Children and Family Violence

1. Children and Family Violence

3. Reminder - impacts on children

4. Different ages: Robbie, aged 4 - obviously affected when his mother was being abused at home. His speech was badly affected, and this was even more apparent at the time of domestic violence incidents Jamie, aged 2 (younger brother) - not so obviously affected by living in the same circumstances

5. A different family: Nigel, aged 6 - problems relating to and mixing with other children, and often acted violently towards them Susan, aged 1 (younger sister) - affected less obviously by living with domestic violence

6. Another child: An older school-age child, Albert, aged 9 (described by his teacher as �a very bright boy�). coped with the �out of control� experience of living with violence by being quite controlling in his relations with others. This behaviour would become especially obvious at times of renewed domestic violence against his mother

7. Coping strategies: Diverting attention - Albert tried hard to minimise and thus contain his experiences of seeing his mother abused. His involvement in activities outside home, in particular football, played a central role in his ability to do so Switching off -A couple of the younger children had a very different coping strategy, which appeared to be to switch off completely, and to go completely blank

8. Teacher�s solution: The oldest one goes to school and reports to the teacher. Most mornings he has a little diary that he fills in himself, that's just for him. And if he wants to show it to the teacher he can. And it's often around 'I want to kill myself. My father beat my mom up last night.' Or, 'He went to see his girlfriend and he hit his girlfriend. He shouts at me. He plays rough with me. He hurts me.' So yes you do. (Health Visitor)

9. Protective aspects Will try and keep their mother safe (by physical intervention, withholding information, or getting help from neighbours or from formal organisations) Even very young children and babies may adopt such strategies (crying or coming into the room)

10. Teenagers Teen relationship violence - to be or not to be abusive? Confusing love and coercive control Boys/ girls Running away from home Vulnerability to prostitution

11. Effective intervention

12. Elements important in work with children experiencing family violence elimination of violence (where is the abuser?) recovery work, treatment, or �talking to someone� supporting mothers to be safe as a positive approach in child protection, and to be well-functioning residential parent building on coping and resilience strategies developing new patterns of behaviour

13. this recognises: the existence of violence, the impact of the violence, the need for a significant other, other protective factors

15. Appropriate recovery work and treatment may involve individual or group work for children with child care professionals, children�s work in refuges. merely talking with and acknowledging children�s experiences of domestic violence peer work for children and teens - children say they want to talk with other children Joint work with mother and child � may deal with behaviour problems

16. for children the barriers to talking about violence are: Fear of the violent man finding out Fear of not being believed Fear of being stigmatised Difficulty in talking to adults Not having anyone to tell Services not being available

19. Different contexts � three planets

20. Domestic violence planet

23. domestic violence and child protection

25. But� Expectation that woman will eventually exclude the abuser - using civil protection remedies or through the intervention of criminal justice agencies. Responsibility for protecting children is placed on mothers Dynamics of gender violence ignored

26. And�mother blaming� Jaffe et al. (2003): if witnessing domestic violence is seen as child abuse women experiencing domestic violence will continue to be accused of �secondary abuse� or as having �engaged in domestic violence� (p101-102).

27. EXAMPLE Male ex-partner/father very abusive.� Social services safety plan - mother provided with alarm by the Public Protection Unit to call for help if ex-partner/father came to the house. � So every time he came �round and kicked the door in because he couldn�t get what he wanted off me on the phone, or you know he couldn�t get me sort of say, �Yes no� or whatever, � I�d hit the alarm. Or when he did something I hit the alarm. And they used it against us in court to prove how many times he�d been to the house to take the children. And, so you stop using them, because you think, �No. Fuck you. I�d rather have a slap �round the face and a black eye than lose my family.� � But at the end of the day, it didn�t matter what I did. It didn�t matter how far I went, it didn�t matter what I agreed to, it didn�t matter what groups I went to, appointments I went to. You know, they took �em anyway. (quote from interview with mother) Children removed from mother, taken into care.

29. �and child contact?

30. Research overviews Only a minority of parents, (one in ten) go to court to sort out their post separation child care�. Most is arranged informally The majority of children want to preserve contact with both parents (Hunt & Roberts 2004). Women who have experienced domestic violence often support contact between the father and child (Radford & Hester 2006)

31. Lessons from research there is a close relationship between the safety of mothers and the welfare and safety of their children contact may not necessarily be useful to or in the best interests of children quality of contact is especially important where children�s welfare is concerned (see Radford & Hester 2006)

32. Tension between right to know & right to safety: emphasis on children�s right to know their two parents increase in (abusive) fathers� rights compromises children�s right to safety and protection Undermines mothering and women�s safety

33. Life beyond three planets?

35. Life beyond three planets?

36. References Hester, M., Pearson, C. & Harwin, N. with Abrahams, H. (2007) Making an Impact - Children and Domestic Violence. A Reader, 2nd Edition. London: Jessica Kingsley. [this has other references referred to in the presentation] Radford, L. & Hester, M. (2006) Mothering through Domestic Violence. London: Jessica Kingsley. Hester, M. & Westmarland, N. (2005) Tackling Domestic Violence: Effective Interventions and Approaches. Home Office Research Study 290, London: Home Office. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/hors290.pdf Hester, M. (2009) Who does what to whom? Gender & domestic violence perpetrators. Bristol: University of Bristol & Northern Rock Foundation