Tag Archives: Step Up

by | September 25, 2013 · 9:40 am

Adolescent Violence to Parents Conference report

The Adolescent Violence to Parents (APV) conference held this week (September 23rd 2013) in Oxford was an important landmark in terms of knowledge and understanding, as the findings of the three year ESRC-funded research led by Rachel Condry and Caroline Miles were presented to a packed audience of over 130 people.

This represented the first large scale analysis of police data on APV in the UK, looking at all cases reported to the Metropolitan Police, and defined as constituting a criminal offence, between April 2009 and March 2010 (n=1892). The research looked at victim, offender and incident characteristics and then considered how adolescent violence to parents should be understood and addressed within the field of criminology in the future. Continue reading →

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by | June 10, 2013 · 3:54 pm

An update on Step Up in the UK

Today we have a guest post from LynetteRobinson, of Alternative Restoratives. Lynette is thrilled to have had her work in the field of parent abuse recognised by the Youth Justice Board, who have adopted her programme based on the American Step Up model. 

Three years ago, I visited Youth Justice Teams in Seattle and Toledo (America) to observe their ‘Step Up – Building Respectful Family Relationships’ programmes, as part of my Winston Churchill Fellowship research ‘Interventions and restorative responses to address teen violence against parents’.

The parents and teens who attended these joint group work sessions seemed as interested in me (a UK visitor) as I was in them and their programme! During that first coffee break, one mother came over to me (with a puzzled look on her face) and asked “Do parents in England have this problem too?”    Continue reading →

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by | April 25, 2013 · 8:49 am

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 →

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by | March 25, 2013 · 6:10 pm

A “ground-breaking” and “inspiring” conference on adolescent violence in the home

I’m really pleased to have received the following report from Jo Howard on the recent conference held in Melbourne, Australia in February.

The Adolescent Violence in the Home Conference: Supporting Collaboration Across the Justice and Community Sectors, focused on strengthening collaboration between the justice and community sectors to provide enhanced support to parents and family members who experience it and the adolescents who use violence in the home.  The conference, delivered by Peninsula Health, with the support of Department of Health and Legal Services Board Victoria, attracted 260 delegates from a variety of sectors including government, police, legal, justice, education, alcohol and drug, family violence, family, youth and health services with representation from almost all Australian states and overseas. Continue reading →

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by | March 21, 2013 · 4:44 pm

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 →

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by | March 15, 2013 · 12:05 pm

Domestic abuse by children against parents conference, March 14th

What a fantastic day yesterday was! I’m still buzzing and full of ideas on how to take things forward. It was a great opportunity to meet up with over 100 practitioners, mostly from the north of England, as well as an amazing line-up of speakers. Thanks to Central Conference Consultants Ltd for their superb organisation! Continue reading →

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by | February 24, 2013 · 12:01 pm

Keeping Families Safe

The official announcement of the piloting of a new programme to address family violence in the state of Victoria, coinciding with the first Australian National Adolescent Violence in the Home conference, held this week in Melbourne, received significant coverage in the media. I reported on the project in a previous post of 13th February. Continue reading →

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by | October 3, 2012 · 10:26 am

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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by | June 15, 2012 · 4:21 pm

Alternative Restoratives: Training and awareness

Lynette Robinson, of Alternative Restoratives reports a busy but successful year for her organisation:

It has been a busy year for Alternative Restoratives in delivering awareness raising presentations at events across the UK and also a workshop at the International Conference for Restorative Practices (IIRP) held in Nova Scotia, Canada in June 2011.  We have held two Professional Awareness Raising Days Understanding Adolescent to Parent Abuse, in September, 2011 and March 2012, in which  parents as service users and professionals from the public, private and voluntary sectors shared their experiences in this issue.  Both events were attended by delegates from a range of family service areas.  Many went away with new awareness and understanding of this issue, and inspired to develop their own practice and services.  It is wonderful to hear of the many new pilots that are now becoming established in many authorities across our country, and encouraging to know that awareness and understanding of this ‘hidden’ form of family violence is growing across professionals. Continue reading →

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by | September 9, 2011 · 7:21 pm

More from Australia

Nicely furthering the debate on police and courts’ involvement, Jo Howard discusses the possibility of introducing the American Step Up model of intervention as a response to adolescent violence within the home in Australia. This paper, for the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse, acknowledges that the philosophical and practical differences between the two systems preclude a straightforward adoption, but there are seen to be strong benefits in a coordinated community approach that includes criminal justice options, offering a means to engage reluctant adolescents and holding them accountable for their violence.

For anyone interested, the September ADFV Clearinghouse e-newsletter is also here.

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