engaging with children's and parents' perspectives on domestic violence

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Engaging with children’s and parents’ perspectives on domestic violenceNicky Stanley*, Pam Millerand Helen Richardson Foster*School of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, NSPCC, London, and University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK ABSTRACT This paper reports research undertaken in two sites in England which captured the views of parents and young people who had experienced domestic violence. Survivors, perpetrators and young people described feelings of guilt and shame that acted as barriers to the disclosure of domestic violence. They identified a range of effects on children, which continued beyond separation. All three groups of participants valued professionals who listened to them and validated their accounts. Professionals who appeared ineffective in the face of domestic violence could reinforce children’s and victims’ own sense of powerlessness. Mothers wanted support with managing the effects of separation and assistance with contact arrangements. The research identifies the need for practitioners to engage with the emotional content of disclosure of domestic violence and to undertake this work in separate sessions with parents and with children so that differing accounts can be heard safely. Interventions that enable parents to engage with children’s experiences of domestic violence appear valuable. Rather than taking separation as the end- point of intervention, social work needs to take account of the dynamics of separation and contact in parents’ relationships and consider how they interact with violence and abuse to impact on children and young people. Correspondence: Nicky Stanley, School of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE UK E-mail: [email protected] Keywords: domestic violence, parenting/parenthood, social work, violence (against women and children) Accepted for publication: January 2012 INTRODUCTION There is now a substantial body of evidence for the harm that experience of domestic violence can inflict on children’s health and development (Edleson 1999; Osofsky 2003; Holt et al. 2008; Cleaver et al. 2011; Stanley 2011). The research emphasizes that not all children and young people exposed to domestic vio- lence will experience harm as a consequence: Kitz- mann et al.’s (2003) meta-analysis undertaken across 118 studies found that over one-third of children exposed to domestic violence did not appear to do any worse than other children in the community. However, sustained exposure over time increases the likelihood of harm (Rossman 2000) and the amount of violence a child is exposed to is significantly asso- ciated with his or her level of adjustment (Graham- Bermann et al. 2009). Risks of harm for children are also increased when domestic violence occurs in the context of other problems such as poverty, substance misuse, parental mental health problems, social isola- tion, neighbourhood violence, homelessness and other forms of child abuse (Edleson 1999; Herrenkohl et al. 2008; Finkelhor et al. 2009; Cleaver et al. 2011; Stanley 2011). The early mantra that domestic vio- lence was found at similar levels across ‘all walks of society’ has now been replaced by the recognition that rates are highest in disadvantaged communities, among low-income families and single mothers with children (Meltzer et al. 2009; Povey et al. 2009). This means that families using children’s social services are likely to constitute a population where rates of doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2012.00832.x 1 Child and Family Social Work 2012 © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

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Page 1: Engaging with children's and parents' perspectives on domestic violence

Engaging with children’s and parents’ perspectives ondomestic violencecfs_832 1..10

Nicky Stanley*, Pam Miller† and Helen Richardson Foster‡*School of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, †NSPCC, London, and ‡University of Sheffield,

Sheffield, UK

ABSTRACT

This paper reports research undertaken in two sites in England whichcaptured the views of parents and young people who had experienceddomestic violence. Survivors, perpetrators and young peopledescribed feelings of guilt and shame that acted as barriers to thedisclosure of domestic violence. They identified a range of effects onchildren, which continued beyond separation.

All three groups of participants valued professionals who listenedto them and validated their accounts. Professionals who appearedineffective in the face of domestic violence could reinforce children’sand victims’ own sense of powerlessness. Mothers wanted supportwith managing the effects of separation and assistance with contactarrangements. The research identifies the need for practitioners toengage with the emotional content of disclosure of domestic violenceand to undertake this work in separate sessions with parents and withchildren so that differing accounts can be heard safely. Interventionsthat enable parents to engage with children’s experiences of domesticviolence appear valuable. Rather than taking separation as the end-point of intervention, social work needs to take account of thedynamics of separation and contact in parents’ relationships andconsider how they interact with violence and abuse to impact onchildren and young people.

Correspondence:Nicky Stanley,School of Social Work,University of Central Lancashire,Preston PR1 2HEUKE-mail: [email protected]

Keywords: domestic violence,parenting/parenthood, social work,violence (against women andchildren)

Accepted for publication: January2012

INTRODUCTION

There is now a substantial body of evidence for theharm that experience of domestic violence can inflicton children’s health and development (Edleson 1999;Osofsky 2003; Holt et al. 2008; Cleaver et al. 2011;Stanley 2011). The research emphasizes that not allchildren and young people exposed to domestic vio-lence will experience harm as a consequence: Kitz-mann et al.’s (2003) meta-analysis undertaken across118 studies found that over one-third of childrenexposed to domestic violence did not appear to do anyworse than other children in the community.However, sustained exposure over time increases thelikelihood of harm (Rossman 2000) and the amountof violence a child is exposed to is significantly asso-

ciated with his or her level of adjustment (Graham-Bermann et al. 2009). Risks of harm for children arealso increased when domestic violence occurs in thecontext of other problems such as poverty, substancemisuse, parental mental health problems, social isola-tion, neighbourhood violence, homelessness and otherforms of child abuse (Edleson 1999; Herrenkohl et al.2008; Finkelhor et al. 2009; Cleaver et al. 2011;Stanley 2011). The early mantra that domestic vio-lence was found at similar levels across ‘all walks ofsociety’ has now been replaced by the recognition thatrates are highest in disadvantaged communities,among low-income families and single mothers withchildren (Meltzer et al. 2009; Povey et al. 2009). Thismeans that families using children’s social servicesare likely to constitute a population where rates of

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2012.00832.x

1 Child and Family Social Work 2012 © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Page 2: Engaging with children's and parents' perspectives on domestic violence

domestic violence are high, and recent UK studiesthat have examined the prevalence of domestic vio-lence among families receiving social services inter-vention have found this to be the case (Sidebotham &Heron 2006; Devaney 2008).

Engaging with families experiencingdomestic violence

The barriers to disclosure of domestic violence arenumerous and disclosure may not be a single eventbut a process that takes place over a series of encoun-ters with professionals. The literature addressing dis-closure of domestic violence emphasizes the risks ofprovoking further violence for women and childrenwho are still living or in contact with the perpetrator(Hester et al. 2007; Bourassa et al. 2008). Eriksson’s(2009) study of Swedish children’s experience ofsocial work intervention with respect to their experi-ences of domestic violence found that there were risksof retribution associated with disclosure for some chil-dren who had regular contact with their abusivefather.

Shame and stigma also act to deter disclosure ofdomestic violence in families. Buckley et al. (2007)found that young people highlighted embarrassmentas an anticipated consequence of discussion of domes-tic violence. Stanley et al.’s (in press) focus groupswith men in the general population found that stigma,shame and embarrassment were all identified as bar-riers both to disclosure and to help seeking in relationto men’s abusive behaviour. Fathers who perpetratedomestic violence often require some external stimu-lus to prompt them to seek help to change their behav-iour (Hester et al. 2006) and this may be provided bychildren’s services’ interventions in families (Stanley2011).

Although public awareness of the harm domesticviolence can inflict on children has been boosted bypublic education campaigns such as those delivered inthe UK by the NSPCC in 2010, this knowledge canincrease parents’ reluctance to acknowledge that theirchildren are exposed to domestic violence. As chil-dren’s experience of domestic violence is now widelydefined as a form of harm, disclosing domestic violencecan raise the possibility of children’s removal into careand such fears surface regularly in research withparents and children (McGee 2000; Gorin 2004).

These barriers to disclosure by victims and perpe-trators of domestic violence mean that social workersare often dependent on information from other agen-cies, particularly the police, to identify domestic vio-

lence in families. The skills and tools used by theindividual social worker are also relevant. Screeningtools for the detection of domestic violence have beentrialled in health organizations, particularly midwifery(Bacchus et al. 2004). However, screening or routinequestioning has not been widely used in children’sservices in England and Wales, although there is evi-dence both from the USA (Magen et al. 2000) andfrom the UK (Hester 2006) to support its value inincreasing detection rates and improving practitionerawareness. Domestic violence is flagged up as anaspect of parenting capacity in the framework forassessment (Department of Health 2000) and in guid-ance on inter-agency work (Her Majesty’s Govern-ment 2010).

The research reported here represented the firststage of a study that examined the process and out-comes of police notifications of children experienc-ing domestic violence to children’s social services inEngland and Wales. Findings from the second stage,which studied police and children’s social services’records, have been reported elsewhere (Stanley et al.2011a,b). This stage of the study aimed to elicit theperspectives of young people, victims and perpetra-tors on domestic violence and relevant services. Theresearch builds on earlier UK research (McGee2000; Mullender et al. 2002) that explored the viewsof women and children experiencing domestic vio-lence. This study also captured the views of perpe-trators as it was premised on the principle thatresearch and interventions in domestic violence needto include and develop understanding of perpetra-tors’ perspectives. The data presented here provide apicture of those factors that young people, survivorsand perpetrators distinguished as facilitating andrestricting their engagement with both children’ssocial services and with other agencies, particularlythe police.

Methodology

The research was undertaken in two local authoritiesin the North and South of England between 2007 and2009.The three groups of participants were recruitedseparately and this limitation of the study was deemedacceptable as, while there would have been benefits inundertaking interviews with members of the samefamily, the inclusion of perpetrators would have pre-sented problems of both access and safety. Five focusgroups were held with young people recruited throughvoluntary and statutory organizations providingsupport services for children affected by domestic

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violence. Although focus groups risk promoting con-sensus and socially acceptable attitudes (Kitzinger1995), they allowed young people to talk freely insettings where they were already familiar with oneanother and where they expected to talk about domes-tic violence. Information about the research and thepurpose of the interviews was distributed beforehandand both young people’s consent and that of theirparents was obtained. Posters and scenarios were usedto stimulate young people’s thinking about domesticviolence and the professionals they had encounteredas a result of domestic violence in their families.Youngpeople’s expectations, evaluations and suggestions forwhat would have been useful in these situations wereexplored in what were often lively and sometimesangry discussions.

Survivors were accessed through domestic violenceservices such as refuges and were interviewed indi-vidually using a semi-structured interview schedule.Perpetrators were identified for individual interviewthrough programmes for perpetrators of domestic vio-lence delivered by both the probation service andvoluntary organizations. All interviews and focusgroups were recorded with participants’ permissionand transcribed. Research participants have beengiven pseudonyms to preserve their anonymity. TheNVivo software package (QSR International, Don-caster,Victoria, Australia) was used to assist in storingand sorting data for analysis. Themes were identifiedin part by the semi-structured schedules used forinterviews and focus groups but also as they arosefrom the data using grounded theory principles(Strauss & Corbin 1990; Ritchie & Spencer 1994).Both descriptive and analytic codes were used(Charmaz 2006) and commonalities and differencesbetween the three groups of participants were noted.The researchers cross-checked and agreed the finalcoding. Ethical approval for the research was providedby the University of Central Lancashire.

The participants

The 19 young participants ranged in age from 10 to19, 8 were male and 11 were female. Sixteen youngpeople classified themselves as white British, one aswhite/Asian, one as white/black Caribbean and one aswhite/black African. Over half had some form ofcontact with the perpetrator of domestic violence.

Ten of the 11 survivors of domestic violence inter-viewed were female.The survivors were aged between25 and 48 years with a mean age of 38 years. Mostdescribed themselves as belonging to black minority

ethnic (BME) groups, four identified themselves aswhite British. Although at the time of the interviews,none of the survivors were in a relationship with theperpetrator, eight were still in contact with them,usually as a result of child contact arrangements.Between them, the survivors had 26 children, most ofwhom still had some contact with the perpetrator:only five children were recorded as having no contactat all.

Of the 10 perpetrators interviewed, 4 were partici-pants in voluntary programmes and 6 had been man-dated to attend programmes by the courts. All weremale and most were aged between 30 and 45. Six ofthe group were white British; the other four repre-sented a range of BME groups. The men had beenselected for interview on the basis of their status asparents and most had three or more children.Three ofthe perpetrators interviewed were living with theirpartner and children at the time of the interview; inthe remaining cases, men had contact with their chil-dren although they were not living with them.

Continued contact between the perpetrator ofdomestic violence, survivors and children thereforecharacterized the experience of the majority ofresearch participants.

Disclosing and acknowledging domestic violence

Of the various barriers to disclosure of domestic vio-lence described earlier, survivors and perpetratorsparticipating in this study were most likely to empha-size the stigma, shame and embarrassment associatedwith disclosing their own experience to family, friendsand professionals:

I was very ashamed and I kept it quiet from my family . . . .

(Rose, Survivor)

. . . it’s like the tongues start loosening: ‘did you know such

and such is going to counselling because he had domestic

problems with his wife?’ . . . And then people look at you in a

different light. (Isaac, Perpetrator)

Children were also aware of the stigma associatedwith domestic violence and were anxious about theconsequences of disclosure:

I was getting like put down at school as well, and loads of

people knew about it. (Bill,Young People’s Focus Group 1)

Survivors and perpetrators interviewed varied in theextent to which they acknowledged that their childrenhad been exposed to domestic violence and mighthave been harmed by it. Some considered that theirchildren had been shielded from witnessing the abuse– ‘he was upstairs when this was going on’ – although

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they acknowledged that, even if their children had notbeen present during an assault, they would have wit-nessed distressing events such as the removal of theperpetrator from the family home. A number of theperpetrators, and some participants in the young peo-ple’s focus groups, considered that only older childrenwere able to understand what they were witnessing. Incontrast, some survivors believed that even very younginfants would be affected by the experience of witness-ing domestic violence:

I know they’re young, and I know they are babies but they still

have got eyes on you. (Rajika, Survivor)

Gorin (2004) notes that mothers who have experi-enced domestic violence are more likely to discoverand acknowledge the extent of their children’s expo-sure to the abuse once they have left the family home.All those survivors interviewed were separated fromtheir abusive partner and a number admitted thattheir children had directly observed violence bet-ween themselves and their partners in the past. Thismother’s account conveyed the internal struggleto acknowledge children’s exposure to domesticviolence:

You can hide it, you can think that they’re asleep or that

they’re not sat at the top of the stairs watching you, but they

are, and they’re very clever children, and they pick up on it all.

(Sarah, Survivor)

Perpetrators were also able to use the vantage pointof a safe distance to recognize the extent to which theirchildren had been affected by the violence:

Oh there was, they’d have heard rows, definitely, yeah. And er,

they will have seen er, the aftermath of me breaking some-

thing. (Patrick, Perpetrator)

The recognition that children had been harmed bydomestic violence was associated with feelings ofshame and guilt for survivors:

I think that was part of the breakdown as well cos I was

watching my children suffer . . . and I felt guilty, then guilty

inside and I’m thinking why am I letting them go through this.

But, at the time I couldn’t find a way out. (Pearl, Survivor)

A few perpetrators also described feelings of guiltand participation in perpetrators’ programmes mayhave facilitated expression of such emotions:

Guilty, feel really, really bad because my mum and dad used to

do it as well and I was brought up with it . . . . I feel that I’m

me dad in a way you know . . . . (Andrew, Perpetrator)

Although some perpetrators perceived domesticviolence to have had minimal or no effects on their

children’s behaviour, others were able to identify thedirect effects of domestic violence on children:

My little girl’s told me, it scares her, she’s scared when we

argue. (Mark, Perpetrator)

Survivors were more likely than perpetrators to beconcerned about the long-term impact of domesticviolence on children, expressing anxiety about howthe effects of violent experiences could be manifestedin the future:

So I tried to minimise the impact but whether that will affect

him, who knows.You don’t know until they get older do you?

(Christine, Survivor)

The impact of domestic violence on children andyoung people

Change is unlikely to take place without awareness ofthe negative impact of domestic violence and,although parents’ acknowledgement of the extent ofchildren’s exposure varied, young people and parents,particularly survivors, identified some common effectsfor children. Parents described their children as‘nervy’, ‘depressed’ and ‘anxious’, and reported sleepproblems associated with exposure to domestic vio-lence (see Humphreys et al. 2009). For one youngperson, these continued after her father had left thehousehold:

At night time I can’t really sleep because like I feel like he’s

going to like come and to like do something or get into the

house. (Jackie,Young People’s Focus Group 5)

Survivors and young people particularly highlightedangry feelings and aggressive behaviour in children asa consequence of experiencing domestic violence.Such feelings and behaviours were often perceived tobe learnt through imitation and they too weredescribed as persisting beyond the point of separation:

When me and my brother was younger, my dad used to like hit

us and my dad’s left now, my brother’s started. (Tanya,Young

People’s Focus Group 2)

Much of this aggression from children was directedagainst mothers:

Just angry and then like you’ll take it out on your mum and

things, it’s been building up and then it’s just war at them, and

then they think that you don’t care about them because you

shout at them. (Tremayne,Young People’s Focus Group 1)

Survivors, perpetrators and particularly youngpeople themselves emphasized how domestic violencehad forced children and young people to adopt adultroles and responsibilities in order to survive:

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You have to grow up quicker because if you didn’t then you’d

just, you’d melt, you’d just go. (Jodie, Young People’s Focus

Group 3)

These adult roles included monitoring the safety ofdistressed parents who were described as suicidal andtaking responsibility for siblings’ safety:

I take my little brother, my two little brothers into the bath-

room and because [my brother] is only four and my other

brother, is only two, I tell [my older brother] to lock the

door until I tell him to open it. (Louis,Young People’s Focus

Group 5)

The enactment of these ‘adult’ roles was seen byyoung people to represent a form of maturity but alsoelicited some anger. In one group in particular, youngpeople expressed considerable resentment abouthaving these responsibilities thrust upon them:

I used to have my mum crying on my shoulder, now isn’t it

supposed to be the other way round? Isn’t it supposed to be

you crying on your mum’s shoulder? Whereas I had my mum

sat on the stairs, crying on my shoulder at four year old asking

me what she were going to do.Well I didn’t know. I don’t know

how to deal with situations at four years old and that’s why it

makes an impact, you end up more mature. (Jodie, Young

People’s Focus Group 3)

Adult responsibilities were also described as havingthe effect of isolating young people from their peers:

I’ve never actually had that time to live and be a kid, I haven’t

had that time to go running about, messing with my friends or

going to do my things, play football . . . I just used to run

away and find that, that little moment where I could sneak out

the house and just go, shoot off and just hide under trees.

(Ann,Young People’s Focus Group 3)

In common with the young people in Buckleyet al.’s (2007) study, young people participating in thefocus groups emphasized the ways in which domesticviolence could impact on their lives at school. Domes-tic violence at home was seen to be linked to aggres-sive behaviour in school, as were poor concentrationand low attendance with consequences for academicachievement:

Say, say you were upset and you’ve got like exams or some-

thing, you do poorly on them or whatever if you’ve got that on

your mind. (Tupac,Young People’s Focus Group 1)

Expectations and experiences of practitioners

Those seeking support with domestic violence willhave contact with a wide range of agencies (Hesteret al. 2007), and in the UK and the USA, one-stopshops have been developed in some areas in anattempt to reduce the number of services victims need

to approach (see Stanley 2011). Between them, thethree groups of participants had had contact with avariety of professionals as a consequence of their expe-rience of domestic violence.The police was the servicethat most participants had had contact with, whilesmaller numbers of participants described experienceswith other professionals such as social workers,general practitioners, lawyers and teachers.

Listening to and validating accounts

In common with McGee’s (2000) and Mullenderet al.’s (2002) findings, all three groups of participantsemphasized the importance of professionals listeningto them, taking them seriously and validating theiraccounts. Young people participating in the focusgroups described being helped by practitioners wholistened, were accessible and provided them withinformation:

She was really helpful, she spoke to me rather than just my

mum, she was the one that gave us the number for the

NSPCC. She was just good at listening to us and that. (Nicola,

Young People’s Focus Group 1)

They wanted to be taken seriously and to receive aresponse proportionate to the seriousness of their situ-ation; in the extract below, Louis describes the policeresponse to a domestic violence incident in his familythat failed to acknowledge the gravity of his decisionto seek help outside the family:

When they come straight away, they could like take him away

straight away, instead of waiting around and everything and

listening to sides, just . . . they should be taken away because

a mum or child wouldn’t call 999 just to get a dad taken away

for no reason . . . . (Louis,Young People’s Focus Group 5)

Some survivors reported encountering disbelieffrom professionals and described how such responsescould contribute to unwillingness to seek help fordomestic violence in the future:

And I told them [the police] what was happening to me and it

was such a nightmare. And I could tell, they were just looking

at me and thinking you are lying. (Pearl, Survivor)

Perpetrators also emphasized the importance ofprofessionals listening to their accounts and investingthem with credibility:

They listened to me, they listened to me and they took into the

fact of what had occurred in the background in the past and

what have you. (Craig, Perpetrator)

Perpetrators especially attached considerable weightto non-judgemental attitudes from practitioners and

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those who had had contact with probation officersidentified such attitudes as a particularly valuableaspect of the support provided:

Yeah, he talks to me as if I’m just part of his family . . . .

(Scott, Perpetrator)

These men valued the flexibility of probation offic-ers who offered appointments outside working hours;this contrasted with descriptions of social workersas rigid in their expectations about attendance atdaytime meetings.

Parents resented practitioners who talked down tothem or made them feel incompetent as parents, andthis criticism of social workers was made more thanonce:

. . . that social worker came for parenting, but I didn’t feel,

that wasn’t what I needed really – because I don’t class myself

as – I know what to do, you know what I mean? (Karen,

Survivor)

However, when support with parenting was pre-sented positively, it was valued:

. . . certain problems we have, coping with my youngest one

in particular . . . and meeting would help us like with the ways

in which we could kind of deal with that, without, without

smacking . . . . (Matthew, Perpetrator)

Threatening and powerless professionals

Professionals could be depicted as threatening fami-lies’ integrity and privacy but also sometimes as pow-erless to intervene in domestic violence.The threat ofsocial workers removing children was mentioned byall three groups of participants. Mothers were particu-larly conscious of this possibility and identified it as areason for not making contact with social services:

It never occurred to me to contact them . . . I probably would

have thought I’d be worried they would take the kids away

from me and so I wouldn’t have done. (Christine, Survivor)

Ongoing scrutiny from social workers was fearedand resisted. One mother who was hospitalized fol-lowing serious injuries from a domestic violence inci-dent was told that social services would be notified:

I was more petrified when they mentioned that word social

services. I’m thinking these people are going to be in my life

constantly and . . . you know I’m going to be constantly

watched or my child’s going to be either taken away from me

now, even though I’m not in the wrong. (Pearl, Survivor)

For children and victims, professionals whoappeared helpless or ineffective in the face of theperpetrator’s violence could serve to reinforce their

own sense of powerlessness. These feelings were par-ticularly apparent in some accounts of police action inresponse to an incident:

. . . when I would go to the police station they, they just made

the statement, oh well, they wrote it down in their little pocket

book and put it on the computer. Nothing would be done

about it. (Rose, Survivor)

Young people who had made the decision to call thepolice to a violent incident felt let down when thisfailed to elicit an effective response:

When they [the police] came to my house, my dad told them

to leave and they did . . . . And then my dad broke my mum’s

new blender and microwave . . . . (Louis, Young People’s

Focus Group 5)

Young people were similarly disappointed in otherprofessionals who appeared to lack the knowledge orconfidence required to assist them:

And the school counsellor was exactly the same as that, she

said, she asked what was happening, and when you tell her, she

just sits going, ‘um, yeah’. (Tanya, Young People’s Focus

Group 2)

Intervening in families post-separation

Domestic violence is known to continue beyond thepoint of separation for many families and 53% ofadults involved in domestic violence incidentsrecorded by police and included in this research hadseparated from their partner (Stanley et al. 2011a).Children’s accounts of violent incidents frequentlyopened with phrases such as ‘dad came round and hestarted kicking off’ (Dawn, Young People’s FocusGroup 4).

Where services were seen as relevant or helpful, thisoften related to interventions that acted to mitigate theeffects of separation. Mothers wanted practical adviceabout housing or securing financial support fromformer partners; one woman was told by a socialworker that this ‘wasn’t the purpose’ of social services.Separation following experience of domestic violenceoften leaves mothers isolated and unsupported asparents (Lapierre 2010; Stanley 2011); this may beparticularly the case for minority ethnic and disabledwomen (Burman & Chantler 2005; Hague et al.2008). Mothers participating in this study describedfeeling especially isolated following a move out of arefuge:

. . . you go from your home, into a house with let’s say four

other families, there’s always hustle and bustle . . . there’s

always people about, there’s always support staff. And then

when you move on you’re on your own. (Sarah, Survivor)

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Mothers described wanting assistance with childcare and with contact arrangements. Although contacthas repeatedly been identified as an arena wheredomestic abuse is perpetuated (Humphreys & Thiara2003; Radford & Hester 2006), supervised contact isa rare resource in England andWales (Sturge & Glaser2000), and the quality of such services has been ques-tioned (Harrison 2006). However, both young peopleand mothers considered supervised contact services tobe a useful resource that social services could providefor them:

. . . all his dad were interested in was questioning [son]

whether I had a boyfriend, where we were living, where was

the refuge. Very difficult . . . these people that volunteer-

. . . they haven’t got the ability to say ‘hang on a minute mate,

you shouldn’t be asking that’. I know of places that are run by

social services that mums and dads go to visit their children,

and social workers are covering . . . I wanted something like

that. (Sarah, Survivor)

Social workers often report difficulties engagingfathers who live outside the family (Featherstone2010) and information concerning these men may belimited (Baynes & Holland 2010; Ashley et al. 2011).Communication with children’s social services wasalso experienced as difficult by several separatedfathers and some described being excluded from com-munication with social workers; this father wasunhappy about receiving messages from socialworkers via his ex-partner:

. . . it should come from the horse’s mouth you know? . . . .

Words get mixed up on the grapevine don’t they so I won’t be

getting told exactly what they’ve said. (Craig, Perpetrator)

Separated parents also wanted social workers tointervene in conflicts about parenting and discipline,but were disappointed when their perspective on theconflict was not adopted. This mother’s account ofasking social workers to intervene to restrain herex-partner’s approach to punishment conveys boththe social worker’s failure to acknowledge how men’sabusive behaviour might impact on their parentingand also the need for practitioners to engage with thedynamics of separation:

. . . And do you know what they went round and said? ‘Oh,

you are not supposed to beat the children, but you can smack

them, but don’t beat them’. And I was like ‘How can you go

and say this to a man that he’s allowed to smack the children.

He doesn’t know what the word smack means, he loses

control’. And you know, I was so angry at the fact that he said

that they gave him permission to continue to smack my chil-

dren. (Rose, Survivor)

DISCUSSION

Social work interventions that address domestic vio-lence entail penetrating the private sphere of thefamily and exposing behaviour that is usually deniedor hidden from public scrutiny. This is a commondynamic in child protection work where the threat ofchildren being removed acts as an added impetus tosecrecy. It is this process of exposure, and the shameand guilt evoked as a consequence, that makes this arisky venture for the practitioner as well as for childrenand parents. Parents who are otherwise in conflict mayunite to present a defensive front to children’s socialservices that shields the family from the threat ofexposure. Children may also resist intervention toprotect their parents and to keep the family intact.Direct attempts to pierce these protective layers mayresult in denial, evasion or outbursts of aggression.Alternately, practitioners, sensing resistance andfearing the consequences of exposing what is hidden,may evade the issue of domestic violence. The po-tential for feelings of shame and guilt needs to besensitively acknowledged and worked with, andpractitioners should be sufficiently confident andskilled to be able to do this while maintaining a focuson the impact of domestic violence on the child. Thismay require practitioners to work in pairs, particularlywhen perpetrators are experienced as threatening oraggressive (Littlechild & Bourke 2006). Most of thosepractitioners who participated in the second stage ofthis study reported that, when working with violentmen, they could request support of this sort andexpect to have their request met.

All three groups of participants – young people,survivors and perpetrators – echoed the messages ofother research with children and parents in their needfor practitioners to listen to and validate theiraccounts: when stigmatized behaviour is exposed toexternal scrutiny, individual stories need to be heardand treated with respect. Accounts of domestic vio-lence may vary between family members, and theabuse and its effects may be denied, mitigated orover-emphasized. Family members may thereforeneed to be seen separately, in settings and contextswhere disclosure is experienced as safe, and where theemotional content of disclosure can be validatedwithout provoking further conflict.

Although guilt and fear of statutory services can actto inhibit recognition of the adverse effects of domes-tic violence, many of the participants in this studydemonstrated a capacity to acknowledge the harmdomestic violence had inflicted on children. A number

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of interventions have emerged, which aim to build onthis capacity and increase responsiveness to children’sexperiences of domestic violence. Humphreys et al.(2006) have developed workbooks that children andmothers in refuges can use together. Bunston (2008)provides a useful example of a parallel intervention forchildren and their mothers experiencing domestic vio-lence; similar approaches are being implemented bothin the UK and in North America (see Stanley 2011).The Parents Accepting Responsibility that Kids areSafe (PARKAS) programme is an Australian initiativethat uses the same team of facilitators to run both amothers’ group and a group for their children. Repli-cating activities in the children’s group in the mothers’group serves to facilitate mothers’ engagement withtheir child’s perspective on domestic violence(Bunston 2008). Such initiatives use imaginative iden-tification with the child’s perspective to identify theimpact of domestic violence on children, so producingmotivation for change. If children are to be protectedfrom the impact of domestic violence and their recov-ery from its effects facilitated, the extent of their expo-sure and its negative impact needs to be identified andexplored with parents.

There is also evidence that engaging with children’sperspectives on domestic violence can motivate per-petrators to seek out and use services to changebehaviour. Stanley et al.’s (in press) focus groupresearch with men in the community identified anawareness of the impact of domestic violence on chil-dren as a key motivating factor that would promptmen to seek help. Exploring the extent of children’sexposure to domestic violence may provide a usefulstarting point for engaging violent fathers. Taxono-mies that specify the nature and severity of children’sexperience of domestic violence are available (Holden2003; McGee 1997) and these could be used as toolsfor promoting discussion of domestic violence withfathers in a context where the emotional conse-quences of that discussion are acknowledged andmanaged.

This study, like others, has emphasized that domes-tic violence and its effects continue beyond separationand that separation can result in additional supportneeds, some of which concern the management ofcontact. One of the key findings of the study of casefiles, which comprised the second stage of thisresearch, was that social workers should avoid estab-lishing separation as the goal of intervention (Stanleyet al. 2011a). Interventions that adopted separation astheir objective could result in inappropriate pressureon mothers to protect children from abusive men and

a withdrawal of support services when abusive menappeared to move out of the family. Working with theeffects of divorce and separation is rarely conceptual-ized as a social work task and a recent UK review(Barrett et al. 2011) on supporting family relation-ships and reducing family conflict contains nomention of social work.

However, many of the ‘single parent’ families thatsocial workers are involved with are not familiesdevoid of men, but rather households characterized byadult relationships with high levels of conflict andabuse. These difficulties do not evaporate whencouples separate. Social workers need to be preparedto engage with and work with these dynamics andtheir consequences rather than focusing exclusively onseparation.This may be more challenging and requiresustained long-term work with families.

CONCLUSION

Many of the key features of social work with familiesexperiencing domestic violence identified by thisstudy are common to intervention in other forms ofchild abuse and neglect. These include acknowledge-ment of the roles of secrecy and shame, the impor-tance of listening to and validating different familymembers’ accounts and the development of motiva-tion for change by enabling parents to engage with thechild’s perspective. What is unique to intervention indomestic violence is the need to work thoughtfullywith the dynamics of conflict, control, abuse, separa-tion and contact in parents’ relationships. Thisrequires attending to adult relationships and recogn-ising that these are shaped by needs and desiresbeyond the tasks and roles of parenting. This isperhaps an unfamiliar task for social workers who havebeen required by government guidance, particularlythe Framework of Assessment (Department of Health2000) in England and Wales, to focus on parents interms of their strengths and weaknesses as parentsrather than considering their wider identities andexperiences that shape their parenting.

One of the key messages from the young peopleparticipating in this research was the need for profes-sionals to be perceived as powerful and effective intheir response to domestic violence. An impotentresponse confirmed the experience of powerlessnessevoked by exposure to domestic violence. If practitio-ners are to appear authoritative, they need to beinformed about relevant local resources and how toaccess them, aware of legal interventions and knowl-edgeable about the nature of domestic violence and its

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effects. Inter-agency training that develops this knowl-edge and the confidence that it confers are essential inthis respect.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was funded by the NSPCC. The authorswish to thank all those who participated in theresearch, and Gill Thomson and Susan Hilton at theUniversity of Central Lancashire who contributed tothe work of the research team.

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