Child Abuse Review Vol. 24: 231–234 (2015) Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/car.2410
Domestic Abuse and Safeguarding Children: Focus, Response and Intervention Safeguarding children and young people living with domestic abuse has emerged as a priority area across health, justice and human service sectors. It is now recognised as a significant health and social issue and one that has serious, long-term consequences for both adult and child victims. One in five children in the UK and one in four in Australia have experienced domestic violence by 18 years of age (Indermaur, 2001; Radford et al., 2011). At a global level, a ten-country study reported that between 15 and 71 per cent of women had experienced physical or sexual violence by their husband or partner (World Health Organization, 2009). Children’s experiences range from directly experiencing child abuse themselves, being hurt when intervening, to witnessing the violence or hearing events from afar. Their childhood may be marred by growing up in an atmosphere of fear (Stanley, 2011), where there is threatened stability within the home and undermining of relationships between mothers, fathers and children (Laing et al., 2013). The past few decades have seen a gradual shift in ideology, practice and service organisation in relation to domestic abuse. Responding to the needs of children and families living with domestic abuse has long ago shifted from an issue of concern only for women’s domestic violence organisations into one involving mainstream organisations (Walby et al., 2014). Mainstreaming is associated with an infusion of ideas developed within the specialist domestic violence sector into generalist organisations such as the police, child protection and the courts. Other important shifts have occurred in: recognising the connections between the safety of women and the safety of children; understanding the gendered nature of domestic violence; developing interventions which respond directly to the voices of women and their children; and acknowledging problems of post-separation violence. All these issues are important considerations in developing appropriate and helpful responses to domestic violence and we have chosen to privilege these issues in this special issue on domestic abuse and safeguarding children. We have selected articles that focus on the issues that arise within the mother-child relationship in the context of domestic violence. We believe that this is an area that is emerging as a significant but marginalised area of inquiry and practice. It is all the more important given the changing social policy contexts in many countries. In compiling this special issue, the close reading of all submitted articles provided a rare opportunity to identify some key themes and salient issues *Correspondence to: Cathy Humphreys, Department of Social Work, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. E-mail:
[email protected]
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Accepted: 02 June 2015
Editorial Cathy Humphreys* Department of Social Work, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Caroline BradburyJones School of Health and Population Science, University of Birmingham, UK
‘One in five children in the UK and one in four in Australia have experienced domestic violence by 18 years of age’
‘A gradual shift in ideology, practice and service organisation in relation to domestic abuse’
‘Focus on the issues that arise within the mother-child relationship in the context of domestic violence’
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‘Seven key principles in relation to safeguarding and domestic abuse’
Editorial within this body of literature. As a result, we were able to discern seven key principles in relation to safeguarding and domestic abuse. These relate to focus, response and intervention: 1. Foregrounding the voices and concerns of women and their children is important (Focus). 2. Domestic abuse needs to be regarded as having both a child victim and an adult victim (usually, but not always, the child’s mother) (Focus). 3. Domestic abuse (when following the dominant gendered pattern) should be viewed as an attack on the mother-child relationship (Focus). 4. The process of separation needs to be viewed as a time of heightened risk for lethality and severe abuse (Response). 5. Responding to domestic violence within complex cases is a priority (where there is co-occurrence of domestic abuse, mental health and drug and alcohol problems) (Response). 6. A differential response needs to be developed to ensure that only children and families that reach the threshold for a tertiary statutory response should be referred or notified (Response). 7. Risk assessment and risk management of the perpetrator of domestic abuse should be a focus of intervention (Intervention).
‘We wanted the voices of children and young people to be placed front and centre’
‘Strengthening relationships between mothers and children while simultaneously safeguarding children is a careful balancing act’ Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The six papers and one book review included in this special issue align thematically with the first four principles. We open the issue with a paper by Claire Houghton (2015a) who also provided the book review (Houghton, 2015b) for the thoughtfully crafted book for children affected by domestic abuse entitled How Are You Feeling Today Baby Bear? by Evans (2014). As reflected in principle one, we wanted the voices of children and young people to be placed front and centre; Houghton’s paper provides a fine example of how this can be achieved. The particular focus on the ethics of working with young people exposed to domestic abuse has ramifications not only for researchers but also for all organisations which work with young people. Young people provide a sensitised understanding of the relationship between their safety and wellbeing and that of their mothers. This paper shows how encouragement and supportive facilitation can assist young people in being powerful political advocates for other young people and their mothers. Importantly, the three E’s of young people’s participation are proposed: enjoyment, empowerment and emancipation. Maternal protectiveness is a complex issue and Nicola Moulding and colleagues’ (2015) ‘untangling’ provides some helpful insights. Through their feminist social constructionist lens, they highlight the dynamic of self-blame among mothers, and mother-blame among adults who were exposed to domestic abuse in childhood. The paper aligns well with the first of the three principles regarding focus, with the gendered discourses of motherhood being revealed. Strengthening relationships between mothers and children while simultaneously safeguarding children is a careful balancing act, but as Moulding et al. emphasise, it is a crucial part of practice for those who work with domestic abuse. Emma Smith and colleagues’ (2015) paper reports on a quasi-experimental mixed method evaluation of an intervention called Domestic Abuse Recovering Together (DART). The ten-week DART programme focuses on rebuilding a threatened and undermined mother-child relationship after abuse. The paper thus aligns squarely with our third principle. The study showed promising results, demonstrating increased levels of affection from mothers Child Abuse Rev. Vol. 24: 231–234 (2015) DOI: 10.1002/car
Editorial to their children following the programme. The paper provides an important antideterministic message: although domestic abuse can have a detrimental effect on the mother-child relationship, intervention programmes can be effective. We have chosen two papers on post-separation violence by Fiona Morrison (2015) and Anna Nikupeteri and colleagues (2015). Both papers report on qualitative studies; the first undertaken in Scotland and the latter in Finland. They highlight the imperative to extend the boundaries of safeguarding children to recognise that separation may be no panacea for many children and their mothers. A profound shortcoming of the safeguarding response lies in underestimating the ongoing harm to children in the post-separation period; hence the sixth principle. Children need to know their fathers, but a meaningful relationship is not possible when abuse to either the child or the child’s mother continues. Additionally, children have a right to leave an abusive relationship. It is not a matter of choice, but rather, a right which needs to be honoured by all decision-makers and particularly the courts. Our final paper tangles with issues relevant for the future of safeguarding directions for children and their mothers living with domestic violence. While on the surface a paper which seems most relevant to researchers, in the land of evidence-based policy what counts as ‘success’ or ‘what works’ becomes critical to commissioners of services. Emma Howarth and colleagues’ (2015) paper draws attention to the incongruity between children’s and their mothers’ perspectives on ‘success’, and those outcome measures used in research evaluation. Yet again, the paper reinforces the need for voices of women and children to be taken seriously. As editors, we argue that the issues raised in Howarth et al.’s paper could be important determinants of the types of programmes that are funded in the future. There is an increasing body of research and literature relating to domestic abuse and safeguarding children, but compilations of cutting-edge research in the field are rare. We believe that this special issue provides an opportunity which has been missing in the field. Readers may be wondering why explicit discussion of the last three principles is missing from the special issue. The crucial aspects of response and intervention have been deferred rather than ignored. There were more articles accepted for publication than could appear in this special issue. Further articles that focus on domestic violence and children will continue to appear in future volumes of Child Abuse Review. These articles will be available on Early View in the very near future and will include issues such as intervention programmes and fatherhood; adding to the body of literature in this area (Alderson et al., 2013). Perhaps the sheer number of high-quality articles submitted for consideration reflects the prominence of domestic abuse and safeguarding children as an issue? This might assist in continuing to shift the focus so that the principles discussed in this editorial become embedded in policy and practice.
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‘Although domestic abuse can have a detrimental effect on the mother-child relationship, intervention programmes can be effective’
‘In the land of evidencebased policy what counts as ‘success’ or ‘what works’ becomes critical to commissioners of services’ ‘Compilations of cutting-edge research in the field are rare’
References Alderson S, Westmarland N, Kelly L. 2013. The need for accountability to, and support for, children of men on domestic violence perpetrator programmes. Child Abuse Review 22: 182–193. DOI: 10.1002/car.2223. Evans J. 2014. How Are You Feeling Today Baby Bear? Exploring Big Feelings After Living in a Stormy Home. Jessica Kingsley Publishers: London. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Child Abuse Rev. Vol. 24: 231–234 (2015) DOI: 10.1002/car
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Editorial Houghton C. 2015a. Young people’s perspectives on participatory ethics: agency, power and impact in domestic abuse research and policy-making. Child Abuse Review 24: 235–248. DOI: 10.1002/car.2407. Houghton C. 2015b. Book review of How Are You Feeling Today Baby Bear? Exploring Big Feelings After Living in a Stormy Home by J. Evans, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 2014. Child Abuse Review 24: 311. DOI: 10.1002/car.2400. Howarth E, Moore T, Heawood A, Hester M, MacMillan H, Stanley N, Welton N, Feder G. 2015. The effectiveness of targeted interventions for children exposed to domestic violence: Measuring success in ways that matter to children and parents. Child Abuse Review 24: 297–310. DOI: 10.1002/car.2408. Indermaur D. 2001. Young Australians and domestic violence. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice No. 195. Issues paper. Australian Institute of Criminology: Canberra. Laing L, Humphreys C with Cavanagh K. 2013. Social Work and Domestic Violence: Critical and Reflective Practice. London, Sage Publications. Morrison F. 2015. ‘All over now?’ The ongoing relational consequences of domestic abuse through children’s contact arrangements. Child Abuse Review 24: 274–284. DOI: 10.1002/ car.2409. Moulding N, Buchanan F, Wendt S. 2015. Untangling self-blame and mother-blame in women’s and children’s perspectives on maternal protectiveness in domestic violence: Implications for practice. Child Abuse Review 24: 249–260. DOI: 10.1002/car.2389. Nikupeteri A, Tervonen H, Laitinen M. 2015. Eroded, lost or reconstructed? Security in Finnish children’s experiences of post-separation stalking. Child Abuse Review 24: 285–296. DOI: 10.1002/car.2411. Radford L, Corral S, Bradley C, Fisher H, Bassett C, Howat N, Collishaw S. 2011. Child abuse and neglect in the UK today. Research report. National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children: London. Smith E, Belton E, Barnard M, Fisher HL, Taylor J. 2015. Strengthening the mother-child relationship following domestic abuse: Service evaluation. Child Abuse Review 24: 261–273. DOI: 10.1002/car.2405. Stanley N. 2011. Children Experiencing Domestic Violence: A Research Review. Research in Practice: Dartington. Walby S, Towers J, Francis B. 2014. Mainstreaming domestic and gender-based violence into sociology and the criminology of violence. The Sociological Review 62: 187–214. World Health Organization. 2009. Violence Against Women. WHO: Geneva.
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Child Abuse Rev. Vol. 24: 231–234 (2015) DOI: 10.1002/car
