When we think about work with child to parent violence, the agencies which typically come to mind, and indeed the ones that have attracted the most debate in terms of service provision, would be the police, domestic violence bodies, children’s services, youth offending, health or perhaps schools. While the work of academics such as Judy Nixon, examining the impact of intensive family support, drew attention to parent abuse as part of the bigger picture of disruptive and dysfunctional family life, there has not been the focus on housing support that might have been warranted. So it was very interesting to make contact with the Family Support Project workers from Wolverhampton Homes Housing Inclusion Team, as a result of the recent conference in Nottingham, and to explore with them the work that they do in this field. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Child to parent violence
Resolving child to parent violence requires an assertive, intensive and persistent approach.
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“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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“Once your awareness is raised, doing nothing is not an option”.
Picking up on a phrase from Jenny Bright in the last post, it has seemed that almost everyone I have spoken with recently has described the point at which they learned about parent abuse as an epiphany. It was, after all, the reason I have given for setting up this site. Each of us responds to that experience in our own way, whether by further study, setting up local provision, or even running a blog; but many describe the need to “raise awareness”. It got me wondering what we actually mean by that phrase. Continue reading
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Emerging themes 1: CPV and IPV
In my last post I referred to the emergence of a number of themes through the day as we met last week in Nottingham. I want to return to one of these now, namely the issues around conceptualising child to parent violence as domestic violence.
This is something that has been covered by a number of people in the past (e.g. Holt or Hunter, Nixon and Parr), but it keeps re-emerging for a number of reasons. Firstly, much of the work being developed in Britain at the moment is taking place within agencies also dealing with adult intimate partner violence, forcing the issue as adjustments are made to approaches or expectations. Secondly, the change in definition of domestic violence within Britain to include perpetrators aged 16 upwards, has been hailed by some as a positive move, allowing the open discussion of the topic in a new way, and the recognition within policy of the reality of parent abuse. Continue reading
Filed under conference report, Discussion
Job done?
So the last few weeks have been pretty hectic following the announcement on February 26th, of the grant awarded to the University of Brighton for research into child to parent violence. The significant media interest in the issue of child to parent violence mirrors what was seen in Melbourne, following the announcement there of the development of the Keeping Families Safe project. It seems likely that there will be further coverage in national papers, local radio, women’s magazines and perhaps even television in the near future. With the conference coming up in Nottingham this week, which will include a presentation of interim findings from the work being undertaken at Oxford University by Rachel Condry and Caroline Miles, it is an exciting time to be involved in the raising of awareness or indeed in the implementation of work with families experiencing this type of abuse. Continue reading
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The hidden abuse by children on parents – News and events – University of Brighton
The very first post on this blog was with regards to research into Child to Parent violence, with news of work undertaken at the University of Brighton, led by Dr Paula Wilcox.
So it has been exciting to see multiple references in the British media over the last week to this particular research project, acknowledging the award of a £641,000 grant from the European Commission under the Daphne 111 programme. The project will assess the effectiveness of two existing intervention models ‘Break4Change’ (also featured earlier here) and ‘Non Violent Resistance’ from a gendered perspective across five European countries – Bulgaria, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
More details of the research can be found in this news release from the University of Brighton.
The hidden abuse by children on parents – News and events – University of Brighton.
Filed under news reports, Research
Child to Parent Violence Webinar
Parenting UK, part of the charity, Family Lives, holds regular events to support practitioners, including, recently, a webinar on the subject of Child to Parent Violence, presented by Oliver Standing, Policy and Projects Co-ordinator from Adfam, and Sara Hassell, a Family Co-ordinator with Family Lives. Oliver was talking about a recent research project. Sara was addressing work she does in a primary school and the tools she uses working to support abused parents. The organisers have made a video of the presentation available to all interested parties (which lasts just under an hour and three quarters), and also links to documents mentioned and to supplementary material. Continue reading
Filed under Research
“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.
Filed under news reports, publications
A PhD in Child to Parent Violence
A unique opportunity is advertised this week for students interested in undertaking funded research into the gendered aspects of CPV, under the guidance of Dr. Paula Wilcox at the University of Brighton.
Full details here.
Applications by January 25th, study begins February 2013
Filed under Research
Understanding Parent Abuse in under 90 minutes?
Writing some training materials recently, I’ve been forced to be more concise than usual about the main issues facing practitioners working in the field of parent abuse at the moment. An hour and a half doesn’t feel very long when there is so much to say!
So far, this is what I’ve come up with. Continue reading
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HOLES IN THE WALL 