When I undertook my Masters study in 2004 – 6, one of the people I interviewed was a police officer, who described his sense of frustration at the difficulties in responding to incidents where parent abuse could be clearly identified. Pretty much everything I had read online or in the literature had suggested that the police hadn’t a clue, sided with the young person, maybe arrested the parent and certainly had nothing useful to offer; so it was interesting to sit down with someone and hear the other side. He identified a system of adhoc responses depending on the awareness of the individual officer, and then nothing concrete to offer, nowhere to refer on to as there was no agency taking responsibility for meeting the needs of families where children’s violence to parents was an issue. Continue reading
Tag Archives: domestic violence
The law of unintended consequences
Today see the roll out of the welfare benefits cap across England, Wales and Scotland. What we are supposed to expect is that this will encourage families to find work or move to a different, cheaper area to live. Sadly, what we may see is a rise in violence and family break up. The Enemy Within, the 2012 report from the charity 4Children, using data from a specially commissioned YouGov Family Violence survey, highlights redundancy, long-term unemployment and serious financial worries as the major contributory factor in family violence. The dual pronged budgetary cuts to benefits and funding of services are thus especially worrying. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, news reports
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
Filed under Discussion, news reports
Teens see violence as normal
Eddie Gallagher has drawn my attention to an article in www.dailylife.com.au, commenting on an apparent rise in domestic violence crimes in New South Wales involving juveniles as the aggressor. (A 6.5% increase between 2008 and 2012 in the 10 -17 age group) This increase comes at a time when overall figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research show a decline in juvenile crime in every other area, and has sparked concerns that teens now see aggression as a normal part of life. Continue reading
Filed under news reports, Training opportunities
Changing the DV definition: the debate continues
My attention was drawn this week to the recently released Home Office Guidance, Information for Local Areas on the change to the definition of Domestic Violence and Abuse. Produced in partnership with AVA, the guidance contains a whole section on Child to Parent Violence and calls specifically for the support of local groups working with families experiencing parent abuse, and the training of domestic violence workers in their work with this form of family violence.
At the same time, I received some comments from Anne-Marie Harris, Senior Development Adviser for Effective Practice with the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, addressing the extension of the definition and drawing attention again to the need to exercise caution in the way these developments are carried forward. These are reproduced here and are particularly pertinent in the light of the guidance issued. Continue reading
Filed under Discussion, publications
“An alignment of the planets”
Returning to the topic of themes that emerged from the recent conference on domestic violence by children against parents, in Nottingham, I’d like to look at 2 more ideas that caught my attention.
Launching the conference, Jo Sharpen, from AVA, described it as very timely, and indeed, throughout the day, speakers referred to a series of events that support our focus on the issue of child to parent violence at this time. The changed definition of domestic violence in England and Wales (with the publication of the Home Office Guidance to which AVA contributed), was highlighted and declared helpful in recognising that under 18s could be abusive, though bringing parent abuse within the domestic violence umbrella was also considered problematic, because of the important differences between CPV and IPV and the potential criminalisation of young people (see my earlier post for more details). March also saw the publication of the UK Government Action Plan: A call to end violence against women and girls, and the launch of the EVAWGUK policy. Though parent abuse is sadly still not specifically mentioned, it does offer opportunities to discuss the issue more widely. Continue reading
Filed under conference report, Discussion
“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
Filed under Discussion
HOLES IN THE WALL 