Category Archives: publications

by | September 25, 2013 · 9:40 am

Adolescent Violence to Parents Conference report

The Adolescent Violence to Parents (APV) conference held this week (September 23rd 2013) in Oxford was an important landmark in terms of knowledge and understanding, as the findings of the three year ESRC-funded research led by Rachel Condry and Caroline Miles were presented to a packed audience of over 130 people.

This represented the first large scale analysis of police data on APV in the UK, looking at all cases reported to the Metropolitan Police, and defined as constituting a criminal offence, between April 2009 and March 2010 (n=1892). The research looked at victim, offender and incident characteristics and then considered how adolescent violence to parents should be understood and addressed within the field of criminology in the future. Continue reading →

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by | September 20, 2013 · 9:21 am

Weekend round-up

Over the last weeks a number of things have caught my attention and I thought it worth while bringing them all together here before they get lost.

A new journal article from Mounir H Fawzi, Mohab M Fawzi & Amira A Fouad, Parent abuse by adolescents with first-episode psychosis in Egypt, Journal of Adolescent Health, published online 16.08.13 (abstract here). The purpose of the research was to determine rates of parent abuse among this group of adolescents presenting at outpatients, and to identify the association between parent abuse and a number of socioeconomic and clinical factors. I found the article interesting for a number of reasons. It does not seem so long a time since people were asking whether parent abuse was a phenomenon confined to western societies with particularly lax forms of parenting, yet time and time again there are news items and articles emerging from societies right across the world. The findings show clear bias towards sons as abusers and mothers as victims, (apologies for the terminology which I know is uncomfortable for some people). Once again parent abuse is described as a taboo, a hidden problem, and there is a call for greater awareness raising, education and support. Continue reading →

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by | September 16, 2013 · 7:28 am

Trouble in the Troubled Families Department

I have a sort of Love-Hate relationship with the Trouble Families Programme and so I like to keep abreast of developments and opinion as it unfolds, for instance the announcement last week on September 10th that 14,000 families have now been ‘turned around’.

I am torn between the belief that intensive family support can be extremely productive – and that this is in fact what brought many folk into social work in the first place – and the concern about the turn such a model of intervention has taken on the current government’s watch. Intensive Family Support Programmes have a proud heritage and it is from them, significantly, that we have learnt much about children’s violence to parents in the UK. Continue reading →

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by | June 27, 2013 · 12:17 pm

Understanding is everything

You may have caught the controversial coverage of comments made a few weeks ago by a mother of 4 children with ADHD, the youngest of whom is violent to her on a daily basis. (Here and here) Jenny Young, herself diagnosed with ADHD, stated that if her husband had been violent in the same way she would have left him, and if her son were a dog she would have had him put down. But for parents like her there is no choice: “There isn’t a refuge for battered Mums”. Cue national outrage. Continue reading →

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by | May 29, 2013 · 4:47 pm

Child to Parent Violence: Insights from Spain

Over the last few months I have been conscious that this blog has focused very much on events in the UK, with some coverage of Australia and the US and little from elsewhere. But I am also aware that the readership spreads right across the world; and so I would like to try to bring some broader content to  “balance” things out a little. I know that there is important work going on in many other countries, from reading bibliographies and from following news and events, through colleagues attending international conferences as well as from a google alert.

In this post I want to bring together some information regarding work on child to parent violence (CPV) in Spain. I would value any comments or contributions on this to further expand my knowledge. Similarly, I hope that practitioners and researchers from around the world will take the time to let us know what is going on where they are. We can all be encouraged in hearing of the progress and developments of others. Continue reading →

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by | May 10, 2013 · 9:16 am

“A thought-provoking and well-structured summary”

Amanda Holt’s recent ground-breaking book received a very positive review in the April 2013 issue of the British Journal of Social Work. Adolescent to Parent Abuse: Current Understandings in Research, Policy and Practice was published by the Policy Press in December 2012.

Teresa Cleary, Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Anglia Ruskin University, describes the work as “a thought-provoking and well-structured  summary of the largely uncharted territory of adolescent-to-parent abuse”, concluding, “This book offers a well evidenced academic argument as to why adolescent-to-parent abuse should be given more attention by researchers and policy makers like and that parents should be allowed to come forward as ‘victims’ without fear of blame or punitive response.”

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by | April 25, 2013 · 8:49 am

Changing the DV definition: the debate continues

My attention was drawn this week to the recently released Home Office Guidance, Information for Local Areas on the change to the definition of Domestic Violence and Abuse. Produced in partnership with AVA, the guidance contains a whole section on Child to Parent Violence and calls specifically for the support of local groups working with families experiencing parent abuse, and the training of domestic violence workers in their work with this form of family violence.

At the same time, I received some comments from Anne-Marie Harris, Senior Development Adviser for Effective Practice with the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, addressing the extension of the definition and drawing attention again to the need to exercise caution in the way these developments are carried forward. These are reproduced here and are particularly pertinent in the light of the guidance issued. Continue reading →

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by | April 15, 2013 · 4:44 pm

“The shame mums won’t talk about”

Great to see a piece in Woman’s Own magazine (April 8th 2013) covering parent abuse. Media interest flourished in the wake of the announcement of the grant awarded to the University of Brighton to study child to parent violence, and this is one of the results. The piece includes two case studies, the finding from the Metropolitan police area that reports of child to parent attacks account for three percent of all domestic violence cases, and detail from PAARS, who found that more than half of the abusive youngsters they worked with were boys and aged 13 – 15. Jeremy Todd of Family Lives also adds some comment about possible reasons for the violence, and advice to parents about what to do when an argument breaks out; and there is a link to this website. It’s good to hear that the violence has now ended for the two families featured.

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by | January 25, 2013 · 2:24 pm

“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.

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by | January 20, 2013 · 9:04 pm

Reading about adolescent to parent abuse

A couple of years ago, I briefly joined a reading group. I had been encouraged to believe that the discipline would enable me to find space in my life to explore books I might not otherwise choose to read. It worked – but unfortunately only for me in that particular group. As I stare at the monumental pile on my desk now, which includes books I purchased over five years ago, I feel rather contrite and certainly less judgmental towards my onetime comrades. Continue reading →

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