Jo Howard has sent me details of the first national conference on Adolescent Violence in the Home, to be held in Melbourne, Australia, on Monday and Tuesday, 18th and 19th February 2013. Details as below, including a link to register. Further information on the conference, including the programme, and more information about the training being delivered by Lily Anderson on 21st February is also available. Continue reading
Author Archives: helenbonnick
Free training on child to parent violence
Adfam and AVA have recently announced FREE training for practitioners working with parents abused by substance using children. Training details are available here.
The courses will be held across England, starting in October, with some dates still to be confirmed.
The course follows the release of their report Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
Filed under Training opportunities
News of Break4Change
The Brighton and Hove Argus recently published an article about the Break4Change project as part of a domestic violence feature.
Break4Change, addressing parent abuse, has now run 6 successful courses, with the 7th due to start in October in Brighton. The model, which includes work with parents and young people separately, and places high value on restorative features, is the subject of an ongoing evaluation by researchers at Brighton University, and interest has been sparked around the world, in countries as diverse as Sweden and Bulgaria, Spain and Ireland. Continue reading
Filed under news reports, projects, Research
Widening of domestic violence definition offers hope in parent abuse
A lot of coverage in England and Wales this morning as the Home Office announced the widening of the definition of domestic violence. From March 2013 this will include “coercive control” and lowers the age to include 16 and 17 year olds. While the government’s intention was to make support more readily available to younger victims, the hope is that youngsters abusing their parents will also be covered by this change as the definition seems to make this possible. Changing the definition is of course only the first step. The way that the police respond to calls will be vital to any progress on this front, so a need for training still; and of course without the availability of resources and the setting up of local protocols the changes remain meaningless. I am hopeful though!
For a useful discussion about what the changes will mean, see this article from Jo Sharpen in the Guardian.
Filed under news reports
House of Commons Launch of Parent Abuse Report
The Adfam / AVA report into how parents deal with children who use substances and perpetrate abuse, “Between a rock and a hard place”, launched yesterday at the House of Commons, catalogues the shocking experiences of parents and their attempts to access support. Continue reading
Filed under projects, publications, Research
Respect in Cardiff
Just received details of the speakers for the National Practitioners’ Network seminar in Cardiff on October 16th. A very full programme around young people’s use of violence in close relationships. Details and booking form available here or from the Respect website.
Filed under Training opportunities
They F*** You Up
Reading an interview with author, Norah Vincent, this week, I came over all philosophical. Vincent was speaking to Emilee Lindner for Buffalonews.com, about her new book, “Thy Neighbor”. The particular passage that got me thinking was this:
Q: One of those “lines” in the book is where you explain that it’s OK for children to reject their parents, but it’s not OK for a parent to reject their child. Why do you think that’s a taboo in society? Continue reading
Filed under Discussion
October Training in Nottingham
Nottinghamshire Domestic Violence Forum are running a repeat of their June training day on October 5th 2012.
Addressing Young People’s Abuse of Their Parents, 9.45am – 4.30pm
Fee: £85 per delegate, inclusive of lunch and refreshments
Nottingham Voluntary Action Centre: Ash Room
Trainers: Kate Iwi and Dr Chris Newman
This course will explore the issue of young people’s abuse of parents. The
day will cover the impact of domestic violence on young people, prevalence
and dynamics of parent abuse, building strengths in the parent/ child
relationship,. The afternoon will focus on practical skills for working
with parents experiencing abuse from their children, exploring family
systems work and identifying simple techniques to utilise with young people
to help stop their abuse.
The trainers are both experienced practitioners and trainers; having worked
extensively with perpetrators.
The booking form is available here.
Filed under Training opportunities
A statistical increase – is this good or bad?
Some statistics reported from NSW this weekend in terms of violence towards parents.
According to the latest Bureau of Crime statistics, assaults against a family member by children – as young as 10 – have jumped from 1041 in 2007 to 1302 in 2011 – representing eight per cent of all domestic violence cases in NSW.
We are not to know of course whether this represents a real increase in abuse, or whether we should feel more positive about an increase in reporting and logging of incidents. Whether parents decide to call the police at all will depend hugely on their own experience of support and the local policies and response record. Some people would argue strongly that police involvement can be more damaging.
Set against that, it was interesting to read about the response from The Benevolent Society in Campbelltown, who have a project working with children to restore respect and trust in family relationships following domestic violence (same news article). With research showing a strong link between experience of domestic violence and later violence by young people towards their parents, this is a clear-sighted demonstration of preventive work.
Filed under news reports
Strong links between different kinds of family violence
An interesting juxtaposition of topics on Woman’s Hour today. Amongst the early items, Jenni Murray interviewed Lisa Harker, Head of Strategy at the NSPCC, and Radio 1 presenter, Gemma Cairney, about the shocking frequency of teenage relationship abuse. Gemma’s documentary “Bruising Silence” aired on Radio 1 tonight, and the NSPCC published a report, “Standing on my own two feet” in 2011, described as the first ever study of abusive relationships among teenagers (downloadable from the NSPCC website). Among the findings, from the University of Bristol, were that 25% of teenage girls and 18% of boys had experienced physical violence in a relationship. In a lot of cases, there was a strong association with witnessing violence in the home, or with peers or family members – 20% of girls had seen domestic violence. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, radio and video
HOLES IN THE WALL 