Tag Archives: domestic violence

Supporting families of substance using, abusive young people

While it has long been known that substance abuse by young people was in some cases associated with parent abuse, there has been very little written about the connection. (eg Gallagher’s work)

A 2010 research report, entitled “Supporting families affected by substance use and domestic violence”, which has just been brought to my attention, goes some way to opening such a discussion. The report, by Dr. Sarah Galvani, sought to build the research base with two groups of family members whose needs have not been adequately recognised up to now: young people and Family Member Support Providers, (individuals personally affected and seeking to support others by semi-formal means). Initially it had been anticipated that these adults would be concerned with domestic violence between adult members of a household, but they were surprised to discover that they were in fact working with parents and grandparents affected by abuse from their children and grandchildren. Continue reading

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Addressing young people’s abuse of their parents

The Nottinghamshire Domestic Violence Forum (NDVF) is hosting a course exploring issues around young people’s abuse of parents on Thursday 19th July.

The day will cover the impact of domestic violence on young people, prevalence and dynamics of parent abuse, and building strengths in the parent and child relationship. The afternoon will focus on practical skills for working with parents experiencing abuse from their children, exploring family systems work and identifying simple techniques to utilise with young people to help stop their abuse.

Full details and booking instructions are available on the Nottingham Community and Voluntary Service website.

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Parent abuse project wins Big Lottery funding

Congratulations to Hertfordshire Practical Parenting Programme, awarded £186,500 from the Big Lottery Fund, for their “I-Trust-U-Trust-Me” project which aims to reduce violence by children and young people against their parents.

The announcement was picked up by the Bourne Local news:

Director, Sandra Ashley, said: “Our new project is about breaking cycles of child-on-parent domestic violence. This behaviour can often be learned after witnessing partner-to-partner violence, which continues following one parent leaving and the child taking on the role of aggressor. We work to ensure that parents understand the importance of staying safe and dealing with this emotive issue. There are a lot of agencies set up to deal with adult-on-adult domestic violence, but not child to parent.” Sara Betsworth, Big Lottery Fund’s head of the East of England region, said, “Domestic violence between adults damages families but it is not well known that child-on-parent abuse can also follow from that. Hertfordshire Practical Parenting Programme is an extremely interesting and valuable new project to tackle this under-reported domestic violence and break this cycle of abuse.

The project also won a mention in the Society section of the national Guardian.

My plan to create a resources page here, listing projects such as this, still remains a plan  . . . but will hopefully come to fruition soon!

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Was it ever thus?

I still have a clear memory from my university days, of a particularly inspiring lecture on the work of Geoffrey Pearson, into the ways we continually perceive young people to be behaving worse now than ever. It comes to mind whenever I am asked whether the problem of parent abuse is either new, or increasing in frequency and severity. We can hark right back to ancient Greek philosophers or Shakespeare for examples of young people disrespecting the elders, but it’s probably fair to say that the new-found awareness dates from around the 1980s, with various attempts since then to quantify the amount, and to understand the causes, of teenage violence to parents. Continue reading

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When abuse turns to murder

Ken Kimsey has brought a tragic item to my attention from the Metro Atlanta State News. A 15 year old, diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, last week killed his great grandmother and seriously wounded his grandmother, who had reared him since the age of 5. Continue reading

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