described as “Black tax”. I explored how this cultural script coincides with CPA through the infliction of financial harm on mothers: depletion of resources, theft of credit cards, and unauthorised purchases. An act justified by one young person on the grounds of entitlement. Without understanding what economic provision means within Black maternal identity, financial obligation rooted in intergenerational duty and collective survival can be reframed as entitlement, rather than exploitation, by both mother and child.

Racialisation of Maternal Blame

Shame, silence and stigma operate both within communities and within services. The cultural scripts shaping Black motherhood collide with a double bind, where they can be blamed within their own communities for disciplining too firmly or softly by failing the ideal of maternal strength. In some religious circles, for failing to pray, fast, or practise spiritual devotion sufficiently. 

Within services, Black mothers experience judgment and a characterisation of their mothering as deviant when measured against White, middle-class standards of “intensive mothering”. These standards problematise single motherhood, matriarchal providership or authoritative mothering as risk factors or triggers for CPA. The simultaneous veneration and weaponisation of strength is salient here: tropes used to characterise Black womanhood render a Black mother’s vulnerability, victimhood and need for protection structurally inconceivable.

Rethinking Engagement

A theme anchoring the experiences of Black mothers is the tripartite burden they carry as mother, victim and advocate, often in direct conflict. Disclosure or (dis)engagement with services is rarely a simple calculation of “will this help?” Rather, it involves weighing whether engagement will confirm racist stereotypes of Black children as aggressive or dangerous, invite criminalisation, or cost the family more than it gives. The mothers in my study were largely first-generation migrants, often uncertain whether Western systems would recognise CPA as harmful, or whether services perceived to “other” African and Caribbean mothering would instead pathologise her motherhood as deficient.

Recommendations for Practice

Adopting culturally responsive practice and representation within services is not simply about who sits across the table. It is about whether the frameworks, language and assumptions guiding that conversation were designed with Black maternal realities in mind. This means auditing risk tools for racialised assumptions, training practitioners in the cultural scripts shaping disclosure, and holding a mother’s tripartite role in mind at every first contact.

It also means recognising and engaging the informal support pathways through which Black African and Caribbean mothers seek solidarity and collective care. Having lost the literal and symbolic “village” of extended family through migration, the mothers I spoke with built makeshift ones instead: sister circles, community mothers and elders.

Services must not pathologise these stakeholders but actively strengthen these connections, resource these avenues of support, and co-design interventions to better reach Black families in need. Nor should services misrepresent reliance on this informal protective architecture as unwillingness to engage. Rather, adopting non-judgmental attitudes and professional curiosity, practitioners must acknowledge the pre-eminence of faith and spirituality to some Black mothers, recognising that community groups and faith leaders are often first responders and providers of informal support.

This was a particularly inspiring session within the Reframing Professional Practice conference; Anu creatively crafted the narratives of Black mothers into a presentation which was highly relevant to the practitioners in the room. Not only being culturally competent but culturally responsive and open to not only what parental narratives are, but also what might be underpinning these narratives. Black mothers experience so many compounding challenges in their navigation of service intrusion, into their lives, informal supporters often act as a necessary lifeline.

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by | July 9, 2026 · 9:11 am

‘Merseyside Domestic Violence Service Reopens its CAPVA referrals: From Conference Rooms to Family Homes

We are now at the mid-way point of our conference theme, and it seemed a nice time to bring together reflections on two conference events focusing upon CAPVA/CPA. Here, Chloe Booth, PhD student and CAPVA practitioner, reflects upon these events

Child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse (CAPVA) continues to sit in an uncomfortable and often overlooked space within both research and practice. Despite growing recognition, many families still experience shame, isolation, and misunderstanding when seeking support, if they even know where to look. As both a Child and Young Person (CYP) practitioner and CAPVA specialist at Merseyside Domestic Violence Service and PhD researcher with Liverpool John Moores University, I find myself constantly moving between academic discussion and the realities families face every day, allowing me a unique multi-facetted insight into the issue. 

Attending the Merseyside CAPVA Conference: Evidence, Practice and Partnership in Liverpool and the Silenced: Reframing Professional Practice in the Child to Parent Abuse arena conference in London so far this year reinforced just how important those connections are. What stayed with me most was not simply the presentation of new research or experience, but the recurring message that children, parents/carers, and practitioners are still navigating systems that struggle to fully understand CAPVA in all its complexity. Across both conferences, I was struck by the emphasis on listening from the perspectives of each individual family, particularly to the voices that are often excluded from policy, research, and intervention design. Discussions around trauma, stigma, neurodiversity, and family relationships highlighted how easily CAPVA can become reduced to “challenging behaviour” or “poor parenting” by uneducated professionals, rather than understood within broader relational and social contexts.

As a researcher, these conversations challenged me to think more critically about what meaningful CAPVA research should look like moving forward, and how this should implement policy and practice. I left reflecting on whose voices are prioritised, how research findings translate into frontline support, and how we avoid creating further silencing for families already carrying significant shame and fear. This is particularly relevant within my work in Liverpool at Merseyside Domestic Violence Service, where I support children and families experiencing CAPVA directly. In practice, no two families look the same, the lived realities behind CAPVA are incredibly complex, and often deeply misunderstood. The themes explored at both conferences mirrored many of the conversations happening in frontline work, with parents/carers feeling blamed, young people struggling to regulate overwhelming emotions, and professionals trying to respond without adequate frameworks or resources. It is time for a clear definition, an understanding of where CAPVA sits within policy, and structured referral and support pathways for all professionals responding to CAPVA. 

At Merseyside Domestic Violence Service, we are incredibly pleased to say that we have recently been awarded the funding to reopen our referrals for families experiencing CAPVA in Merseyside. Whether you are a professional working with families, or experiencing the issue yourself, please follow the link below to submit a referral, or simply get in touch for some advice, and we will be in contact to discuss support. 

The CAPVA (Child and Adolescent to Parent Violence and Abuse) – Merseyside Domestic Violence Service [MDVS] 0151 709 8770  

Chloe Booth

Thank you to Chloe. What we particularly liked about this piece was how well she outlines the importance to be critical in our approach to working with families. No two families are the same, their context, histories, and differences mean the way they engage with services, and the needs of the children and parents requires nuance and sensitivity.

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by | June 22, 2026 · 3:32 pm

Why Earlier Intervention Matters in Child-to-Parent Aggression 

Next up in our conference blogs is mine! It was an absolute privilege to be the first panel speaker of the Reframing Professional Practice conference, and Maria did a great job of creating a life course narrative thread through the planning of the day. My particular interests are the early indicators and how we can support families before harm escalates. Here’s a bit more about that:

When families experience Child-to-Parent Aggression (CPA), or child and adolescent-to-parent violence and abuse (CAPVA), the response often comes too late. Support frequently arrives when harm has escalated, relationships feel fractured, parents are exhausted, and children are already being viewed through a lens of risk. However, families do not suddenly arrive at crisis. There are usually moments, sometimes years earlier, where different questions could have been asked and different support could have been offered. 

One of the challenges within this field is that we have often tried to understand children’s harmful behaviours using frameworks developed for adults. Yet children are not adults. Their behaviour exists within the context of development, relationships, unmet needs, emotional regulation, neurodivergence, trauma, family systems, and wider social pressures. This distinction matters. 

When a child causes harm, we must hold two truths at the same time: parents can be experiencing very real fear, distress, and harm, and the child causing that harm may also be struggling. Recognising a child’s needs does not minimise a parent’s experience. Instead, it creates more accurate opportunities for support. Many younger children displaying aggressive or harmful behaviours are not necessarily acting from a place of deliberate intent, control, or a desire to cause fear. For some children, these behaviours may be better understood as explosive and harmful impulses; expressions of distress or maladaptive attempts to meet underlying needs. 

This requires us to move beyond asking only: “How do we stop this behaviour?” 

We also need to ask: 

  • “What need is this behaviour trying to meet?” 
  • “What is happening within this child, this relationship, this family, and this wider system?” 

Children communicate through behaviour, particularly when they do not yet have the emotional, cognitive, or relational tools to communicate in other ways. Harmful behaviour may reflect reactive responses to overwhelm, affective needs linked to emotional or sensory regulation, relational needs around belonging and connection, or attempts to regain a sense of safety. If we only respond to the visible behaviour, we risk missing the distress underneath. 

Too often, families seeking help describe feeling blamed. Parents may feel they are seen as failing to manage their child, while children may internalise messages that they are simply “bad” or “dangerous”. These narratives can increase shame and make families less likely to seek support until they reach breaking point. Earlier intervention means creating pathways where families can ask for help before they are in crisis. It means recognising that parents are often the most important people supporting their child — but they cannot do this without being supported themselves. Expecting families to absorb increasingly complex needs without appropriate help is not prevention. 

A meaningful response to CPA must therefore be relational and systemic. It must consider the whole family: parents, siblings, children, schools, communities, and the services surrounding them. No single explanation or intervention will fit every family, because families’ experiences are not all the same. This is why public health approaches are so important. We need to build systems that notice early signs, reduce stigma, provide accessible support, and respond to need rather than waiting for harm to escalate. 

Earlier intervention is not about excusing harmful behaviour. It is about understanding it well enough to change it. When we recognise children as children, listen to parents without blame, and respond to families with curiosity rather than judgement, we create opportunities for repair, connection, and safety. 

The future of CPA support should not be built around asking families to prove they are struggling enough… It should be built around ensuring they never have to reach that point in the first place. 

Whilst some of this may feel like ‘blue sky thinking’; will we ever have the resources and capacity to provide true early intervention again? I don’t know, but relational practice is at the heart of all of this, and with so many in the room with us at the conference who have the power to make change, I really believe it’s possible.

Nikki Rutter

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by | June 17, 2026 · 3:26 pm

What Happens When CPA Continues into Adulthood? The Strategy Behind the Surrender

This week included Elder Abuse Day (15th June), and so we have Freda Quinlan talking about her PhD study, in which she developed a new model of understanding filial coercive control.

By Freda Quinlan, Principal Social Worker (Adult Safeguarding)  and PhD researcher 

When we discuss Child-to-Parent Abuse (CPA), conversations usually focus on adolescents. But what happens when this dynamic tracks into adulthood, colliding with the inevitable vulnerabilities of a parent’s later life? At the recent ‘Reframing Professional Practice’ conference, I explored this through the lens of the FIL-CO Model (Filial Coercive Control). The reality I presented suggests that when abuse persists into adulthood, the dynamics may shift from overt behavioural outbursts to a quieter, less visible, and deeply complex form of domestic entrapment. To respond effectively, we may need to recognise the hidden layers of this ongoing family trauma.

1. The Trap of Silence and Wounded Identity

One of the greatest hurdles that professionals identified in my research is the profound silence of victims. It is dangerously easy for safeguarding systems to misinterpret this silence as a passive ‘lack of will’ or an unwillingness to engage. The FIL-CO Model invites us to look deeper. Many older parents seem to operate under a heavy belief that because they raised the person hurting them, they have forfeited the ethical right to speak out. This potentially creates a ‘dual entrapment’: a state of constant physical dread paired with an internalised shame that tells them their adult child’s actions reflect their own failure as a parent. When a parent stays silent, they may actually be navigating a wounded identity. Their silence is rarely passivity; it can represent an ethically-laden negotiation—a final attempt to protect what is left of their parental legacy.

2. Weaponised Care: Becoming Invisible Within Systems

In later life, a critical shift can occur in how control is maintained. Unlike intimate partner violence, where an abuser merely claims to provide protection, an older parent’s physical or cognitive care needs may often be objectively real. This can create a painful relational paradox. The adult  child is the primordial being the parent is hardwired to protect. As social networks narrow with age, this bond often intensifies, repositioning the adult child as the parent’s primary ‘secure base.’ This biological drive for proximity may override the parent’s cognitive recognition of harm. Abusive adult children strategically exploit this by weaponising actual frailty. By tying control to real health needs, the abuser ensures their dominance is perceived by external observers—and sometimes by the parent—not as abuse, but as a dutiful response to failing health. This is precisely how parents can become entirely invisible within care systems.

3. Epistemic Injustice: The Theft of Reality

The psychological peak of filial coercive control is often reached through epistemic injustice—the systematic erosion of an older parent’s ability to trust their own knowledge and perceptions. Here, gaslighting emerges as a primary tool of entrapment. Abusive adult children may leverage a parent’s minor memory lapses to delegitimise their reality, countering their lived experiences with assertions like, “You’re just getting confused.” This can breed a profound cognitive dissonance that slowly undermines the parent’s sense of personhood. Crucially, this gaslighting appears to interact with structural vulnerabilities. Our institutional systems naturally tend to defer to the younger caregiver, sometimes giving them the benefit of the doubt over an older adult. The abuser may make strategic choices to secure compliance because they know the system will likely reinforce their narrative.

The Path Forward: Re-evaluating Autonomy

Ultimately, the FIL-CO Model frames a parent’s compliance not necessarily as weakness, but potentially as a calculated surrender within a very compromised family and societal context. For professionals, this suggests a fundamental shift in practice. When assessing an older parent, we can rarely simply ask what they ‘want’ on a surface level. If a parent’s will is a strategic response to an unbreakable, lifelong bond, our assessments must account for the painful internal processes they may be navigating. Moving forward, compassionate responses mean looking past the surface of ‘compliance.’ Only when we begin to understand the potential strategy behind a parent’s surrender can we hope to break through the walls of silence and offer true avenues for validation, safety, and hope.

It was great to hear more about Freda’s work in the Reframing Professional Practice conference. Freda is completing her PhD at University College Dublin.

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by | June 9, 2026 · 12:06 pm

Reframing Professional Practice Conference in the CPA/ACPA arena – Reflections 

It was great for the Holes team to speak at the Reframing Professional Practice conference in May. Here conference organiser and Silenced CEO provides her insight into the importance of these events.

Why I Put the Conference On

The conference was created in response to growing recognition that Child to Parent Abuse and Adult Child to Parent Abuse (CPA/ACPA) remains one of the most hidden, misunderstood and under-recognised forms of family harm. The day was designed to model a community co-ordinated response, exploring the complexities, realities and responses surrounding CPA/ACPA. 

Despite growing awareness, many families continue to experience fear, shame, isolation and judgement whilst professionals often describe uncertainty around language, thresholds, safeguarding responsibilities and intervention pathways. Families repeatedly tell us they feel blamed rather than understood.

The Fractured Bonds report exploring ACPA across London reinforced what many families and practitioners already knew, that CPA/ACPA often sits hidden between systems, with families falling through gaps between safeguarding, domestic abuse, mental health and adult services. 

A key aim of the conference was to bring together a range of professionals to share knowledge through the lens of families with lived experience in their differing contexts across the life span. The aim was never to provide one single answer to CPA/ACPA, but to begin reframing the conversation itself.

What I Hoped to Gain from the Day

My hope was that attendees would leave with:

  • a deeper understanding of CPA/ACPA
  • a greater professional curiosity and willingness to challenge binary perceptions
  • a stronger awareness of the relational, systemic and multi-layered approaches needed when working with families
  • an increased confidence in discussing CPA/ACPA

What the Day Delivered

The day exceeded anything I could have hoped for, especially as it was my first time hosting a conference. Across the keynote, panels, poster presentations and workshops, there was honesty, compassion and a genuine willingness to sit with complexity. Discussions explored:

  • the importance of language and definitions
  • Voices of lived experience through research
  • adult child-to-parent abuse beyond adolescence
  • sibling and wider family impact
  • Diasporic families’ experiences of CPA/ACPA
  • trauma-informed and relational practice
  • systems misalignment and fragmented pathways
  • hidden harm, shame and stigma
  • the importance of multi-agency collaboration.

The poster presentations highlighted the growing momentum across research, policy and practice to better understand CPA/ACPA as a relational, systemic and trauma-informed issue requiring whole-family responses. One of the strongest messages emerging throughout the day was the importance of listening to lived experience not as an ‘addition’ to professional learning, but as essential knowledge that should shape policy, practice and service responses.

The feedback from professional so far, has been overwhelming:

  • 100% of evaluation responses rated the conference as Excellent or Very Good
  • 100% said the conference was Very Relevant or Extremely Relevant to their role/practice

However, more importantly than statistics is the fact that professionals had space to reflect with other organisations whilst families’ narratives were heard, validated and understood. Feedback from attendees reflected the depth and breadth of the conversations throughout the day, with many describing the conference as “thought provoking”, “powerful” and “informative”. Participants particularly valued the lived experience narratives, panel discussions and workshops, with attendees highlighting sessions exploring sibling experiences, racial inequality, intersectionality and adult child-to-parent abuse as especially impactful.

Several attendees commented on the value of hearing perspectives not often centred within mainstream conversations around CPA/ACPA, particularly the discussions relating to Black mothers, diasporic families and lived experience research. Others reflected on the importance of having space for honest conversations, professional reflection and multi-agency learning, with one attendee sharing that “all the panels built on each other” and another describing the personal stories shared throughout the day as “particularly powerful”.

What Now?

The conversations do not end here.

If anything, the conference reinforced how urgently more work is needed across safeguarding, domestic abuse, health, education, policy and research. CPA/ACPA cannot continue to sit hidden between systems. 

We need:

  • earlier intervention
  • whole-family responses
  • culturally responsive practice
  • better transition pathways between child and adult services
  • improved multi-agency collaboration
  • and greater inclusion of lived experience voices within policy and practice development.

Families experiencing CPA/ACPA are not “failing families.” Many are surviving within incredibly complex relational, systemic and traumatic circumstances whilst trying to protect and care for one another.

Thank you again to everyone who attended, presented, facilitated workshops, shared research via posters, volunteered and contributed to creating such a thoughtful and reflective space for learning, challenge and collaboration.

This year’s conference was kindly supported by Durham University’s ESRC IAA Fund and The National Lottery Community Fund – Awards for All.

This was never meant to be an endpoint, but the beginning of a much wider shift in how we better understand, respond to and support families experiencing CPA/ACPA, with compassion, curiosity and humanity at the centre.  I hope this is the beginning of many more conversations and potentially another conference next year.  

Thank you so much to Maria for her insights and setting us up for more conference reflections this series! To learn more about Silenced go here: https://www.silenced.org.uk – CPVA training | child to parent violence and abuse

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by | June 1, 2026 · 12:18 pm

Conferences and knowledge-exchange

The Reframing Professional Practice conference on the 15th May, in London, brought together researchers, practitioners, parents, advocates and professionals from across the UK to explore the complex realities of Child-to-Parent Aggression and harmful behaviours sometimes referred to as CPA.

While the conference created space for important conversations, reflection and challenge, it also left many of us asking what now? We have invited a number of conference speakers to contribute to a post conference blog  series, not simply to reflect on the event itself, and other conferences that have been held the past few months, but to explore the questions, themes and challenges that remain. From earlier intervention and whole-family safeguarding to cultural understanding, trauma-informed practice and long-term support for families, these reflections aim to continue the conversations beyond the conference room and encourage ongoing learning, collaboration and change. 

If you attended this conference, or any others which explored CPA, and are interested in contributing, do let us know!

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by | May 28, 2026 · 2:27 pm

Holes in the Wall: Learning Across Contexts – What Our International Series Tells Us

Our international series has, perhaps most importantly, unsettled any lingering assumption that child-to-parent violence and abuse (CPVA) can be understood within a single cultural frame. Across contributions from practitioners and researchers working in diverse national contexts, a dual picture emerges: there are recognisable patterns in how CPVA manifests, yet these patterns are always mediated by local norms, policy infrastructures, and social expectations about family life.

One of the most striking through-lines is the shared difficulty of naming the problem. Whether in the UK, Europe, or beyond, families often encounter a conceptual vacuum. Behaviours that would, in other contexts, be labelled as domestic abuse are reframed as “challenging behaviour,” “adolescence,” or a failure of parenting. This ambiguity is not simply semantic—it has material consequences. When systems do not recognise CPVA as a form of harm, pathways to support remain fragmented or non-existent. Our international contributions consistently point to the same critical gap: recognition precedes intervention. At the same time, the series demonstrates how cultural context shapes the boundaries of that recognition. In some jurisdictions, strong norms around parental authority can obscure young people’s use of violence, rendering it unspeakable or minimised. In others, a more child-centred discourse risks shifting the lens away from parental victimisation altogether. Neither position fully captures the relational complexity of CPVA, which sits uncomfortably between established categories of “child protection” and “domestic abuse.” The international evidence suggests that progress lies not in choosing one lens over the other, but in holding both in tension.

Another key insight concerns the role of services, and their limits. Across case studies, families frequently experience a ‘threshold problem’: their circumstances fall between eligibility criteria for child protection, youth justice, and adult-focused domestic abuse provision. This structural gap is not unique to one country; it is a recurring feature of systems that remain siloed. Where promising practice does emerge, it tends to be characterised by integration—multi-agency approaches that recognise CPVA as both a safeguarding issue and a relational one. Importantly, these approaches move away from individualised blame and towards a more systemic understanding of family dynamics.

Our contributors also highlight the uneven development of evidence-based interventions. While some regions have begun to formalise responses—through specialist programmes or policy frameworks—others remain reliant on ad hoc or locally driven initiatives. This unevenness matters. It not only affects the consistency of support available to families, but also the extent to which CPVA is taken seriously as a policy issue. The absence of robust data in many contexts further compounds the problem, making it difficult to advocate for resources or to evaluate what works. Yet, amid these challenges, there is a cautious optimism. The very existence of an international conversation signals a shift: CPVA is moving from the margins towards greater visibility. By placing these perspectives in dialogue, the series does more than compare national approaches—it enables a form of collective learning. Patterns become clearer, assumptions are tested, and possibilities for innovation emerge.

For practitioners and policymakers, the implications are clear. First, recognition must be strengthened through language, training, and policy alignment. Second, services need to be configured in ways that reflect the relational nature of CPVA, rather than forcing families into ill-fitting categories. Finally, there is significant value in looking beyond national borders. While solutions cannot simply be transplanted, the comparative lens helps illuminate both shared challenges and untapped opportunities. In bringing these insights together, the series underscores a simple but powerful point: understanding CPVA requires us to think across contexts, disciplines, and systems. It is only through this kind of connected analysis that meaningful, sustainable responses can take shape.

Thank you so much for our contributors. The next series is a conference-based series, exploring the narratives we have seen and heard across several conferences Nikki, Jane, and Helen have attended the past few months.

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by | May 4, 2026 · 3:51 pm

Child to Parent Violence and Abuse in Ireland? Some facts.

For our penultimate post from our international perspectives series, we have Dr Declan Coogan, School of Political Science & Sociology, University of Galway, Republic of Ireland. Declan is a leading voice in research relating to non-violent resistance (NVR) and a long-time friend to HITW.

“Child to parent violence and abuse is a longstanding problem but people are now more prepared to seek help” (Michelle Ridgway, Chairperson, Parentline, 17th May 2022).

 What is CPVA?

Child to parent violence and abuse (CPVA) is an abuse of power through which a son/daughter coerces, controls or dominates parents or anyone in a parental role in relation to the child. Child to Parent Violence and Abuse is present in families where parents/ carers feel they must adapt their behaviour due to threats or use of violence/ abuse by a child. CPVA can include physical, emotional, or verbal abuse, and coercive control. This is the definition used by NVR Ireland, a network of practitioners and academics in Ireland committed to working with and researching Non-Violent Resistance (NVR; see www.nvrireland.ie )

CPVA is a significant and growing issue in Ireland. It has been reported as the most common concern among parents contacting Parentline, with about 42% of over 6,000 calls related to this form of violence, highlighting its prevalence in family dynamics. Boys aged 12 to 17 are the primary perpetrators in these incidents, although around 10% of cases involve individuals over 18 years old.

Is there official recognition of CPVA?

No. Despite its increasing visibility through the media and through parents/ carers contacting services about it, there are no official policies or legal definitions specifically addressing CPVA in Ireland, which complicates formal responses to the issue.

Who works with families living with CPVA?

A wide range of services and practitioners in Ireland work with families affected by CPVA, through public and/ or privately provided services. Practitioners involved include social workers, social care workers, family support workers, family therapists, psychologists, and specialised counsellors trained in dealing with family violence and adolescent behavioural issues. These and other practitioners often work collaboratively with community organisations to support families and reduce the incidence and impact of CPVA. There are different specialist interventions that might be helpful for families lining with CPVA, the most widely available of which is Non Violent Resistance (NVR).

Examples of services that provide NVR for parents/ carers/ families include:

Parentline offers a helpline and support focusing on non-violent resistance strategies to help parents manage and reduce CPVA behaviours ( www.parentline.ie ).

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency provides family support services, including interventions in domestic violence situations where children may be involved either as victims or perpetrators; some practitioners in Tusla have received training and provide intervention in NVR as a response to CPVA.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), through the HSE, provides specialist mental health services for young people with severe mental health challenges. Some practitioners from a range of disciplines with CAMHS have received training and provide intervention in NVR as a response to CPVA.

Alcohol Forum Ireland provides support information and services to individuals, families and communities affected by alcohol harm. As part of their work in the north west of Ireland, they provide NVR for parents/ carers where there is CPVA ( https://alcoholforum.org/non-violent-resistance-nvr/ ).

The ISPCC (https://www.ispcc.ie/nvr/ ) offers resources and programmes in response to child to parent relationship challenges, including NVR and other supports for families experiencing CPVA.

Through the University of Galway, Eileen Lauster, Tara Kelly and Declan Coogan have been involved in practice, training and research initiatives have helped to provide insights into family experiences with CPVA, informing practice and policy recommendations.

NVR Ireland accredited practitioners and trainers can be found at https://nvrireland.ie/service-providers-of-nvr-in-ireland/

Overall, CPVA in Ireland is a recognised but under-defined issue, with growing awareness, training and support services aiming to address the complex needs of families living with CPVA. Practitioners and parents in Ireland report that key skills developed through NVR can be very helpful: these include developing an NVR support network; being able to once again be present and visible for your child; de-escalation strategies and reconciliation gestures.

Further supports and information can be found at www.nvrireland.ie and https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/parenting/child-to-parent-violence-most-common-issue-among-parents-ringing-helpline-1.4876572 and https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2022/1116/1336510-child-to-parent-abuse/

More information about the author can be found at https://research.universityofgalway.ie/en/persons/declan-coogan

Thank you so much for this contribution Declan, and we hope subscribers find these links helpful.

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by | April 13, 2026 · 11:58 am

Working across communities

As part of our series on International Perspectives on Child to Parent Violence, we hear from Carole Baker, who, alongside Cathy Press, delivers training and support to practitioners in the Who’s in Charge? programme. Who’s in Charge? (WIC?) was devised in Australia by Eddie Gallagher to support the parents of children using harmful and aggressive behaviour towards them, and has been rolled out widely across Britain through Carole and Cathy’s intervention. Carole brings a different perspective to our previous contributors as her work is based in this country, but encountering parents from across the globe she and Cathy have learnt about the importance of understanding different cultures, the nuances of language, of not taking anything for granted, and that there is always more we can all learn from each other. She offers some of the experiences she has encountered along the way, and some tips to take forward in all our work.

Having worked alongside parents in various communities for the past 25 years, and addressing child to parent violence and abuse (CAPVA) since 2009, I wanted to share our learning and some practical ways we found to connect with and support parents across diverse communities in our local community for whom English is an additional language (EAL); and how using the WIC? program we addressed  the issue of CAPVA. 

I use  3 simple messages when thinking about working with parents with EAL and across diverse communities.

  • Never assume an approach is not going to work. Set out with a passion to simply support the parent.
  • Always assume parents have some understanding and a power, and will to make changes within the family.
  • Think creatively around addressing the potential language, communication and cultural difference challenges you may face! There will be struggles and challenges. Be prepared to learn during the process.

As a social pedagogue offering a relationship-centred approach, I aim to support well-being, learning, and social inclusion by connecting individuals to society. Social pedagogy is less about specific methods and more about the “how” and that the underlying attitude of the professional is authentic, empathetic, and reflective.

In May 2013 our local area annual report stated ours was a town where over 70 different languages were spoken. In fact, 17.1% of the community were from other than white British ethnicities. Linguistic diversity was also visible in schools, with some schools having roughly 30% of students speaking English as an additional language.  I wanted passionately to support all communities within the town to address CAPVA, which seemed to be occurring more and more regularly within the families with whom I worked. Here are just some of the ways in which we approached and supported parents with EAL from diverse communities across the town.

Make it their own.

We trained a group of bi-lingual volunteers who were working within a local voluntary organisation to facilitate the Who’s in Charge? Programme. We supported them to run the programme locally and they translated key messages into the language and cultural meaning of the communities they were working in.  Some of the bi-lingual nuances we realised needed to be carefully considered as not all the ideas within the programme translated easily into another language. I recall a discussion in which a certain phrase did not translate into Russian or Romanian. This needed working through in the moment in terms of carrying the relevant idea appropriately to parents.

During another face-to-face parenting programme, we supported some of those trained facilitators to act as real-time interpreters supporting parents who were fluent in the same home language. This worked well although again some of the ideas were tricky to interpret due to those subtle nuances between languages, and sometimes a word or term not existing in another language. The programme took longer to run each week than it normally would.

As well as volunteers, we are increasingly training multi-lingual professionals to deliver the WiC? programme.

Partnerships

We partnered with a local primary school to host a programme in the school that had a large number of parents whose first language was Polish. We engaged one of the parents who spoke both Polish and English fluently, to act as the group support and interpreter, as while many of the parents understood English they didn’t consider themselves fluent enough to converse in English during the programme. This worked incredibly well as the parents supported one another as a group and made strident changes throughout the programme.

Parent hubs

We have used parent hubs as a place for parents to come and have a coffee and discuss challenges facing them as a parent and where any parents in the community are welcome.   The hubs ran in schools, local children’s, centre, church halls and community halls across the town. Once again we have mentored parents who had EAL and who were also fluent in English to work within the hubs as a way of supporting parents from across diverse communities. 

One such community was a group of parents from African nations for whom we ran a WIC? group. This worked well although culturally, we realised we had much to learn.  In the UK we are sticklers for time and clock watching, driven by those Victorian values of ‘clocking-in’ and out of factories so that workers could be paid appropriately. The parents we were working with had a joyously different approach to time, and we conceded that not every group would start “on time”. Many parents brought lunch or food to share which led to a convivial start each week; this was unexpected and wasn’t something that we had planned for. We conceded that we should have researched the community rather more intently.

Trusting supporters to get the message across

In 2020 we took the programme online, and, like many others, I found myself hastily drawn into supporting parents from all over the country on Zoom. In addition to the now well-recognised challenges, we had new and unexpected dynamics as individuals brought friends to attend with them online in order to provide translation and emotional support. On one occasion a parent whose fluent language was Chinese attended with a friend from a separate cultural and language group, yet who was trusted to bring translation and understanding. Despite the first parent not even being able to attend each session in person, about 3 months after the end of the group, I received a thank you letter from the school stating that the parent had made many changes and the parent and child had re-cemented their relationship. The parent was back in authority in the home and the child no longer using harmful behaviour toward the parent.

Some things we have learned over the years

  • Oftentimes the language barrier stops parents from seeking support. But never underestimate that, no matter what the language or diversity, when parents are united in experiencing an issue there are many approaches that can and will succeed in supporting them to make changes. Bi-lingual nuances matter, although supporting parents to work out how they can prevent and stop a child using harmful behaviour toward them and siblings matters more.
  • In translation, a different language may not have that word or that word may have a different meaning. The perception of what constitutes abuse is “socially constructed” and varies over time and between cultures.  In many languages, the term for abuse is split between the “misuse” of an object/privilege and “cruel treatment” of a person.
  • Parents from diverse communities may have grown up with different customs and a different sense of child development and parenting than the ideas used in the UK,  Patience and understanding on our part are paramount rather than policy, dogma and doctrine.
  • Acronyms, shorthand terms and abbreviations… Just don’t use them in either spoken or written language! Many parents, however long they have been in this country, and sometimes people working in the welfare system, don’t know what they mean.
  • Not everyone understands the British safeguarding and welfare system, why we have it and how it works, so it’s vital never to assume when speaking about safeguarding or welfare of police responses that people automatically understand the significance. 
  • The sense of shame is much deeper within some communities due to cultural or faith reasons; and in some communities hurting a parent is considered a sin and has a much sharper significance.  This can mean it’s harder for parents to come forward for support. In some settings, if the community knows what is happening there is significant blame attributed to the mother for not raising the child well or spoiling them, which can isolate a parent even further.
  • Remember that parents who use English as an additional language can still be suspicious of authority figures especially if they have not lived long in the UK. In some situations, immigration status can also prevent families from seeking help or reaching out for fear of being repatriated.
  • Make use of people who bring the richness of fluency in more than one language to ensure connection with other communities and accuracy of translation, whether written or spoken.
  • Make more time to be sure messages are properly understood, perhaps a separate moment for parents who are not sure they have fully understood. Handouts can really help here as there is something to take home and to reinforce the learning. Another language may be more easily read by an individual lacking confidence to speak.
  • In the age of ‘only digital accepted here’ never be afraid to use pens and paper and diagrams and pictures when it gets sticky.  A picture still paints a thousand words!
  • And finally: Sometimes it’s our own feelings of professional helplessness, or concern about how we are getting the message across that can get in the way. Try and keep the focus on supporting the parent. Always trust in a parent’s willingness to make the change.

Across diverse communities, time, food, culture, faith, discipline and parenting can all be quite different although we are all united in wanting the best life and the best outcome for our children.  The saying ‘we have more in common than difference’ certainly applies when working alongside parents.  We are all on a similar journey in terms of wanting to keep our children safe and for them to grow to independence and offer a positive contribution within their own lives, families and communities.  Extending our support for parents across communities and preventing children behaving harmfully toward parents and siblings can only further this aim.

I would end by encouraging anyone working with the field of CAPVA to look outside of the immediate referral sphere to see who else needs support with the issue of CAPVA within your community.  Which parents are missing out on support?

We receive contacts daily from professionals and parents seeking support.  At Who’s in Charge? and as a member of the CAPVA national strategic group in the UK we are still learning and yet determined to ensure that all parents can find support.

Thank you to Carole for this insightful contribution.

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by | March 24, 2026 · 4:16 pm

A Brief Overview of Child-to-Parent Violence and Cyber Child-to-Parent Violence in Spain.

Spain have been at the forefront of much research into child-to-parent violence, and the area of cyber child-to-parent violence is no different. In this blog, authored by Rodriguez-Gonzalez, S., Fernández-Gonzalez, L., Echezarraga, A., & Del Hoyo-Bilbao, J.; University of Deusto (Spain), we have the opportunity to see what cyber CPV cases may look like…

Child-to-Parent Violence (CPV) is defined as any physical, psychological, and economic acts perpetrated by children against their parental figures (Pereira et al., 2017). Over the past decade, an exponential increase in CPV cases has been observed in Spain (Fundación Amigó, 2022). Similarly, a report issued by Fundación Amigó (2024) indicated that 4,416 CPV cases were officially recorded in 2023, with Andalusia, Ceuta, and Melilla presenting the highest number of cases, totalling 1,012 registered incidents.

Prevalence rates reported by adolescents show considerable variability. Specifically, in Spanish samples physical CPV perpetrated at least once during the past year ranges between 7.4% and 21.8% (Calvete et al., 2017; Contreras et al., 2020), whereas severe physical CPV ranges between 18.6% and 21.8%. Psychological CPV ranges between 45.5% and 92.7%, while severe psychological CPV ranges between 9.4% and 18.4% (Calvete et al., 2017; Contreras et al., 2020). Finally, regarding global CPV, recent studies indicate a prevalence rate of 60.3%, with severe CPV reaching 16.5% (Calvete et al., 2023).

These differences in prevalence estimates may be partially explained by the diversity of operational definitions used to conceptualize CPV, as well as by the psychometric characteristics of the instruments employed to assess it (Arias-Martínez et al., 2020). In this regard, some authors define severe CPV as behaviors occurring six or more times during the past year (Calvete et al., 2013; Calvete et al., 2023), whereas others establish the criterion as the presence of such behaviors on two or more occasions within the same period (Contreras et al., 2020). Overall, the increase observed in recent years reinforces the consideration of CPV as a relevant social problem, with

important social and economic consequences (Fundación Amigó, 2022; Ministerio de Hacienda y Función Pública, & Ministerio de Derechos Sociales y Agenda 2030, 2022).

Notably, CPV has been widely studied and linked to numerous risk factors at both the individual (e.g., substance use, gender) and family levels (e.g., parenting styles, parental discipline, exposure to violence at home) (Junco-Guerrero et al., 2025). Likewise, a substantial body of empirical evidence has focused on the study of CPV in offline contexts (Contreras-Sáez et al., 2022; Gallego et al., 2019), leaving the possibility that CPV may also occur in online contexts relatively unexplored (Rogers & Ashworth, 2024). However, the rapid expansion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has generated new forms of violent interaction that did not previously exist, giving rise to phenomena such as cyberbullying, grooming and online dating violence among others (Calvete et al., 2026; Caridade & Braga, 2020; De Santiesteban & Gámez-Guadix, 2017).

Within this context of increasing cyber-violence, recent studies provide initial evidence of a new dimension of CPV: Cyber Child-to-Parent Violence (Cyber-CPV) (Rodriguez-Gonzalez, Del Hoyo-Bilbao et al., 2026; Suárez-Relinque & Del Moral-Arroyo, 2023). Cyber-CPV has been defined as direct online aggressions (e.g., online insults, online threats, ignoring and blocking parental figures through ICTs, online control) as well as the online impersonation of parental figures or children (Rodriguez-Gonzalez, Fernández-González et al., 2026).

According to the prevalence data currently available, Cyber-CPV has only been examined in adolescent and parental samples (Rodriguez-Gonzalez, Fernández-Gonzalez et al., 2026). In this regard, a study conducted with community adolescent sample reported that 77.8% of adolescents engaged in Cyber-CPV at least once during the past year, with severe behaviors reported in 16.5% of cases (i.e., six or more

occasions during the past year) (Rodriguez-Gonzalez, Fernández-González et al., 2026). In both cases, girls reported higher levels of Cyber-CPV compared to boys, which is consistent with previous research on CPV showing that girls tend to engage more frequently in psychological CPV— which presents greater similarities with Cyber-CPV—whereas boys report higher levels of physical CPV (Ibabe & Bentler, 2016). With respect to the gender of parental figures, adolescents reported higher percentages of Cyber-CPV toward mothers (75.3%) than toward fathers (69.5%), in line with previous CPV literature (Calvete et al., 2023). Some studies suggest that this pattern may be explained by mothers’ greater involvement in child-rearing responsibilities within the family, which may increase their exposure to conflict with adolescents (Calvete et al., 2014; Larrucea- Iruretagoyena et al., 2023).

According to parents reports, 50% mothers and 43.4% fathers of the parents indicated having experienced Cyber-CPV at least once during the past year. Furthermore, in relation to severe Cyber-CPV, 7.2% mothers and 1.7% fathers of the parents reported having been exposed to Cyber-CPV on six or more occasions during the same period (Rodriguez-Gonzalez, Fernández-González et al., 2026).

Overall, these findings provide a first approximation of the magnitude of Cyber-CPV in Spain. However, these results should not be extrapolated to other cultural contexts or types of samples (e.g., clinical or justice-involved populations), as Cyber-CPV may vary depending on specific sociocultural characteristics and sample composition.

Taken together, the available evidence suggests that Cyber-CPV is a relatively frequent phenomenon in Spain, although it remains insufficiently explored. These findings highlight the need to expand research in this field and contribute to increasing the visibility of its magnitude, which may support the development of specific prevention, intervention, and educational strategies within family and adolescent contexts.

Thank you very much to Sara,  Joana, Ainara and Liria for their contribution, and if you are interested in learning more about research is Spain, do check out their references below.

References

Arias-Rivera, S., Hidalgo, V., & Lorence, B. (2020). A scoping study on measures of child-to-parent violence. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 52, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2020.101426

Borrajo, E., & Gámez-Guadix, M. (2015). Cyber dating abuse: Prevalence, context, and relationship with offline dating aggression. Psychological Reports: Relationships & Communications, 116(2), 565–585. https://doi.org/10.2466/21.16.PR0.116k22w4

Calvete, E., Ayala, A., Jiménez-Granado, A. and Orue, I. (2026), Bidirectional Associations Between Cyberbullying Victimization, Non-Suicidal Self-Injury, and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 98, 119–130. https://doi.org/10.1002/jad.70045

Calvete, E., Jiménez-Granado, A., & Orue, I. (2023). The revised child-to-parent aggressions questionnaire: an examination during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Family Violence, 38, 1563–1576. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-022-00465-8

Calvete, E., Gámez-Guadix, M., & Orue, I. (2014). Características familiares asociadas a violencia filio-parental en adolescentes. Anales de psicología, 30(3), 1176–1182. https://doi.org/10. 6018/ anale sps.30.3.166291

Calvete, E., Gámez-Guadix, M., Orue, I., Gonzalez-Diez, Z., Lopez de Arroyabe, E., Sampedro, R., Pereira, P., Zubizarreta, A., & Borrajo, E. (2013). Brief report: The adolescent child-to-parent aggression questionnaire: an examination of aggressions against parents in Spanish adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 36, 1077–1081. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/

Calvete, E., Orue, I., & González-Cabrera, J. (2017). Violencia filio-parental: comparando lo que informan los adolescentes y sus progenitores. Revista de Psicología Clínica con Niños y Adolescentes, 4(1), 9–15. https://www.revistapcna.com/sites/default/files/16-08.pdf

Caridade, S., & Braga, T. (2020). Youth cyber dating abuse: a meta-analysis of risk and protective factors. Cyberpsychology, 14(3), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.5817/CP2020-3-2

Contreras, L., Bustos-Navarrete, C., & Cano-Lozano, M. C. (2019). Child-to-parent Violence Questionnaire (CPV-Q): validation among Spanish adolescents. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 19(1), 67–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2018.09.001

Contreras-Sáez, M., Fresno Rodríguez, A., & Hernández González, O. (2022). Violencia filio-parental: Una revisión sistemática de la literatura. Revista Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento, 14(2), 13–36. https://www.scielo.org.ar/pdf/radcc/v14n2/1852-4206-radcc-14-02-00036.pdf

De Santisteban, P., & Gámez-Guadix, M. (2017). Estrategias de persuasión en grooming online de menores: Un análisis cualitativo con agresores en prisión. Psychosocial Intervention, 26(3), 139–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psi.2017.01.002

Fundación Amigó (2022). La violencia filio-parental en España (datos 2022). https://fundacionamigo.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/vfp2023informe.pdf

Fundación Amigó. (2024). Violencia filio-parental en España (datos 2023). Fundación Amigó. https://fundacionamigo.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/vfp2024.pdf

Gallego, R., Novo, M., Fariña, F., & Arce, R. (2019). Child-to-parent violence and parent-to-child violencsime: a meta-analytic review. The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 11(2), 51 – 59. https://doi.org/10.5093/ejpalc2019a4

Ibabe, I., & Bentler, P. M. (2016). The contribution of family relationships to child-to-parent violence. Journal of Family Violence, 31, 259–269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-015-9764-0

Junco-Guerrero, M., Fernández-Baena, F. J., & Cantón-Cortes, D. (2025). Risk factors for child-to-parent violence: A scoping review. Journal of Family Violence, 40, 139–164. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-023-00621-8

Larrucea-Iruretagoyena, M., & Orue, I. (2023). The mediating role of mindful parenting in the relationship between parental anxiety and youth’s emotional and behavioral difficulties. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 52, 1471–1480. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-023-01752-3

Ministerio de Hacienda y Función Pública, & Ministerio de Derechos Sociales y Agenda 2030. (2022). Informe de impacto en la infancia, la adolescencia y la familia del Proyecto de Ley de Presupuestos Generales del Estado para 2023. Secretaría de Estado de Presupuestos y Gastos. https://www.sepg.pap.hacienda.gob.es/sitios/sepg/es-ES/Presupuestos/InformesImpacto/IIIAF2023/Documents/Informe%20Infancia%20PGE%202023.pdf

Pereira. R., Loinaz, I., Del Hoyo-Bilbao, J., Arospide, J., Bertino, L., Calvo, A., Montes, Y., & Guiterrez, M. M. (2017). Proposal for a definition of filio-parental violence: Consensus of the Spanish society for the study of filio-parental violence (SEVIFIP). Papeles del psicólogo, 38, 216–233. https://doi.org/10.23923/pap.psicol2017.2839

Rodriguez-Gonzalez, S., Del Hoyo-Bilbao, J., & Echezarraga, A. (2026). Cyber child-to-parent violence: A qualitative study from the perspective of adolescents, parental figures and professionals.Journal of Family Violence. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-025-01031-8

Rodriguez-Gonzalez, S., Del Hoyo-Bilbao, J., Echezarraga, A., & Fernández-González, L. (2026). Cyber child-to-parent violence: Assessment and prevalence according to adolescents’ and parents’ reports. Journal of Adolescence, 98(2), 602–616. https://doi.org/10.1002/jad.70085

Suárez-Relinque, C., & del Moral-Arroyo, G. (2023). Child-to-parent cyber violence: what is the next step? Journal of Family Violence, 38(3), 301–308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-022-00367-9

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