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Parenting in South African mothers with a history of family violence

Parenting in South African mothers with a history of family violence. Shereen Moolla and Catherine L. Ward Department of Psychology University of Cape Town. UCT’s Safety and Violence Initiative ( SaVI ). Engineering and the Built Environment: Town planning Humanities:

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Parenting in South African mothers with a history of family violence

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  1. Parenting in South African mothers with a history of family violence ShereenMoolla and Catherine L. Ward Department of Psychology University of Cape Town

  2. UCT’s Safety and Violence Initiative (SaVI) • Engineering and the Built Environment: • Town planning • Humanities: • Anthropology; linguistics; film & media studies; psychology; religious studies; social development; sociology • Health sciences: • Forensic medicine; Gender, Health & Justice Research Unit; primary health care directorate; psychiatry; public health; surgery • Law • Law, Race & Gender Research Unit; criminology; public law

  3. This presentation • Some background on intimate partner violence and child maltreatment in South Africa • Family violence and parenting • Methodology for our study • Findings: • Demographics • Mothers’ histories of family violence • Mothers’ parenting • Children’s behaviour • Risk and protective factors • Relationships among variables • Interpretations and implications

  4. Thanks to: • Nicia de Nobrega, Abigail Miles and IngeWessels • The SaartjieBaartman Centre, REACH, the New World Foundation, Self-Help Mannenberg, Carehaven, the Westlake Community Centre, Place of Hope, Village Care, and the Islamic Resource Foundation of South Africa • The UCT University Research Committee and the National Research Foundation

  5. Intimate partner violence in SA • 8.8% of men working in the Cape Town municipality report IPV against a partner in the last year (Abrahams et al., 2006) • At least half of female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners (Seedat et al., 2009): • In 1999, this was therefore at least 1,899 women, or 12.4 per 100,000 • The rate of homicide for women (all causes) is 6x the average rate worldwide

  6. Child maltreatment in South Africa • 44.6% of the homicides due to CAN • 35.7% of these due to abandonment in the first week after birth • 74% of the CAN homicides among children aged 0-4 Mathews et al., 2012

  7. Consequences of family violence • Increased depression and anxiety • Increased substance misuse • Internalised model of violence as a way to solve problems

  8. Risk and protection for parenting Child behavioural problems

  9. Methodology • Mothers were recruited from NGOs serving women across Cape Town • Inclusion criteria: • Women with a child aged 3-8 • The child’s behaviour concerned mother • Had not received any parenting intervention • Interviewed 215 women, excluded 12: • 4 had children > 8 • 6 had too much missing data • 2 had either a “yes” or a “no” response set

  10. Measures • Demographics • CTS-2 - intimate partner violence • ICAST-R - history of childhood abuse • PC-CTS - parent/child conflict • ECBI - child behaviour problems • PSOC - parent competence • PSI - parental stress • GHQ - maternal mental health • ASSIST - substance misuse • Duke Social Support Scale

  11. Demographics • Mean age: 32.4 years old. • Marital status: mostly single (46.80%). • Language: mostly Afrikaans and isiXhosa (38.42 % and 42.37%) respectively. • Children: 65% had more than one child • 82.76% were unemployed • Education: 62.56% of the participants had not completed high school • Housing: • 53.21% participants lived in formal housing • 16.26% l in outbuildings in someone’s backyard • 8.87% in shacks • 20.20% in flats • 13% of the women interviewed were living in shelters for abused women at the time of the interview.

  12. Poverty • Access to electricity, a phone, a television and a private motor-car: 12.32% had access to all four commodities. • Food security: 72.91% had ‘run out of money to buy food at least once that year’ • 34.48% ‘had to go to bed hungry sometimes’ • 81% received the child support grant

  13. Mothers’ history of IPV

  14. Mothers’ history of child abuse

  15. What parenting techniques did parents use?

  16. Children’s behaviour

  17. Other factors

  18. Relationships among variables • Higher maternal age was associated with child behaviour problems • Running out of money for food was associated with child behaviour problems • Getting income from work was associated with child behaviour problems • Mothers’ histories of family violence were significantly associated with child behaviour problems • This relationship is mediated by parental stress, parent-child conflict and parental competence • But not by maternal mental health, substance misuse, or social support

  19. Parental Stress CR=4.841 CR = 10.308 CR =2.992 FamilyViolence CR =2.152 Child Behaviour Problems Parent/Child Conflict CR = 2.040 Parental Incompetence 2 = 8.683; df = 6; p = 0.192; CFI = 0.964; TLI = 0.986; RMSEA = 0.047 (0.000 , 0.110)

  20. Implications • If women seek help for parenting, ask about their histories of family violence • If women seek help for family violence, ask about their children’s wellbeing • Prevent child maltreatment and intimate partner violence • Programmes that boost parental competence – parent training programmes – may well reduce parental stress and improve child behaviour

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