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
Filed under Discussion
Adfam and AVA have recently announced FREE training for practitioners working with parents abused by substance using children. Training details are available here.
The courses will be held across England, starting in October, with some dates still to be confirmed.
The course follows the release of their report Between a Rock and a Hard Place.
Filed under Training opportunities
I have come to anticipate a stimulating and informative experience from Respect’s Practitioner Seminars. Yesterday’s, in the London Borough of Haringey, was the 6th national conference, the first to be held in partnership with a local authority, and it certainly lived up to all expectations. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, projects, Training opportunities
A lot has been written about the difficulties in adopting a safeguarding response to the issue of parent abuse. First of all, it falls outside the normative model of child as victim, to which the responses are generally geared; and the safeguarding of vulnerable adults guidance is not usually applied to the parents in these situations, as they are not considered vulnerable within the specific terms. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, publications
I met recently with Julia Worms, of the Respect Young People’s Service, to learn more about the Respect Young People’s Toolkit, which was officially launched in Britain last year, supporting work with young people using violence in close relationships.
Aside from work within criminal justice, Respect is unique in developing family violence interventions, setting standards for provision and operating as an umbrella membership organisation, as well as offering training and development. Its independence is important, allowing freedom to operate within the voluntary sector and to develop work such as the YP Toolkit. Continue reading
Filed under projects, Training opportunities
Writing a piece for PSW magazine over the holiday, and then watching the Archbishop of Canterbury’s new year’s day speech, has reminded me of the difficulties inherent in raising awareness of a serious issue – such as parent abuse – while avoiding demonising the various players. Much is made within the literature on child to parent violence, of taking care not to apportion blame, thereby increasing the shame parents already feel and making them less likely to seek help. Fundamental to the Respect agenda of the mid Labour years from 2006 was the notion of parental responsibility, and of holding parents to account for the behaviour of their children, credited with damaging further the precarious balance of power within some families. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion
Since work is directed by policy, and policy dictated by legislation, Yvonne Nugent hopes that one outcome of her research into child to parent violence will be the reform of legislation. Based at Loughborough University across the fields of law and social science since 2007, Yvonne originally began this work in 2005.
At the Respect National Practitioners’ Seminar in Nottingham this October, Yvonne presented some of her findings and considered how we can best work within the current legislative and policy landscape. With not even a working definition of parent abuse, the response by agencies is at best ad hoc. It was suggested that both the Every Child Matters framework (within the UK) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (3.1) currently offer possible support for work with abusive teenagers and their parents, since it is never in the child’s best interests to be involved in an abusive relationship.
Yvonne hopes that it will not be too long before the UK follows New Zealand in developing both a legal definition of parent abuse and a reform of the safeguarding legislation to include abuse of parents by children under the age of eighteen within its aegis.
Filed under Discussion
HOLES IN THE WALL 