Two recent things of interest from Amanda Holt:
A journal article looking at similarities and differences between adolescent to parent and intimate partner violence; and a seminar addressing this issue at Oxford Brookes University last month. You can hear Amanda and see the slides from this presentation here.
Filed under publications
News in Britain this week of the appointment of Seema Malhotra as shadow minister to tackle violence against women and girls, is presented as demonstrating a growing commitment in this country to combatting both domestic violence and related issues. At the same time, we have seen the launch of the No More Deaths campaign to put family violence at the top of the state election agenda in Victoria, Australia, where it is recognised that women and families have been failed over and over again by prevailing attitudes and culture, themselves embedded in official responses. (also here) Continue reading
Filed under news reports, publications
In February this year, I wrote about a meeting I had had with Nick Poyntz, from Popkorn TV, to discuss ideas about a forthcoming documentary dealing with child to parent violence. I am pleased to say that this programme has been made and is to be aired on Channel 5 at 9pm, Wednesday 18th June, My Violent Child. Continue reading
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Mapping support for parents
News at last about the mapping project I have been talking about for ages!
A group of interested people is now meeting regularly to try to get his moving. We aim to produce some sort of directory of all the services across the country supporting families experiencing child to parent violence, by the end of the year. It is not clear at this point what form this will take or who will be able to access it initially, but this is huge progress. Between us we know of a considerable number of projects and services working with parent abuse across the country, but no doubt there are many we are missing. It would be great to make this as comprehensive as possible. If you know of services in your area, or indeed elsewhere, please do email me via the Contact page. Thanks. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, news reports, Training opportunities
Reading around, and attending conferences recently, I have been impressed with the work of practitioners in the area of early childhood trauma, such as Jane Evans and Kate Cairns. Understanding of the physiological impact of stress, fear and uncertainty makes sense of children’s later behaviour, when apparently innocuous events can trigger responses which may not even be understood by the child themselves. This is particularly pertinent to the field of parent abuse where it has been suggested that almost half of abusing young people have experienced domestic violence in their past or current home life.
Watching film such as this, makes it all the more real. Originally made to raise awareness in the training of foster parents, ReMoved shows the devastating emotional impact on children of living with domestic violence.
ReMoved stands as a powerful and eloquent call for early intervention to enable children to be safe, and to come to terms with their experiences.
Filed under Discussion, Film
The importance of intervening early on to support families experiencing domestic violence was underlined again last week with the launch of the report from the Early Intervention Foundation, Domestic Violence and Abuse, which considers the impact on children of witnessing such violence. It’s hard to believe that we once minimised the harm of such experience, provided children were in another room at the time. The children themselves could have told a different story of course. While recognising that progression from witness to perpetrator is far from inevitable, the report warns of the dangers of not intervening, and urges work to enable children to process their experiences and make more healthy relationships for themselves. Previous experience of domestic violence has been found in many studies to be strongly correlated with parent abuse, though by no means the only or greatest cause. Continue reading
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When I speak with people about children’s violence to parents, the question of terminology regularly raises its head: How helpful is it to talk about ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ in cases of parent abuse? So this post has been in the making for some time, but was finally brought into being after I was sent a link to a piece in the Sheffield Star last week. It may be lacking a few references so please feel free to comment on this with links to relevant articles.
The news piece itself is very clear in identifying the 20 year old man as the perpetrator of violence, and the mother as the victim. We may agree or not that the judge overstepped the mark in his summing up; but read through to the comments stream and a dissenting voice emerges – as well as a reminder not to jump to conclusions without knowing all the circumstances. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, news reports
As the new Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, takes up her post this month, it looks as if her appointment may herald positive moves within the parent abuse field.
As she drew near to the end of her term as London’s Chief Crown Prosecutor, Saunders spoke in an interview of the disturbing scale of abuse perpetuated by teens against their parents and seen in the courts, with news that more than 50 boys and girls aged 13 or under, and nearly 850 older juveniles have been prosecuted for domestic violence in the past three and a half years in London alone (includes parent abuse and teenage relationship abuse). This follows the publication of the findings of the Oxford University based research which found 1892 incidents of violence in the home (including damage to property) by 13 – 19 year olds reported to the Metropolitan police between 2009 and 2010 (and here). Saunders was at pains to state that such abuse was not confined to one section of society, but drew attention to the issue of nurturing as linked to the apparent growing lack of respect within families. Continue reading
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… When you do or think something and suddenly everyone else is doing the same? Well it’s been that sort of day!
Following the presentation of the key findings and recommendations on Thursday, Professor David Gadd of Manchester University received coverage across a number of radio stations for the From Boys to Men Project, which examined why some young men go on to become perpetrators of domestic abuse, and what can be done to prevent this. The research found strong correlations with past experience of domestic violence in the home, but David Gadd made it clear that this did not amount to causation. The authors of the research call for the development of preventative work in schools, with work on violence and abuse included in sex and relationship education. Continue reading
Filed under news reports, radio and video, Research
HOLES IN THE WALL 