Respect have announced the date of their next national practitioners’ network meeting, to take place in Cardiff, Wales, on October 16th 2012. Details available on their website. Offers of leading a workshop or sharing practice requested by September 7th.
Author Archives: helenbonnick
Respect 7th National Practitioner’s Network Meeting
Filed under Training opportunities
No one could accuse the PAARS team of a lack of commitment!
I met with the practitioners from PAARS this week to find out more about what they are doing, and to make their project more widely known.
PAARS, which stands for Parent Abuse and Reconciliation Service, is a small, locally based parent abuse project which got off the ground at the beginning of the year with a Lottery grant and three members working evenings and weekends after finishing their day jobs. Joe Lettieri, Ayse Adil and Karen Hunter work as learning mentors and parent support advisors in a secondary school in the London Borough of Enfield. With many years of service between them, they were very familiar with the story of parents struggling with the twin demons of domestic violence and abusive teenagers, young people acting out their anger and pain in risk taking and violent behaviour, but with no available support services on which to call. Even within school, the team was unable to offer a joined up response, and so they formed PAARS to fill the gap. Continue reading
Filed under projects
For shame
There’s been a bit of a theme going on it seems lately about shame.
Today I have been re-reading Lynette Robinson’s Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Report, Interventions and Restorative Responses to Address Teen Violence Against Parents, and the accompanying comments by Terry O’Connell, Director of Real Justice (both available here) Lynette writes about the high level of shame experienced not just by the parents throughout their experiences, but also by the young people regarding their behaviour, and the difficulties of moving on from this position if we do not give people the tools to work with. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion
Supporting families of substance using, abusive young people
While it has long been known that substance abuse by young people was in some cases associated with parent abuse, there has been very little written about the connection. (eg Gallagher’s work)
A 2010 research report, entitled “Supporting families affected by substance use and domestic violence”, which has just been brought to my attention, goes some way to opening such a discussion. The report, by Dr. Sarah Galvani, sought to build the research base with two groups of family members whose needs have not been adequately recognised up to now: young people and Family Member Support Providers, (individuals personally affected and seeking to support others by semi-formal means). Initially it had been anticipated that these adults would be concerned with domestic violence between adult members of a household, but they were surprised to discover that they were in fact working with parents and grandparents affected by abuse from their children and grandchildren. Continue reading
Problematising young men
Dr Helen Baker has kindly sent me details of an article which was published in Criminal Justice Matters in March this year, Exploring how teenage boys are constructed in relation to parent abuse. The full citation is: Helen Baker (2012): Exploring how teenage boys are constructed in relation to parent abuse, Criminal Justice Matters, 87:1, 48-49
She develops these ideas further in the Social Policy and Society themed issue, of April 2012 issue (Vol. 11, issue 2), Problematising the Relationship between Teenage Boys and Parent Abuse: Constructions of Masculinity and Violence, in a paper which was first presented at a symposium at Sheffield Hallam University in March 2010.
Filed under publications
Respect 6th National Practitioners Seminar
I have come to anticipate a stimulating and informative experience from Respect’s Practitioner Seminars. Yesterday’s, in the London Borough of Haringey, was the 6th national conference, the first to be held in partnership with a local authority, and it certainly lived up to all expectations. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, projects, Training opportunities
Safeguarding issues in child to parent violence
A lot has been written about the difficulties in adopting a safeguarding response to the issue of parent abuse. First of all, it falls outside the normative model of child as victim, to which the responses are generally geared; and the safeguarding of vulnerable adults guidance is not usually applied to the parents in these situations, as they are not considered vulnerable within the specific terms. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, publications
Something to celebrate!
This week I celebrate one year of this blog.
When I first became aware of the issue of parent abuse, in the early 80s, we had no idea of what to suggest to help the parent who had approached us. By the time I engaged in some serious research, in 2004-6, there was a small but growing body of knowledge about this aspect of family violence, and a number of programmes had been developed, mostly in Australia, New Zealand and the USA and Canada. A year later, a discussion on parent abuse was one of the items in the BBC’s Woman’s Hour, a flagship radio programme, which goes out 6 days a week. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Parenting NI statistics show increase in calls for help
At the beginning of June, Parenting NI released figures showing a dramatic increase of 27% in the calls received by their helpline relating to teenage violence against parents. The figure was lower in the Northern Health Trust, with 17%, while the Western Health Trust showed a 30% increase. The statistics compare figures for 2010/2011 with the latest figures for calls from 2011/2012.
Charlene Brooks, Director for Parents Helpline, a project within Parenting NI reported: “The dramatic rise in parents calling the helpline because their teenage children are aggressive or violent towards them, is a worrying trend. Parents call the Parents Helpline for a variety of reasons – they are often worried about their child’s behaviour or family tensions, but recognise the importance of taking steps to get help for the situation. Through our Parenting Education Programmes we have also experienced an increase in parents telling us about ‘behavioural issues’ they are experiencing at home and many will eventually disclose that their teenage child is violent towards them. Understandably many parents are ashamed to admit that their child is aggressive or violent towards them and parents often don’t know where to turn for support.” Continue reading
Filed under news reports, projects
Alternative Restoratives: Training and awareness
Lynette Robinson, of Alternative Restoratives reports a busy but successful year for her organisation:
It has been a busy year for Alternative Restoratives in delivering awareness raising presentations at events across the UK and also a workshop at the International Conference for Restorative Practices (IIRP) held in Nova Scotia, Canada in June 2011. We have held two Professional Awareness Raising Days Understanding Adolescent to Parent Abuse, in September, 2011 and March 2012, in which parents as service users and professionals from the public, private and voluntary sectors shared their experiences in this issue. Both events were attended by delegates from a range of family service areas. Many went away with new awareness and understanding of this issue, and inspired to develop their own practice and services. It is wonderful to hear of the many new pilots that are now becoming established in many authorities across our country, and encouraging to know that awareness and understanding of this ‘hidden’ form of family violence is growing across professionals. Continue reading
Filed under Training opportunities
HOLES IN THE WALL 