by | March 10, 2015 · 7:42 pm

Lazy reporting could not spoil an opportunity to discuss parent abuse

This started off as a weary rant from me today and then changed tone as the day progressed!

While it has been exciting and encouraging to see the increase in coverage of child to parent violence and abuse in the media over the last week, I have been disappointed yet again by the tone of some of the pieces and the apparent laziness of reporting.

Times headline

The main headline in the Times, (you may not be able to read the next line, “Families cannot deal with minor domestic rows”)  today picks up on the report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary into the welfare of vulnerable people in police custody, which has held centre stage across the media today. This highlights the often inappropriate use of custody for individuals experiencing poor mental health, or other vulnerabilities, because of a crisis in other support services; and while researchers have said that the findings show pressures faced by many families and carers, and the fact that the police are often used as the agency of last resort, the first example given – thus setting the tone – is of a dispute over a TV remote control. Other examples are given of greater severity of risk and violence. Parents are described as contacting the police because they reach breaking point. But there is no exploration of this issue in a wider way, other than to suggest lone women are finding it particularly difficult to bring up children. Continue reading →

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by | March 5, 2015 · 2:38 pm

My Violent Child: “everything revolves around him”

So this week saw the start of the return series of My Violent Child, the Channel 5 documentary made by Popkorn TV about children’s violence to parents, which first aired in Britain in June 2014. I was tempted to post something in the run up to the first episode (of 3) but decided to watch first before committing myself – always good practice I find! Continue reading →

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by | February 24, 2015 · 11:29 am

Standards and quality assurance: next steps in parent abuse work

I was at a meeting last week considering the need for practice standards in work with families impacted by parent abuse.

While it still feels uncomfortably random whether you are able to access help or not as a family or practitioner, it might be surprising to hear that there has been a real surge in the development of services across England at least. With a limited amount of research and evidence to base work on, it is perhaps less surprising that many of the services show great similarities, even when they have started from different places and within different agencies, but there is variety and this is both good (flexibility in design and delivery meets specific needs) and potentially problematic (how can we be sure that work meets the needs). Now that programmes are more established and have themselves worked through initial teething problems, it seems a good time to think about how to assure quality and safety in the work. Continue reading →

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by | February 19, 2015 · 5:24 pm

Child to parent violence: An ever expanding library

This year is set to be an exciting one in terms of books about child to parent violence. I have done a brief round up here and will be writing more about each as they are published. If there are others I have missed please let me know (send me a copy!) and I will cover them too. Continue reading →

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by | February 10, 2015 · 8:24 am

A brighter future for families experiencing child to parent violence

Continuing a mini series of interviews about different projects around the country, I have been speaking with Sian Taylor at Wish for a Brighter Future in Bristol.

Wish header

 

Wish for a Brighter Future (WISH) has been in operation since 2003, when a small group of Hartcliffe residents identified a need to provide domestic abuse support in their community. WISH worked for many years supporting men, women and children affected by domestic violence and abuse (DVA) within the local community before developing their parent abuse project. They found their understanding and experience of DVA were vital in making the transition from domestic to parent abuse support. While the original expectation was that the work would be with young people, delivering domestic abuse prevention work through education and group work support – and the funding* supported this plan – once the doors opened the organisation was inundated with referrals for parent abuse, and for the last year this has been the sole focus of the work. Continue reading →

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by | February 4, 2015 · 3:01 pm

RCPV: The final conference

Brighton last week saw the final conference for the Responding to Child to Parent Violence Project, the second largest funded project from the Daphne111 programme, and one I have grown to feel very close to. It was something I blogged about in my very first post here, and the team have been very gracious in allowing me to ‘hang out’ with them over the last three years. The closing of a project might seem a sad occasion, but it felt more like a celebration, as each of the partner countries (England, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and Bulgaria) and programmes presented their achievements and aspirations – and indeed the growth and development of understanding and resources will continue as well as the friendships forged through work together. Continue reading →

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by | January 13, 2015 · 10:57 am

New Year, New Reading

I have recently been sent links to new and additional published articles in the field of adolescent to parent abuse; and have updated the Reading List page accordingly.

A paper by Caroline Miles and Rachel Condry, Adolescent to parent violence: the police response to parents reporting violence from their children, further develops the discussion arising from the findings of their three-year research project. This paper specifically examines police responses and suggests a way forward that offers support and restorative action for families. (Abstract here.)

Declan Coogan has a paper entitled Responding to Child-to-Parent Violence: Innovative Practices in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, in the Health and Social Work Journal, Special Issue: Child and Adolescent Health. (Abstract here) He considers obstacles in the recognition of, and response to, child to parent violence, and proposes the Non Violent Resistance Programme as a positive way forward.

Sally Donovan’s second book about the experiences of adoptive parenting, The Unofficial Guide,  offers a further raw and powerful account of living with children traumatised by earlier life. She offers practical steps and guidance for parents, but the book is well worth reading for anyone involved in the adoption or CPV field.

I’ve also tidied up the links to the Family Lives / Parentline reports as I have been told they have been difficult to find on the website. Hopefully that is now improved.

Please do let me know about any other books or articles to add to the list. It is not exhaustive by any means, and certainly does not include early work, which I should get round to adding at some point!

In the meantime, Happy Reading!

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by | January 2, 2015 · 11:16 am

Parent abuse: looking back, looking forward

It is the traditional time for looking back – and looking forward – a time when many of us reassess our hopes and dreams, and make new plans for the future. I recently wrote a guest blog for the Oxford APV website, looking back over the last ten years of work in this field. I don’t want to rehash what I wrote there – go take a look – but here are some more musings and a bit more detail to some earlier hints for the direction of my work in the coming months. Continue reading →

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by | December 16, 2014 · 7:56 pm

Child to parent violence: Mapping provision

For some time now a group of people across academia, the public and third sectors have been working on a project to map provision for child to parent violence across Britain. I wrote about this earlier in the year when we hoped it would all be done by now. No laughing at the back! Let’s just say that we are taking an ultra cautious approach.

For such a resource to be of value it needs to be accurate, and we are also concerned to deal with matters of assessing safety and effectiveness. While it is somewhat easier now to talk about violence from children to parents, and there has been an increase in provision over the last few years, this is still scattered unevenly across the country and many families remain unable to access specialist help when they need it. As well as enabling parents and practitioners to identify and locate support more easily, it is hoped that it might provide useful information for commissioners looking to develop a service, and also highlight areas which are particularly under-resourced for some targeted campaigning.

* Are you aware of a local service that could be included?

* Do you work with families experiencing child to parent violence?

* Have you attended training nationally or in your locality with a view to starting up a service?

If any of these ring true for you, please do get in touch via the “contact” page. The project is taking longer than we had anticipated but is still very much moving forward; and I hope there will be more news of this in the next few months.

 

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by | December 8, 2014 · 7:09 pm

Kate Iwi talks about restorative justice in parent abuse work

Marking International Restorative Justice Week in November, this YouTube video was posted by IARS. In it, Kate Iwi, of Respect UK, talks about an innovative restorative technique being pioneered as part of the Respect Young People’s Programme. Restorative work is a fundamental aspect of work with families experiencing children’s violence to parents.

 

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