by | August 3, 2015 · 7:31 am

Non-Violent Resistance, a review of one day training

This post was written for The Adoption Social website by Sarah last week, and I have reposted it here with permission. I know that there are many ‘views’ of this site in respect of NVR, and so I hope it will be useful. Similarly, if you have an interest in adoption matters, The Adoption Social is an important and valuable resource.

Sarah from The Puffin Diaries shares her thoughts on a Non-Violent Resistance course she attended.

Recently my husband and I attended a course based on the practice of NVR, Non-Violent Resistance. This course was hosted by PAC and delivered by Rachael Alymer of Partnership Projects.

The first thing that struck myself, my husband and indeed many others, was that we were a room, full with over thirty people and everyone of us had experienced violence from their child. This in its self had a huge impact on many of us; there was an instant feeling of not being alone. Continue reading →

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by | July 28, 2015 · 10:57 am

Where are the specialist services?

Readers of this blog will be familiar with my dream of mapping specialist services around the country for those experiencing child to parent violence (here). With a small amount of funding secured this undertaking finally began for real in May of this year, working half a day a week. What is being found is telling in a number of ways.

  • As expected there is little specialist provision over all.
  • Discovering services that are new to me has been difficult. How much more difficult must it be for parents?
  • Working out who to approach. In some areas a service is run by a domestic violence organisation, in others through youth offending and some are independent. A single point of contact for referrals / requests is thus absolutely essential.
  • Sometimes services are not open to all families. For example, some are only for young people already engaged with the youth offending team.
  • Practitioners in local services may not always be familiar with services other organisations are running.
  • There is a lot of adaptation of tried and tested programmes to fit local situations (or perhaps the skill set or inclination of the practitioners?)
  • Funding issues – there is sometimes a degree of uncertainty as to how long the programme will continue.

Continue reading →

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by | July 17, 2015 · 1:47 pm

When children kill their parents.

The book currently at the top of my “to read” pile is Kathleen Heide‘s Understanding Parricide. Twenty years on from her first book, Why Kids Kill Parents, this book builds on and develops the understanding from the earlier work. In this comprehensive tome, Heide relies on accounts from the literature and her own significant clinical experience, to answer the questions everyone wants to know: who, how often, what weapons, is it increasing and most of all WHY? Continue reading →

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by | July 6, 2015 · 12:01 am

When holidays turn violent

While there are many, many different routes to violence and abuse, we know that for some children and young people, a change in routine can be a real trigger and parents and families must learn to manage this as best they can. Uncertainty, anxiety, sensory overload, loss of control or a fear of abandonment can all bring on violent and destructive behaviour directed towards adults, siblings or property as a child expresses their emotions or seeks to regain some sense of control. Some children will manage a particular event but “collapse” later on. For others, the change itself is sufficient to bring on attempts to escape the pressure. Families with children with ASD diagnoses, FASD, or adoptive parents, amongst others, will be all too familiar with this. It is important that professionals are equally aware and supportive of families in finding solutions. Continue reading →

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by | June 29, 2015 · 8:02 am

Listening: the most important thing?

Time and time again, when I ask parents what is the most important thing in the help that they have received, I am told that it is when someone has listened. Really listened. So when I saw this Clare in the Community cartoon strip from Harry Venning my first impulse was to contact him for permission to use it to illustrate a blog post.

In truth though, it’s hard to know what can be added to make the point any better or stronger! So I leave you with it as it stands. Enjoy – and listen!

(Harry publishes a calendar each year with a collection of  the best strips. Do check it out!)

clare itC

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by | June 22, 2015 · 12:10 pm

A watershed for PDA awareness: My child is not naughty!

There has been rather an emphasis on the impact of domestic violence or trauma on here recently, and so I thought it was time to redress the balance and consider the presentation of violence and abuse to parents from children on the Autistic Spectrum. Today I bring you a guest post from Jane Sherwin, who I first met on twitter writing about life with her daughter, Molly. Jane has become something of an expert on the condition, campaigning, blogging, and publishing a book in 2015. Continue reading →

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by | June 15, 2015 · 10:15 am

The use of section 20 placements in CPV

This post follows on from a small discussion I took part in on twitter on June 2nd, itself emerging from a conference asking Is the Child Protection System Fit for Purpose? #CPConf2015 (Sadly one which I did not attend.) There are numerous write-ups of the conference available on line. The organisers have one here. You can read one from a parent who took part here.

This is about an issue that I would like to understand more as it effects real people (rather than in a theoretical way), and I’m relying on you all to help me: the use of section 20 placements (Children Act 1989) when parents seek support with an abusive child from Children’s Services.  It seems to me that this would be an important part of a tiered response, and yet I hear very negative comments about the implementation.  Through my own experience, through listening to people, particularly on twitter (but also “real life”) I have conjured up a series of statements and questions as a starter for debate. So here goes …. Continue reading →

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by | June 11, 2015 · 8:19 am

Trauma and resilience conference

Where is our outrage?

Lisa Cherry and Jane Evans hosted an inaugural conference on Trauma, Resilience and Recovery on June 2nd 2015. You can see a short video summarising the conference here.

Their work is concerned with raising awareness of the effects of early trauma and changing the way we work with children and families to take account of this, building an attachment focused and trauma aware society more able to support and heal those impacted by early (and ongoing) adversity. This is an issue that both Jane and Lisa are passionate about, and both speak and write extensively about it. Each has written a summary of the conference on their blog (Jane here and Lisa here).

Some would say this is timely as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), has issued guidelines, currently up for consultation, arguing that health and social care providers should train all key workers in assessing attachment difficulties and parenting quality, for children in – or on the edge of – care. You can read more about this here.

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by | June 8, 2015 · 9:05 am

A problem the size of Wales

Two eagerly awaited (by me) reports were published last week, coincidentally, both examining the issue of children’s violence to parents as experienced in Wales.

Beyond the Adoption Order (Wales): Discord and disruption in adoptive families, by Professor Julie Selwyn and Dr Sarah Meakings at the University of Bristol, is an important follow up to the report on adoption disruption in England last year. Very similar findings to the England report were found. All cases of disruption included APV,  typically emerging around the age of 13 years. Experiences of support from agencies, family and friends are examined throughout the process. Extensive recommendations are included at the end. Since the time of the report, Wales has established a National Adoption Service. Continue reading →

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by | June 4, 2015 · 1:39 pm

Research round-up

I’m really pleased to let you know that the reports for the Daphne RCPV project are finally completed, and these, along with related resources are now available on their website. These include conference presentations, CPV evaluation framework and tools, self-efficacy questionnaires, toolkits including those for Break4Change and NVR, and the RCPV films: “Defining CPV” and “Project Findings”. The website will be updated twice a year, so do check it out from time to time for new material. Some of these reports are also available in Spanish, Swedish and Bulgarian. Continue reading →

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