The official announcement of the piloting of a new programme to address family violence in the state of Victoria, coinciding with the first Australian National Adolescent Violence in the Home conference, held this week in Melbourne, received significant coverage in the media. I reported on the project in a previous post of 13th February. Continue reading
Category Archives: news reports
New Project for Abused Parents in Victoria.
There are exciting developments afoot in Australia, where the Victoria State government has agreed funding for a three year pilot of a programme for parents and young people, based on the Seattle Step-Up model. Jo Howard, of Peninsula Health, has been involved in the campaign for the last five years and views it as a huge achievement at a time of government cutbacks. Work is underway to set up staff and systems, and Jo reports that they are already inundated with parents. There is hope that, if successful, the model will be rolled out across the state and country as a whole. Continue reading
Filed under news reports, projects
“Parent abuse is a serious problem”
A tragic story today from Tulsa, of a son, charged with the murder of his mother. There was apparently a history of violence from him in their relationship and he had been arrested in the past for domestic violence assault and battery as the accompanying video makes clear.
Missy Iski, Director of Programs and Counseling at DVIS, comments on the piece, encouraging people to talk more about the serious problem of parent abuse. She gives phone numbers of helping agencies in the Tulsa area.
I was reminded of a journal article from Walsh and Krienert of 2009 which drew distinctions between child to parent violence and parricide. Their own study suggested that these were two distinct problems. Nevertheless, abused parents report frequently feeling fearful for their lives, sometimes with good cause as demonstrated here.
Filed under news reports, publications
“If Lanza ( ) had been confronted by a qualified armed, security guard ..”
I was hesitant about wading in on the debate in the wake of the tragic events in Newtown, Connecticut a week ago. While we were all so shocked by the senseless deaths of so many children, school staff, and the gunman’s own mother, and without proper context, it did not seem appropriate to draw attention to a possible link with my own cause; but in the wake of the NRA response, which calls for even greater arming of the population, I feel no such restraint. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, news reports
Jailed for life for killing his mother
There was coverage in the media in Britain this week of the tragic case of Leah Whittle, stabbed to death by her son, then aged 16 years, in “a ferocious attack” in July this year. The killing is presented as an isolated act of violence, though coming from a disturbed family situation. The death of a parent is not always linked with previous patterns of parent abuse, and there is much here that we do not know. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, news reports
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
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
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
Pointing the finger at “Troubled Families”
The media buzzes again today with discussion about help for Cameron’s 120,000 “troubled families”. (BBC article here)
The term itself has fallen into disrepute, not least since revelations regarding the integrity of the statistical base for the government’s claims. (Tim Harford’s excellent radio article here) However, we are in danger of focusing so much on the blatant disregard of facts that we forget that there are indeed many families in dire need of help, whether the 120,000 experiencing multiple disadvantage, or the families (quantity unknown) about whom Cameron was actually talking. There will, presumably, be some overlap, but the suggestion that being poor, unwell or disabled, and in substandard housing, automatically qualifies you as a “neighbour from hell” is deeply offensive. In a post today, Declan Gaffney suggests that the situation could be easily redeemed, and our attention refocused presumably, if government spokespeople would only admit to the flaws. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, news reports
HOLES IN THE WALL 