Responding to child to parent violence is a multi-agency action learning research project led by the University of Brighton. The consortium consists of partner organisations in the UK, Bulgaria, Ireland, Spain and Sweden and is studying the emerging problem of abuse perpetrated by children on their parents and carers.
The study was originally initiated by a joint project between the City Council and Rise and aims to find out how countries across Europe handle child to parent abuse. The project runs until February 2015 and the aim is to provide a toolkit for practitioners to use across Europe and to increase awareness of the problem.
The work is part-funded by the European Commission's Daphne III programme, which supports Europe-wide projects that address issues of violence against children, young people and women and aims to attain a high level of health protection, wellbeing and social cohesion. More information on Daphne III can be found on the European Commission's website.
Responding to child to parent violence aims to develop an understanding of this important issue, the extent of the problem and how it is handled in each of the partner countries. The project will evaluate two intervention models currently in use – Break4Change (Brighton and Hove City Council and partners) and Non Violent Resistance (National University of Ireland, Galway) – and investigate how these models could be used effectively in other countries. As a legacy to the project, a toolkit will be developed to aid practitioners in dealing with and preventing the problem in the future.
Dr Paula Wilcox, principal lecturer in the University of Brighton's School of Applied Social Science, said: "This problem is rarely articulated in government policy and it remains a taboo subject that parents and carers find difficult to disclose. We know that Spain has conducted more work on this issue and as a result seen an increase in reports by parents and carers."
"Existing literature identifies that it is mainly mothers who experience it and mainly adolescent boys who instigate it, as well as links with domestic violence, but both areas are under-researched and due to the lack of evidence-based guidance, practitioners are often unsure how to respond to this issue."
On the project website you can find information on the Break4Change and Non Violent Resistance programmes, as well as links to other research and publications in this field. We will regularly update information as the project develops.
Project launch event
A launch event for the project was held at the University of Brighton on 1 March 2013. Watch a film of the event below.
