This piece from the Orlando Sentinel on 4th October, reporting on responses to parent abuse following the death of Rosemary Pate at the hands of her son, has popped up a number of times in the last week, cross-posted in different places. It was good to see the topic of parent abuse getting a good airing after an earlier item appeared in the same paper in a couple of months ago (see my post of 24th August); and encouraging to see a call for early intervention to prevent abuse before it reaches this stage. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Child to parent violence
Addressing parent abuse through Juvenile Family Courts in USA
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Everybody Hurts: Parent abuse on Radio Sheffield
The top story on the Radio Sheffield breakfast programme yesterday morning (October 3rd) was to do with the launch of a support group for parents being abused by their children in the Sheffield area. Toby Foster gave a very sympathetic hearing to “Anne”, who established the group to reach out to parents in the same position as herself. She has a son, now 14, who has been violent towards first his sister and then herself and others since he was 7 years old. He now has a diagnosis of Aspergers, but Anne stressed that violence to parents was not only perpetrated by young people with health issues. Continue reading
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Parent abuse: Do the math. The cost of not intervening
“Mental disorders cost the economy more than £100bn a year” …. “2 million more adults and 100,000 more children will need treatment in 2030” … “a reduction in the number of people across the UK developing mental disorders appears to us to be the only way that mental health services will adequately cope with demand in 20-30 years’ time”. Soundbites from a recent piece in the Guardian, reflecting anxiety within the NHS as a whole that the money just won’t stretch far enough; and similar discussions abound whether with regard to physical health, education, criminal justice, social care …. The list goes on. So how to fund something new, such as services for families experiencing child to parent violence, at this time of budgetary constraints and cuts, might seem to be a question too far. Continue reading
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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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Elder Abuse: Is this the same thing as parent abuse?
In June 2006 an article in the Times newspaper reported on a parliamentary Health Committee inquiry, set up in 2003 and prompted by estimates that up to 50,000 of Britain’s elderly were subject to abuse from relatives and carers. The inquiry declared the abuse of the elderly to be Britain’s “last hidden abuse scandal.” This weekend the Observer has reported on former health minister, Paul Burstow’s concern that figures show as many as 370,000 older people were abused in their home last year – a “hidden national scandal” – and that the number is likely to increase to nearly half a million by the end of the decade. These figures are based on data extrapolated from a survey of 2000 people in 2007. Nevertheless, they suggest that this is a story that has captured the imagination of those in power. Continue reading
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You can’t afford to dabble
Can anyone respond to a referral of parent abuse? Since we are encouraging practitioners to recognise when child to parent violence is a feature of family function or dysfunction, what are people supposed to do next? How should they intervene? Do you need to follow an approved programme, or can you use practice that works in other settings?
A discussion with Sandra Ashley, Director of Hertfordshire Practical Parenting Programme, touched on these questions as we looked at the range of support programmes on offer and the training offered to facilitators. (You can learn more about some of these programmes on the Resources pages of this blog) Some of these programmes have commonalities. Others feel quite different in emphasis and style and in philosophical background. Meanwhile, bespoke parent abuse projects increasingly find that they are taking referrals from mainstream agencies that feel their own staff lack the necessary expertise (or time perhaps?), while initiatives such as that falling within the Troubled Families remit may be using practitioners from a range of backgrounds to tackle this among many other issues. Continue reading
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Model students perpetrating abuse
If, like me, you prefer your maths concrete and you use things like a classroom of students as a unit of measurement, then you might find this image interesting. Courtesy of Ipswich Borough Council White Ribbon Day, it represents the number of students in a class likely to be perpetrating violence at home – those wearing ties. We can argue over the exact number, depending on the level of violence we are counting – and we might never know the true figure – but images like this can help to make something a bit more real and less of something happening out there to other people.
Photograph © Lorraine Arthur Continue reading
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No rules about controlling relationships
Coverage of an assault by Charles Saatchi on his wife Nigella Lawson, outside a London restaurant at the weekend, has sparked considerable debate in the press and on social media – not least as to why people felt it was OK to photograph and document events, rather than intervene.
Writing in the Telegraph, Iris McCann and Dr. Petra Boynton have used the opportunity to discuss the different faces of domestic abuse, and to offer advice to those who recognise their experience. Continue reading
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Adolescent to parent abuse: the facts
I was interested to be sent this fact sheet recently, by Heather Nancarrow, Director of the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research, CQ University. The leaflet was produced to support parents who might be experiencing abuse from their children, with clear outlines of what counts as abusive behaviour, recognising how parents may be feelings and reminding them of their right to live free of abuse and violence. It is distributed (among other places) to police stations, one of the key places parents may first seek help. The addresses and contact details are of course only relevant to Australia, but the information given is useful to all; and the layout and presentation very attention grabbing.
It was one such leaflet that prompted this article in the Gladstone Observer, on May 31st.
The reporter took the opportunity to interview a police officer and a youth worker involved in supporting parents, as well as Nancarrow. Parents are urged to start disciplining their children early, recognise the signs of parent abuse, and to come forward for help if necessary. The article is a little confused in its structure, but its good to see the issue of child to parent violence receiving attention and recognition in the media again.
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HOLES IN THE WALL 