“Of course I knew it was a very serious and extensive problem, but I don’t think I realised the dimensions and the scale of it“, the words of Justice Marcia Neave, who was the head of Australia’s first royal commission into family violence, which reported at the end of March, after a mammoth 13 months, during which the commission heard evidence from more than 200 stakeholders to come up with a final list of 227 recommendations. The commission was set up by the government of Victoria specifically, but the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, promised to accept every recommendation, and it is hoped that the federal government will also act in areas over which they have jurisdiction, such as the Family Law Act. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Child to parent violence
Happy Birthday, Holes in the Wall!
Please allow me a moment of self-indulgence as I celebrate 5 years of this website, Holes in the Wall, ‘born’ in May 2011 out of a desire to make a contribution to the understanding of children’s violence to parents, known sometimes as parent abuse. As a present to myself I have ordered shiny new postcards to leave with people at conferences and events, explaining how ‘Holes’ came about and how you can be part of the community!
Filed under Discussion
Assuring the quality of training opportunities
A few years ago the sorts of training opportunities available for practitioners and parents / carers (in the UK) around child to parent violence were confined to Local Authority organised days, a small number of agencies with developed expertise, and projects such as the Daphne RCPV work. Whether you could access anything easily was very dependent on where you were in the country – both in terms of accessibility and in having the costs covered. Models of work are varied and it was sometimes difficult to find training which reflected your own approach. In the last year there has definitely been an upsurge in training opportunities advertised – which is good news for those who want to know more, but it brings its own issues. Can you be sure the provider is qualified to deliver the training? Will you be properly equipped at the end to practise the skills – whether in your home or at work? Are the techniques and models promoted safe? Will the training be recognised by funders? Continue reading
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Be curious
Watching the most recent series from Channel 5 about child to parent violence recently, Violent Child, Desperate Parents, I’ve been struck by the principle underlying the therapist, Mandy Saligari’s work: Be Curious.
Read or listen to the discussions around the programme, or follow particular communities on twitter, and you’ll be familiar with the common assumptions about what’s behind the abuse. Parents too soft, giving them everything they want, they just need boundaries, parents have given up, the parents don’t give a damn. Of course, they do give a damn which is why they are taking the almighty step of exposing their lives to general opprobrium via this popular medium, but that seems to be overlooked. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, TV
Child to parent violence as a “process”
Estefania Lema has sent me the abstract and details of her PhD thesis looking at child to parent violence.
Child-to-parent violence as a process. Analysis of personal, family and contextual variables. Estefania Lema-Moreira, PhD, University of A Coruna, Spain
The frequency of child to parent violence is increasing; and at the same time scientific interest is growing, while important gaps in understanding remain. The general aim of this study was to obtain a deeper knowledge of child to parent violence. Qualitative research methods were used, based on grounded theory. Using unstructured interviews, we analysed the personal, familial and contextual aspects of a group of families, across the history of CPV; as well as material from the systemic family therapy sessions. The sample is composed of 8 cases, comprising 10 parents, 1 daughter and 5 therapists. In six of the eight cases, parents required intervention because of the levels of violence during their time in therapy. Continue reading
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Parent Abuse: Gender issues in group work
Not a very snappy headline I’ll grant you but the alternative was too cheesey – “Keeping gender on the agenda”. Yeah, I know…..
While there are a small number of studies that have found little difference between the violence and abuse from young women and young men towards their parents, the general accumulation of research seems to point otherwise, and it is likely that this discrepancy can be accounted for by the type of survey, the type of data examined, the particular expression of violence or abuse, or the ages of the young people involved. Eddie Gallagher has a chapter on gender in his commentary on the literature regarding child to parent violence, and he confirms the experience of those involved in clinical practice or the legal world, as well as recent research in Oxford and Brighton, that boys are three or four more times as likely to be involved in CPV than are girls. This difference is most markedly shown as the age increases, and the level of violence worsens. This is not to deny that many girls and young women are extremely violent and abusive towards their parents; and Gallagher also suggests that their levels of violence may be increasing. Continue reading
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Child to parent abuse: “The pointy end of entitlement”
The Australian media have offered considerable coverage of child to parent violence and abuse over the last year, as conferences have taken place, reports have been published, or police figures made public. But the most recent piece, about this in the Sydney Morning Herald, was more disappointing in depicting an inevitable new world order of weak, ineffective parents and controlling, over-entitled children. Testimony from parents was matched by commentary from psychologists and educators, all stressing the changing environment and culture that young people grow up in today, and predicting mental health problems to come as this generation matures to adulthood. Continue reading
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Child to parent violence: the new topic for discussion at parties!
If you are engaged in work that is looking vulnerable to belt tightening and budget cuts it may not seem as if the situation on the ground is improving as we embark on a new year. Indeed, the notion of a “new year” can seem pretty artificial if your timescales are built around tax years or funding applications. Nevertheless, for me at least, the end of one year and the start of the new meant parties and that proved an interesting experience in a way I never would have predicted in the past.
With the rich mix of a relationship storyline in The Archers that has been looking like coercive control since day one, and a storyline about child to parent violence in Coronation Street, it is suddenly OK to talk about domestic violence at parties! So I had the rather surreal experience of sitting with glass in hand talking about Helen’s relationship with Rob as if it was real (which of course it is if you’re an Archers fan), followed by listening to two groups of friends discussing their own experiences of abuse from pre-teen children and steps they were taking to address the issue. Perhaps it’s the parties I go to, and I’ll grant you it doesn’t sound very exciting! You have to picture the decorations, the food, imagine the music; these were conversations in little huddles competing with the noise. But the fact that they were happening was a moving experience and one that must be in part due to the immense media coverage over the last year that has brought these two issues to greater public consciousness.
So I look forward to 2016 with brave new hopes and expectations: that the public consciousness of child to parent violence will continue to grow, that our understanding of the issues involved will be refined, and of course that the development of services to support families will continue to grow – and also, that it will become more and more OK to talk about it at parties.
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The BBC tackles child to parent violence
(Screenshot. See below for link to the interview).
This week saw huge progress in the drive to make child to parent violence less of a hidden problem, with a headline story on Monday’s Victoria Derbyshire show on BBC2, presented by Joanna Gosling.
A film, produced by West Midlands journalist Noel Phillips, led the story, and there was studio discussion from me, alongside Ann Ramsden of the Rosalie Ryrie Foundation and Seamus Oates, Executive Head Teacher of TBAP, representing the Youth Justice Board. The Family Lives helpline was offered for anyone seeking more support or information, and Anastasia de Waal chair of Family Lives answered questions throughout the day on local radio stations also picking up the story. If you listen to local radio you may also have heard stories from other families experiencing violence, and local practitioners discussing their work.
The film features interviews with a mother whose son was eventually removed from the home following violence to her, two young lads speaking candidly about past violence and abuse towards their mother, interviews with Cherryl Henry-Leach, leader of the Doncaster programme – Getting On, and Peter Jakob of Partnership Projects.
I have been asked about the figure of 4 million families being affected, offered by Noel Phillips early on in the film. This comes from the 2012 4Children report, The Enemy Within, based on a YouGov survey, which asked families about their experience of conflict and violence.
We are all very excited to have been involved in this, and look forward to further development of these stories being taken up in the same way in the future.
Filed under TV
The Care Act 2014: how can it support individuals experiencing child to parent violence?
Yesterday I attended a seminar organised by AVA, considering the interface between the Care Act 2014 and domestic violence, and what could be learnt about support for vulnerable victims of abuse: “The Care Act six months on …early lessons to keep vulnerable adults safe from domestic and sexual abuse.” As always with these things I had an interest in how this would apply in situations of child to parent violence, but there was a nice overlap too with my “proper job” in that some of the social work students I support and assess might be working within this legislation. Continue reading
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HOLES IN THE WALL 