The Systemic Way
The Systemic Way Podcast is a therapy and mental health podcast featuring conversations with experts, practitioners, researchers, and people with lived experience from the worlds of systemic psychotherapy, family therapy, psychology, social work, and community practice. Hosted by Sezer and Julie, two systemic and family psychotherapists, the podcast explores mental health, relationships, trauma, resilience, social justice, culture, and change. Through engaging discussions on theory, practice, and real-world experiences, listeners gain a deeper understanding of how systemic and relational approaches can support individuals, families, organisations, and communities.
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The Systemic Way
Child to Parent Violence and Abuse - A conversation with Helen Bonnick
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In this episode Julie and Sezer speak with Helen Bonnick, author of the book 'Child to Parent Violence and Abuse: A Practitioner’s Guide to Working with Families'.
We discuss the origins of the book, core ideas, implications for practice and the systemic ideas which have both influenced and developed her work.
Welcome to the Systemic Way. This episode, we're going to speak to Helen Bonick, who is a consultant, speaker, and trainer on child-to-parent violence and abuse. She qualified as a social worker in 1983 and has since worked as a practitioner, supervisor, and educator. At the moment, she offers training and consultation services to local authorities, other groups, and individuals. She's also the author of a fantastic book, which is called A Practitioner's Guide to Working with Families, Child-to-Parent Violence and Abuse. I don't know what to say, Cesar, apart from the book, one is absolutely fantastic. We highly recommend it. I think we both got a lot out of it. And it was a real honour to have a conversation with Helen, who is just so informative about the topic of child-to-parent violence and abuse, but also has done so much to promote conversations around it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. It was inspiring to hear, isn't it? Like most of our podcasts, when we meet the guests and they get to talk about their passion and their their research that turns into practice and to policy, it's amazing to hear. What really stuck out for me is well, I'll frame it as what we're interested in the podcast, Julian. We talk about this a lot, don't we? We're preparing is how kind of like the non-typical systemic ideas cross-pollinate with systemic ideas, yeah. How they can kind of be absorbed into a family therapy approach or whatever. And um, that was one of the things I was thinking about how is this gonna cross over? And what really stuck out is how systemic Helen was in everything she spoke about. It was just so wide, it was it was looking at a thing that is very much within the system of the family, the violence that occurs between children towards their parents, but within the family, and how how wide she was able to kind of think about what influences that very kind of private in in the house situation and look at different influences. I thought I remember I was just listening to her thinking this is still systemic.
SPEAKER_01Um, yeah, for that reason. I had the same thought, I had the same thought, is really it was yeah, she speaks very systemically. I suppose the only other thing that I want to say is sometimes when we do get to listen to these speakers and their passions, I think when when's the penny gonna drop for me with one of these passions? Because they really are so passionate, and I'm sure that I hope there are people out there actually who've got passion who who get inspired by by listening to these conversations.
SPEAKER_00Or the when's the penny gonna drop to be able to talk as systemic as them, you know? Yes, so no, it's a real privilege listening to them, and and today was really it made it made me think about straight away going into practice and having having some of these ideas in my mind when she spoke about not all families that experience these multiple factors that she speaks about, they don't always result in child-to-parent violence, but knowing that it's a risk factor um and how that might um formulate your questions, or for us, like a hypothesis we might have, right? We might say if all this stuff's going on for this kid, is it manifesting in some violence at home? And you might hold hold that as a hypothesis when you're working with a family, um, and being able to bring that to the conversations where also knowing or also having a hypothesis that families might not be able to bring that to you because of the shame and the stigma that's um that characterizes this particular type of violence was really helpful. So, yeah, we hope everybody enjoys it today. Um yeah, we look look forward to some feedback or some responses or any kind of thoughts that come up for people.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the Systemic Quay. So today we're going to be speaking to Helen Bonick, who is a consultant, speaker, and trainer of child-to-parent violence and abuse. Um, you're also the author, we should say, of a fantastic um practitioner's guide to working with families on child-to-parent violence and abuse. And I think Cesare and I have both been leafing through your book a lot over the past few weeks. Um, and we're really honoured to have you here as our guest to speak with us.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Julian. Thank you, Cesar. It's a real pleasure to be here. And I've been looking forward to this for for quite some time now. So it I'm looking forward to unpacking all sorts of systemic ideas with you around this topic.
SPEAKER_00Okay, thank you. Um so what we're talking about today is specifically around your work and your research, your ideas on child-to-parent violence and abuse. Um and it's it's good to kind of state it. Your background is a social worker, and um quite interested in where where the where it started, you know, the origins of the idea and where your kind of journey to to producing the book, but also in just doing the work, where where some of that stemmed from.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, it starts a long time ago. So I um qualified as a social worker in 1982, 83. And um, I um my first job was um in a in a team where we did everything. This was in the time before the separation between adults and children social work, and we were very much embedded in the local community, and and and a lot of our work was about developing networks, doing preventive work, um, joining people together and looking at um how people lived in community and within systems, if you like. Uh, and it one of those occasions uh we were we came across a mother who who reported that she was being beaten up by her son. And it was it was very distressing for all of us, uh, but particularly because this was something that there wasn't really a name for, um, and we really had no uh sense of how we could support this mother or or what we could do either with her fear and anxiety on a daily basis or um in supporting the family to change and develop that relationship. And I think it's probably fair to say that it was very much seen as um that there was we were viewing them as two separate individuals, I think, as a parent who was failing to be able to control the child, and as a young man who was being very violent and was problematic in that sense. And I think that experience stayed with me really then on on in the back of my mind and really drove the work going forward when it when it emerged again. So that I I went on to work within schools and did a lot of work, again, networking and uh development work, preventive work uh and early intervention within schools, and was again coming across families where parents were saying, We can't get my my child into school, they won't go, um, issues around behaviour within school and within the home, and trying to again to understand what was going on there and to have a sense of that wasn't totally parent-blaming, trying to move away from from the the kind of typical diagnosis, if you like, that that this was a parenting problem, that the parents were um needed to just do something better or more in order to gain control and and authority within the situation. And then um I had an opportunity to do some some more study. I took a master's degree in uh 2004-2006 and decided to uh take as my the subject of my dissertation then I looked at how easy it was or the the access to to help for parents who were living with child-to-parent violence and abuse. And at that time we were calling it parent abuse because um the name, there are many, many names for this issue, and they they keep changing. Um at that time we were we were that was the term we were using. Um we've moved on from there, and we we tend to you I tend to use child child-to-parent violence and abuse because uh um one of the reasons with parent abuse was people kept assuming we meant abuse by parents. Uh, and we wanted to make it very clear the direction of travel, if you like, that this was from the child to the parent. Um, and within that child, I would include any child from very young up to um 18 or mid-20s, um, is the usual understanding if there are special special circumstances, special needs. Um, and parent, we would include uh anyone in a parenting role. So that might be step parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, um, grandparents, aunts, uncles, kinship relationships, any sort of relationship where that's um a parenting role. And we include violence and abuse now much more because we recognise that um not all abuse is violent and that much of what parents experience will be at an emotional or a psychological level. So um I started looking at, I've I've wandered off track already. I started looking at how easy it was for parents to get help, and and I realized that it was phenomenally difficult for me to find this out. And um in 2004, 2006, there was very little literature written. There was some research emerging, but but not very much. And I realized that if it was hard for me, with quite a lot of time on my hands and not the urgency of the situation to find help, it was going to be even more difficult for parents living with this on a daily basis to get the help they needed. And so that then drove me forward. And it became like um people use the expression a dog with a bone. It was something that I couldn't let go of. And for years, then it seemed, uh the first thing I said as I came out of this master's degree was um, okay, I've got to get this, I've got to get this on women's hour. I gave myself a year to get it on women's hour, which is a bizarre sort of goal to give yourself at one level. Um and I think it I I pestered women's hour researchers so much. Um and I did it, wasn't it? I think it wasn't on in the year, and uh, but it was on very soon afterwards. And I was so pleased that it was being taken up as and starting to be talked about, and and and parents were starting to hear about this in the mainstream media um as an issue. So I then started saying to people, you know, what what can I do? I was really getting myself involved in a network. I was um going to conferences, going to uh speaking to other practitioners, I was learning that there were practitioners within youth offending teams who were coming across this, there was people within domestic abuse organizations who were coming across this. And I started to to just talk to people all the time and to think about what I can do. Um and someone suggested start a website, and they and the the sense was there's there is nothing, there'sn't there's no way of joining all this information together. And so that's how my website, Holes in the Wall, came about. And that was launched in in 2011. Uh and um uh crazily, I obviously, you know, because these obviously I chose to launch it on the weekends of my son's graduation. So I'm at in Glasgow for his graduation in a hotel room trying to press send and get this thing live and publicize. But it was it was just completely crazy. And um, I had no idea how to do a website. I had one of my sons build it for me, and then I wrote the first blog, and it was like, well, I've said everything is to say now, so what happens next? Um, so it was just I don't know why I thought this was a clever idea, but but over the years, so this is the last 10 years, I've got really this has become my passion, if you like. Um, and this could be a full-time job. So uh the website's grown now to have um a number of different pages. Um and I I try to put on there everything that I can find to do with child violence and abuse. So there's uh a link to research that's going on and around the world, there's any events and training opportunities that I come across. Uh that I've I'm building and rebuilding the directory at the moment for services for for families. And many uh there's too many pages to list. There's a page about I call Sound and Vision, which is where I bring together all the links that I've I've come across. And somebody is somebody's told me it's a it's a bit chaotic, and it is, it's not a clean website. I know lots of people spent lockdown rebuilding their websites, and um, if you look at websites these days, they're very um simple and straightforward and very and very professional, and mine's a bit chaotic, I grant you that, but that's because I do it as a part-time thing with no experience in IT technology, and I'm just trying to bring everything together. So um it is it is very much a thing about have a look at it, take out the bits that are useful to you. There's no need to read everything, but but it's there for people as a place to come to find out more and to link in with other people. I so believe in networking. I think it's so important that we talk to each other, we share ideas. And almost everybody that I've spoken to in this field has been so happy and so willing to share knowledge and understanding. And that's been a real privilege to be part of that network.
SPEAKER_01It's it's I think your story, and that's one of the things we love about the website, it's so in inspiring to hear how someone follows their passion and where it leads them. And I think it's really nice for you to say as well that the website is, you know, it's not a sleek, smart thing. It's it is, you know, it's there as a resource, it's there to start conversations. Um, you know, just for other people who are listening to to lead and to follow what they're interested in. I I suppose one of the things I was really curious about is, you know, what what it is in you about feeling like we need to have conversations about this. We need to be talking about child-to-parent violence.
SPEAKER_02I've been so privileged that my experience of raising children and indeed grandchildren has been an a relatively easy one. I mean, we don't have a free rise here. Um but you know, we I've had a happy time with my kids with little ups and downs, but nothing more than you would normally expect. But for some so too many families, that's not um their experience. And so I'm I feel like I'm learning all the time. I this is my knowledge and my what I talk to people about isn't through my person experience, but it's very much through listening to other families. Um and I I think it's so important that we hear from those that are impacted by this, because they are the experts in this. Um, and they are um the people who have have already, by the time people ask for help, they've already been living with this for a long time. They've developed so many ways of surviving, of living with this, of keeping safe. So we need to be listening first of all to other people. Um, and then because um families don't live in isolation, individuals don't live, people don't live on their own. We're all part of a wider network, a wider community, whether that's our extended family or our neighborhood or our school or our faith group or whatever we're part of, we have those um systems around us. Um, and there's so many joined up things that we need to be thinking about. Uh, each of those people, each of those um layers, if you like, that people are engaged in will have an important role to play either in supporting a family or in understanding a part of the issue, which is why this family is struggling in the relationships, or it might be that they are actually making there might be something going on that's making this worse and really influencing um the behaviour and the relationship in a negative way. So we we need to bring all that knowledge and all that understanding together in order to see the family in the round, uh, and then to be able to bring in perhaps multiple agencies in order to fully understand and to fully support a family. That would be my that I mean, I think that's what I'm some ways trying to work towards at the moment in another project that I've got going is to really encourage agencies, departments to see that they that we need to be talking to each other at that level, not just saying, oh, it's it's not our problem, you need to go over there to that agency, it's their problem. Um, but we need to understand how um all of us have a can have a role in in supporting families in in bringing about um increased safety through meeting a child's needs, meeting a young person's needs, meeting a parent's needs in order to strengthen that part of the the unit uh in order to bring about change. That was quite a long answer.
SPEAKER_00It was a good answer. Um just just hearing your kind of the the progress of it being through practice and you recognizing the kind of the prevalence of this type of family abuse, and then doing your dissertation around it, and then following it through. I mean, that's that's it so inspiring. Um, and then seeing how it can have impact on policy and government changes. Um, we spoke to Carleen Furman recently, actually, um, and quite a similar story in with contextual safeguarding. So bringing something that's quite invisible, really, um, to policymakers and making it visible. And I'm I'm interested in how that occurs or how it did occur in this in child affair and violence. So there's two things, I guess, in the in there, like the various definitions around it, and you you began to speak about it, so different organizations creating different constructions and understanding of what's going on, how to address it, and how that creates a bit of a kind of jumble or chaos within within the system. And then also the other bit is about the stigma and the shame that this particular form of family violence is characterized. Just yeah, just some of your thoughts around those.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna come on to the shame. The shame one is an easier one to explain, really, but if I answer that first, I'll forget the other question. So um I think it's really uh what happened around um just leading up to 2010, really. I I mean, I it's easy to think in decades in some ways, isn't it? But kind of around that time, just before, just after, we see an emergence of lots of the different types of research in different fields um where people were stumbling over this issue. And uh it's incredible to look back on now how this was happening, but with within research within housing, within um um antisocial behaviour, within adoption, uh, within the youth justice system, within many fields, people were independently doing uh a piece of research and then said, and look, we found this, and we didn't know we weren't expecting to find this, but this is a thing. What are we going to do about this? Um, and so within all these different fields, people were saying, um, help, what do we do? We need to start talking about this and we need to start thinking about this. And when we talk to practitioners, everybody says, yes, it hasn't got a name, but we're coming across this all the time. And because it was coming up in different agencies, if you like, people were framing it within their understanding. So within a youth justice framework where people are used to thinking about young people as offenders, there was a tendency to and antisocial behaviour. There was a problem because it didn't fit antisocial behaviour because it was happening inside the home rather than outside. But there was still this prevailing um notion that the young people are the problem, um, and that parents need to be held responsible for the young people's behaviour, and so we need to hold them accountable, um, if you like, punish them further, um, send them on parenting courses. So there was that kind of thing going on within youth justice. Within children's services, where there was a sense that um we need we work to protect children from their parents, and the danger is seen as coming from that direction. It was very difficult within that. If you you're starting from that framework, it's very difficult to shoehorn or squeeze this type of behaviour into that model. Um, and so it becomes distorted, and your understanding of what's going on is necessarily distorted because your framework is so rigid. Um, and so you have a tendency again to view this as um poor parenting because um that's What's allowing these children to behave in that way, and children being viewed perhaps as beyond parental control, which would fit within the Children Act, but uh but really struggling to see this as a problem that that is relevant to children's services, where you're looking to protect the children within domestic abuse. Um fit the field, if you like, of domestic abuse work, where you're looking again, normally you're expecting it to be between intimate partners that the issue. Um, and it's it's taken a long term time within that that field for us to understand that um abuse can come from many places, whether that's with a current relationship, a past relationship, different members of the family, the wider circle. And so within all these different agencies where people were coming across it, there was people were struggling to fit this issue into their framework of um this is how we respond, this is what we do when this problem comes along. And and I I have so much, you were saying you were talking to Carleen Ferman, I have so much admiration for her, but also drawing on her work and her understanding that um the importance of looking sometimes outside the family for what's going on and not always um looking to within the family. So um within child-to-parent violence and abuse, yes, we know that often there are there are huge issues going on within the family and within the family unit, which may be contributing towards this. But also there are often um other things going on outside, and if we can start to um understand children, young people, and their parents as as one system rather than discrete individuals who are fighting or are hitting or are arguing or are working dysfunctionally, if we can understand them as a system who all who are struggling to relate to each other and to express their emotions and to meet each other's needs and to find work out how what how they relate to each other. Yeah, if we understand the family more as a system, we need to be able to the way we protect, the way we safeguard young people is in ensuring that the whole family system is strong and robust and well and healthy, and um we protect young people by also protecting the parents. If the parents are not are struggling, are um under pressure, are really not coping at the time, we need to be putting that support in there yet in order to strengthen them to support, to keep the children safe. We keep the child safe, we keep the the parents safe by keep understanding that this is a unit that everyone is relating to each other. We need to keep everybody safe. So I would want to move towards that sort of model of understanding, if you like, family safeguarding rather than um looking at solely as a child safeguarding way.
SPEAKER_00And that family approach really shines through in the book, like your whole there's massive um chapters about family assessment and the whole family intervention, and I got that kind of relational approach to it so much from your book, and I was surprised when when I was reading into the into this topic, um, which was a part of my dissertation, is where I first contacted you then that there really wasn't a strong um presence within like family therapy research, family therapy um practices. We've got NVR and there's been a few kind of research there, but the real kind of approaching it from a relational approach um has been mainly non-existent, which really was really surprising.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, it was very much, as you're saying, isolated in different big organizations, youth offending, domestic violence, children's services, and a lot of the time they were it seems like they were kind of um colliding against each other rather than working together. So I'm really um interested to hear about this other project that you're working on because that's maybe we can get there at the end, but that's something I I would love to know more about, about how we start bringing these um different paradigms. I think one of your chapters is like the problem of two paradigms, isn't it? And how that is a massive problem for this particular thing. But if we dive a little bit deeper into that, I guess I'm thinking about um the concept of perpetrator victim and how complicated that is when we think about child-to-parent violence.
SPEAKER_02Well, you asked earlier about shame, and I think that that links in with that, um, in that um we there's a real danger that parents come for help and uh and are saying, you know, I'm frightened of my child, um by the time we need to understand that by the time parents come for help, things are quite serious, as I think I said already. So their parents are saying help. Um I'm I'm frightened of my child, I'm frightened of what they might do. Um, and if we then as practitioners say, well, well, hang on a minute, let's look at what you're doing wrong here, we're essentially put we're blaming them, we're re-victimizing them for what's going on. We're not hearing their um their risk assessment of what what the danger that they're living in. Um we're downplaying it, we're we're promoting it at a position where parents stop asking for help because they don't believe that anyone will hear them and anyone will um take them seriously. We have which kind of maybe we shouldn't be surprised about because the whole, you know, the whole thing that women carry with them very much is about it's my job, it's my responsibility, I must be to blame. Um the whole, you know, the role, their role is to uh parent the next generation, to make children good and responsible and healthy citizens. So if you if you're faced with a uh when I say their role is, you understand what I'm saying here, I'm not accepting that that's their role, but that's the message of society. When that goes wrong, there's a huge sense of shame, of personal blame that what am I doing wrong? This must be me. Um, which means it's very difficult to talk to people because you feel so wretched. Um, and if you don't talk to anybody and everybody else is not talking to anybody, you can you can very easily end up believing it it's only you that's happening to. And it's made worse then as well, because um sometimes children will be behaving in in will should be showing challenging behavior in other scenarios, so perhaps in school, but often it they may be very specifically targeting a parent, often the mother. And so um other people will say, you know, come on, you're you're being hard on yourself. When they're with me, they're fine. Um, there it he's a good boy, really. Don't be so hard on him, and so that again reinforces that sense of it's something to do with me, it's my fault, I'm to blame. Um, there's it's just everything is piled on to the parent in terms of this is all their fault, it's all something they've done wrong. Um, and so there is just such a level of shame from from having failed in society's role for you of what you should be doing. Uh and so we really, it's so important when we respond to families, when we when we first listen to families, that we just give them the space to speak, that we just listen respectfully and hear their story, hear their version, hear their truth in order to affirm them and not pile more shame and more blame on, um, and and to not re-victimize um the parents in this situation. Um, but we also need to understand, too, that that um the parent, if you like, looks obviously like a victim. If they've got broken limbs, you know, black eyes, if they're if they've been hurt in some physical way, they they look like a victim. But we need to understand that for the young person as well, um, that there may be a lot of issues going on for them, which is meaning that they're not able to find a proper, constructive, helpful, healthy way of expressing their emotions, communicating their fears. They may be being um victimised outside of the home, perhaps they're being uh exploited within gangs, perhaps they're being exploited sexually, criminally outside of the home. Within the home, there may be other people coming in or living in the home who are abusing them. They may be living with domestic abuse, they may be um struggling with bullying within school, they may be umselves um struggling with their poor mental health. There are so many things that could be going on, which actually mean that that this young person also has needs and should not be seen solely as a perpetrator. And we do try and move away from using that term. So within adult intimate partner violence, you will typically use the term perpetrator, and people are very clear what that means, and people are generally comfortable about using that term. But with young people who are using violence in the home against their parents or siblings or pets, um, we try not to use that term because it's it's considered that labelling that person in that way is really unhelpful in that we we stop to see them as a whole person. We stop understanding their vulnerability, their needs, um, the fact that they are still developed, their brain is still developing, they're not fully in control perhaps of their emotional regulation, their cognitive executive function isn't fully developed. Um, they may, as I say, they may be experiencing abuse themselves in other contexts. So we have a situation, if you like, where we have um we have several, we have two victims here. Um, and so it's important to look at um the need the healing needs, the the health needs of both those of both those parties um in the relationship. And and ultimately this is about healing and restoring a relationship, finding a way for people to live together safely and to move through, move through an understanding of what's going on for them, um, to start resolving all those different individual issues, whether that's about help with substance abuse, whether that's about rescuing from some uh exploitation, whether that's about um a proper diagnosis of mental health needs and the help that's needed around that. And that might be for parents as well as for the young person. Um, so we I I want to support people to move towards that that more holistic understanding of this as a relationship issue, not just of one person versus one person.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Helen. I I was just wondering actually, over the time that you've been going out and speaking to people and offering trainings and consulting, have you have you noticed a change, a difference or how people have responded and been able to view child to parent violence and abuse and work with it?
SPEAKER_02Um I think yes. I mean, but the first thing I would say is that that every time that I've spoken about this without fail, afterwards someone in the audience or has come up to me and said, Can I talk to you about my experience? And we need to um recognise that this isn't something that only happens to a particular part of the population, but that that this um is is quite widespread and and we we can't have the separation of um practitioner and parent. We need to understand that that sometimes practitioners are also being abused by their young people. And uh within research as well, there's a number of research projects going on at the moment where um uh where people are are researching from their own lived experience. So um that that would be the first thing I would say. But also what's been encouraging is that much more um people are saying, yes, we're coming across this in our team. Uh, very, very early on when I uh when I was doing my masters, I would be interviewing people and they would and I would come across a response of, well, who says this is abuse? Um, and a kind of some degree of denial or some people wanting to to refocus on on, you know, well, let's get the parenting sorted out. That's much less so now. So there is um uh a growing awareness, a growing understanding, uh, and a lot more training, whether that's at the level of awareness training or whether that's in the level of of actual praxis and program development, but there's far a far, much far greater awareness now um uh within all fields, I think, uh, of this as an issue and how um how people should be and can be responding in a more helpful way.
SPEAKER_01So I suppose we were just talking um about how people, you know, um might have changed their how they might view it. And I guess one of the questions we were thinking is like, why now? Why why did you decide to write the book when you did? Um, and what's helped, you know, what's changed to make people more aware of it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um yeah, the the book is an interesting question because I was trying to write that for a long time and I had several attempts at that. Um probably five years overall, I should think, that I was starting it. People I was going, I said to you before I was going to all these conferences and networking and talking to people and started presenting um short um presentations really about my website and about my understanding of the issues. Um, and people started saying, you know, you should write a book, which is very flattering, but isn't terribly practical really. Um but I did, but it I I enjoy words. Um so it was something that I I did want to do, but it was finding the way in. And I I made several starts and it was very dry and not very interesting. Um, and then um a few years uh 20 maybe 2013, I can't remember now, um, I was invited to present at Community Care Live with um Al Coates, who's uh involved in within the adoption community, particularly a social worker who's involved there. And we developed a format for our joint presentation and it just made sense. And so that was the format, if you like, the framework that I used then when I went on to write the book. And so actually, in terms of writing it, it it happened quite quickly because once I've done that presentation, it just fell into place, and then within a year I'd got something um very clear in terms of the structure and the content. So um it was waiting for the right time very much in terms of my ideas coming together, but also I'm glad, and I say I'm glad that I didn't do it before that time. It wouldn't have been so good, but also I learned, you know, I I'm very conscious that I'm learning all the time, and that the position that I was in at that point um was a very different one to um I was at five years previously to that, in terms of my understanding of the issues and the nuance, if you like, of the issues. And um I you know, in the early days I was very definite. This is the issue, this is what's going on, and and moving towards a much more nuanced understanding of um of different um different influences, different um systems going on, and also much more um aware of my own ignorance, if you like, um, and the need to be constantly learning myself and listening to people and um being willing to adjust my ideas and my understanding as new information became available. So for me, the timing was right, um, and it the book was published um 2019. Um, so that was a good time to publish it. Uh, and it meant we could have a party before that we had lockdown as well, which was quite good. Um but all but I think it what is also interesting in terms of that question is um why now are we so much more aware of these issues? And I um I do think in large part that is down to the relentless campaigning of a number of people. Uh so people have had to put up with me banging on about it for a while, but not just me. There have been many very brave parents who've spoken to the meat during that time, um, journalists who who've really taken this as an issue they want to run with and support, and and have really spent a lot of time investigating what's going on. Um, some of those original researchers who tripped over this issue then became really focused and went into this further. And so there it's it's like there's some people talk about an alignment of the planets or whatever. Um, but there's very much a sense that that from very different angles, people have come together and suddenly this has become a live issue and um have promoted it in many different scenarios. Um, and so suddenly the groundswell of knowledge and understanding has reached a pitch where you can't be ignored anymore. And obviously, within lockdown, there was a great focus on um domestic abuse generally, sadly, um, because of what was going on and what we knew would be happening inside homes where people had no escape. But also, we started to learn more in that time as well about um the impact on families where there were children using violence. And so again, the we are we have more understanding and more awareness, and there's been more in the media as a result. And um this in the even in the last couple of months, there's been a number of big pieces in mainstream media, there's more coming up, uh, and so there are always more and more, it leads to more and more people either saying, Oh, I need to adjust my thinking on this, or you know, thank God this is here. It's not just me, there are other people that are experiencing this as well. Perhaps I can talk to somebody about this. So um it's it's encouraging always to see that growth of awareness and and and understanding out there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's something I really enjoyed about the book, or enjoyed. I don't know if that's the right word.
SPEAKER_02Like this is I know, I know. How do you use it? What do we say?
SPEAKER_00The the focus that you gave to people's stories and their lived experiences of it, it was so touching. I I was reading it, I was like, oh my god, just there was one line I I think I read it too late in the night. I shouldn't have read it before bed. But it was like when my child held me up against the wall, my 11-year-old son held how embarrassing and shameful that is, and it just it's just so impactful, and it just makes you realise okay, like this is a huge issue on so many levels, and um the importance of unveiling the shame and stigma and the secrecy around this is now allowing us to understand what actually is is occurring because it's clearly not a sudden phenomenon of our society. And I know in your book, you also I think you you date it, you bring a Socrates quote, don't you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's not down to me. I have to say, I didn't research that one. That's one that's been floating around in the in the network for a long time, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, but within that, it's still always been hidden the truth of what the experiences. So yeah, bringing out those um stories, I think is just gonna one, yeah, allow people to access, support, um, and address, but also for professionals working with families experiencing this, begin to have some kind of strategy or understanding of how to work with families um experiencing this because it is so complicated on so many levels.
SPEAKER_01And I was just thinking as well, says when you're talking about when you well, when you're giving the example from the book of an 11-year-old holding a parent up against a wall of you know, that the issue of power as well, and the reversal of that, you know, the power dynamic that you imagine within a family, and and of course the shame that must come alongside that. And I didn't know if there were other things around power, Helen, that you you wanted to share really.
SPEAKER_02The the thing that uh about our understanding of power is often that we're using our own power unconsciously without really well, if it's unconscious, we're not really aware of it. Um, but there is a I think we as practitioners, I would suppose, to be very aware of the power that we have in that relationship and uh to use that carefully, to be to be aware of it and then to use it carefully. And I and that comes back to. Not re-victimizing people, but it also comes back down to an understanding of who's the expert in this situation. And I think we, as practitioners, sometimes it's hard to put aside that, you know, we've done the training, we've got the badge, we've got the certificate, but we might not be the expert. It might actually be that the parent in front of us that we're trying to support is the expert in this. They've lived with this, they've perhaps read more about it, they've certainly got a broader understanding of the issues than we may have. Um, and so there's it's understanding how do we make how do we make use of that piece of information and then hold that within the power of that relationship? Of we can, you know, we can we can use our power that comes with our position and our training and our uh experience to support that family, to access resources perhaps for them. Um, but that power can also be used in a in a uh negative way if we are dismissive or if we um send someone away because we say you don't fit our criteria, you're not um, you know, you're not bad enough, wait till they hit you properly, you know, wait till it's really bad. So it's about how understanding the power as practitioners that we hold in that situation and being very conscious of how we we're using that within the relationship with with the families that we support.
SPEAKER_00There's so if we we're looking at the lens of like domestic violence and the feminist criticism of what you know in our system, you know, like that position of being curious when looking at violence and abuse. Um it's very tricky um holding that position. It's just it's quite a it's quite a difficult place to be when you're working with a family that you know they're going through this. It's how to position yourself, I guess, is my my question, or ideas around what families might need from professionals at that point. Listening, and you talk about that in the book a lot: the power of listening, the power of giving people the opportunity to tell their stories in a non-judgmental way. So being informed by this and having this training around the nuances around power and um double victims, or you know, um helps with that, but there's the call of action that comes up when you're faced with a family experiencing this makes it quite tricky to work with.
SPEAKER_02And I think the first thing it has to always be to make sure the family is safe, um, has to be uh, particularly if if uh a parent has come with it with and there's a very real fear, uh an imminent danger. So the first thing must always be to make sure that the family's safe and to ensure that for all members of the family. Um, but the thing you said about being curious, I think is it we do need to explore what else is going on for this family. And when I talk in my book about the in the chapter on assessment, um, about really being curious at every level. What we're back again to, you know, this this is a the child as an individual, what's going on for them, what happened pre-birth perhaps, um, what what what's their personality? But then they exist within a relationship with their primary caregiver, what's happening in there is is is that person does that person have very strong, very compelling needs which are also aren't being met, or have they struggled to bond with the child? What's uh what's happening in that relationship, but that they then exist within a wider family structure. That family structure, what you know, is there violence, is there support, um, is there understanding, is there poverty, what's going on in that situation? With are there added stresses, are there complications of disability or mental health? Um that family exists within a community, within um within a neighbourhood. Uh you know, is that a violent neighborhood? Is that a neighbourhood where um which you know I I live in an amazing neighborhood? I couldn't ask to live somewhere better. And you know, everyone is supportive and looking out for each other, and I'm sure, but I'm sure even here within the you know, there are pockets or there are individuals who feel unsupported for all sorts of reasons. But so what's what's going on? Who are the the people who are giving and developing enabling a family to develop resilience? Who are the people who are undermining what's going on? Um, what what are and then within the wider society, you know, is there war going on? Is this a family who are escaping conflict? Is there a pandemic going on? You know, what's what's the wider context for this? And also what are the messages that that this society gives about the role of women, of parents, of the boy child, of the girl child? Um, what are the unspoken stories and scripts that this family is living out about who is valuable, who is important, who deserves protection, who maybe doesn't, um, what's the right way to behave? So, all there are so many different layers of um in involvement, interaction that we need to be curious about. All these things need to be understood in order to be able to support this family fully. Um, and obviously, you know, that might take years to fully understand that family. I'm not suggesting that we wait and don't do anything until we get there, but we need to hold these in mind and to be um, you know, when as things will emerge, we need to be um asking more questions and about bringing in other supporters services, perhaps. So I talked earlier about there might, you know, we might be a need for multiple agencies involved in a family, which is always a tricky one. And uh, you know, you there's a need perhaps to have a lead agency in a very clear sense of who's leading the work in this way. Um, but but in order to bring in the support of specialists, whether that's in terms of mental health or whether that's in terms of substance use or whether in terms of use offending, um, we need to draw on that expertise, certainly, but um but it's it's so important that all these people are talking to each other because uh without these little pockets of knowledge, of understanding, of expertise, we don't have the full picture. And so we can um we can miss something really important and we can leave a family vulnerable and at risk. Um, and we have seen that happen when there's very tragically been deaths. If we look at the domestic homicide reviews um time and time again, we see that um the agencies are criticized for not communicating with each other, not sharing information, not working as a team. So it that really underpins my sense that it's so important to build that network of agencies, not just a supportive network for the family, but that as uh practitioners, um we're speaking to each other and working together to support um and to bring about healing and safety and and well-being.
SPEAKER_00And I'm I'm interested in like in when working with families um where there is these multiple factors, multiple difficulties going on. And can there be like a hierarchy within that? You know, like a rank of this need needs to be addressed more than like the school refusal needs to be addressed, or the antisocial or the criminal behavior is what we need to focus on. And then something which is not clearly defined or hasn't been um adolescent, like child-to-parent violence, can it get lost within it because of all these other I think that's a really interesting question.
SPEAKER_02I think that that I mean that answers it in itself, in that yes, that all these none of these things are new, are they? And we've said, you know, child-to-parent violence and abuse isn't new. Um, but but we've missed it because we've focused on all the all these other things that have been going on for years. We've been looking at them and we've been trying to get a child into school and um criticizing the parent for not being able to get them out of bed, perhaps. So, you know, we've been looking at what's going on with substance use and not perhaps also seeing that um the parents are having the money taken for the to pay the debts or having to clear the debts um themselves. We've been looking at lots of other issues, but we've not seen this little thing in the corner that is just quietly sitting there getting bigger and bigger. Um, because we're we haven't known to look for it. Um now we know to look for it, and so we are seeing it. Uh I I don't I think people say, is it getting worse? I think that's a really interesting question, and one that we'll never know the answer to because um we've certainly not been counting it for very long. And um, you know, we rely on people coming forward to say this is happening to me, so they've got to feel safe to do that. Then the people recording that those numbers have got to recognise it as an issue, they've got to have a system in place to make that recording. It's got to be followed, you know, followed up. There's so many different points at which that data is lost. So at the one level, we can never know is this getting worse or not, but we also we can look at um factors which we know are or we understand to be linked to um to so stress within the family, we understand to be an issue which can make violence and abuse worse. And certainly we can see within um pandemic, within lockdown, that many families experienced a massive increase in stress, whether that was through fear about um illness and ill health and um death, whether it was the experience of death and bereavement, whether that was um an experience of increased financial insecurity, whether it was about the thing about being all locked in together and not having any escape. Um certainly when we have looked at what went on with in lockdown, there is some evidence that for some families the situation got worse, and for and it may be that there were more families impacted. But we also see that for some families the situation got better because our external stresses were taken away. So it's very complicated, and I I'm conscious that I've wandered a long way from your original question, says wandering's good, wandering is good. Yeah, I do a lot of wandering.
SPEAKER_00I was talking about how we can get lost within with it, yeah. Um but it has gone got me to think about something I was trying to ask earlier, actually. And again, I think I lost it in what I was trying to say. Hearing the stories that you wrote in the book and um the the stories that people have contributed to the book and it illuminating the impact on families, that bit I was really interested in, and and finding learning more about the impact that this type of violence can have, the destruction it can have on families. Um so just wanted to hear your thoughts around and that from a family structure perspective or a family network perspective, how how this affects families.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think I mean this underlines why it's so important if we can support families early on. Um, and we're you know, we're on to the whole argument about um people for in many different scenarios don't get help until quite late, do they? We know that because of um cuts to funding, decommissioning of services, um raise rising thresholds, poor staffing, all these things mean that in many different scenarios, in many different services, all sorts of people struggle to get help early on in their crisis, and they they will tend to get support later on when there is nothing else to do, and we know that that's more costly, and we know that that's more costly financially to the state, and we know that it's more costly to the individual. Um, so and and that holds true for child to parent violence and abuse. So if we can support families really early on when they start to say um this is getting tricky, um, or or if we can go in early and and um we know that there are links with certain issues, we know that there are some things which make a family more vulnerable. So if we can put in support maybe early on in those those things, for instance, within where there's been intimate partner violence or where the child has experienced trauma or where there's some sort of um um neurodevelopmental condition or a mental health diagnosis, all these things will tend to make a family more vulnerable. They don't cause child-to-parent violence and abuse, and we have to be really careful to be clear about that. But they will they will make a family more vulnerable to um difficulties, to extra stresses, um, and to a relationship breaking down. So, you know, we ideally we would have early help, we would have strong messages throughout society about um you know the role, the the way respect for one another. And I know a lot of that happens with the school generally, but but perhaps we need more in that respect. Um and and so in that level, if we can support families early on, we can um enable people to talk to each other, we can we can enable families to find more healthy ways of relating, we can support um families to meet a young person's developmental needs, uh, we can find out what might be going on in a young person's life, and we can we can get in there early and we can put in support systems to to stop that getting worse. You know, whether that's mental health, whether that's bereavement, whether that's something that's going on in school, we can we can start to put in work preventatively to support that young person in what they're going through. I mean, going back a little bit, I know this is a previous discussion, but but I I there was a time when I used to see this as a kind of linear thing that you either there was um there was something that was causing this and this was the outcome, or you you either there was no child to parent violence or there was child to parent violence. Um if this was in your family, it was going on. And I moved to an understanding much more. I talk about a Venn diagram, a massive Venn diagram, because there are so many different issues, and so and for some families, there might be one very simple thing that um not to say that it's simple, but perhaps there's perhaps there's been a bereavement, and a young person has been very traumatized by that, perhaps they were very close to their grandfather, to an aunt, or somebody, a sister, um, and they've really not they've really struggled to process that, and they've um they're not able to communicate that sense of loss, of um perhaps added anxiety in their life, all those sorts of things that might be going on for that young person. They're not able to communicate them in a more healthy way, and so they start to um become more withdrawn and to demonstrate, communicate physically, if you like. So if we could uh put that support in for that place. But so there might be for that young person, it might be just something as simple as bereavement counselling, as well as then helping them to understand healthy ways to communicate and that uh building that respect and the support and the understanding as a family unit. But for some families, there may have been you know early prenatal um difficulties, and then perhaps the child's been been taken uh taken away from the birth family and place for adoption, so you've got massive disruption and loss and um attachment issues there, and then they may, because of all those things, struggle within school, so you've got those sorts of issues, and because they're struggling in school, they may be excluded, and because they're excluded, they may be getting into trouble in the streets. Um, and so for that family, where you've got we're into Venn diagram territory now, you've got multiple things going on. Um, and for that child in that family, there are many issues there that that will need to be um looked at and for that that family to to be supported. So, is there a hierarchy within that? Um, of how where where do you start? I suppose um we have to start with the first thing that comes up, don't we? We have to, if someone says they're not going to school, then we don't we can't say, well, hang on a minute, let me ask you what about all these other things first. We have to start looking at the thing that is presented. Um, but bearing in mind always that this might not be the only thing that's going on. Um, and again, I suppose back to not being black and white and definite, and this is I'm the expert, this is bang, bang, bang, this is what we need to do. Um, but again, being curious, okay, this is happening, there's a problem in this respect. Is this the only thing that's happening? What else might be going on for this young person? If if this is the reason they're not going to school, what where what are the implications in other parts of their life for this issue as well?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think one of the things I was I've sort of got from this conversation and what I'm hearing is that there's also something about quite a collaborative approach and being alongside a family, and that there might be multiple factors that are contributing to what's happening. And there's something perhaps about naming and acknowledging all of these factors, even if you might be attending and focusing on one thing at a time with them.
SPEAKER_02Indeed. And that thing about collaborative work, I think, is so important as well because as practitioners, we have just a fleeting relationship with a family often. And I know some practitioners may be engaged with for a number of years, but often it might be for a few months. Um, and so we are we need to, you know, we need to empower the parents and the other adults in this situation to have strategies in place. We they need to have uh their resilience built in, they need to have the knowledge of what might be going on, they need to have the network supporting them established, um, all these things so that that they this is collaborative because it's not us doing something to them, it's us working alongside to enable them to do the work for the future. Um, and that might, I mean, I think NVR is a really interesting response to this because it's about um enabling parents to um to understand their relationship in a new way, isn't it? And to build a new way of relating uh and to understand the importance of network and support and to feel able to call on other people for help in that situation. Um, but we have people often say, Is this a parenting problem then? Is it this is is this a parenting problem? Yes and no, because it's uh there is a problem with what's going on with this in this family. Whether or not the parents are doing something wrong in the first place is complicated because sometimes there will be people have got into patterns of ways of responding to violence and aggression, which are maybe not themselves helpful. But certainly the parenting is going to be part of the solution because the practitioner is not going to be there forever, and the parent is going to be supported and encouraged and taught and trained to provide support and parenting to this young person for the future. So it certainly is in that issue, in that sense, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And Helen, I because I was just actually just thinking of a case that I'm working with, of which there has been child-to-parent violence. And then and and and I guess I was thinking about, you know, one of the things that were shared with me, and I'm sure it's a common thing actually, of the parent telling me, you know, sometimes it's really hard to like them. And I I was I don't know why I was thinking of that when you were talking. And I guess, you know, you can have these parenting strategies and things like that, but um, I don't know if you've got any words really to speak to that. I mean, I could completely understand, but it and my heart was breaking and I, you know, when it was said to me, and it's very, it's it must it's a very difficult position, I suppose, to be in for a parent. And I was just wondering, yeah, if you had anything to to offer or to share.
SPEAKER_02I I I suspect that it's a position that many parents find themselves in, isn't it? Um whether there is uh violence and abuse or not, I think many people will have felt um something's going on and I really don't like what you're doing, um, the people you are with. And I know that's very different to I don't like them. Um and helping a parent to untangle that and to separate out what's going on there, I think is sometimes important in itself. And also to give permission to parents. I think if we say to we we can't be in a place where we're saying to parents, you can't say that. And that's that's kind of almost like a deeply embedded automatic response of so many people, isn't it? And we're back to kind of the unsupportive friends who's re victimizing. You can't say that. That's sort of thing. You don't, you know, don't say that. We have to give permission to parents to say that and then to unpack what that actually means and and how. They feel themselves about that. That's such a painful position for a parent to be in to reach a point where they're admitting to even themselves, let alone to a therapist, a counselor, that that's how they're feeling is such a painful thing to do, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01Um and a brave thing, I suppose. I mean, it brings us back to the beginning of this conversation that we had with you of allowing these conversations to happen and the importance of allowing these conversations to happen, of which you've done a huge, tremendous amount of work to raise the profile and give people permission in a way to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I think well, there's still a long way to go, but I feel I do think that we're in a much better position than we than we were. Um yeah, I feel a sense of satisfaction, if you like, that that that's where we're at at the moment. That it's that we it's something that's being talked about more widely in society, but also at government departmental level, that there's a recognition more widely that this is a thing, that it needs addressing, that it needs money thrown at it, um, and it needs a consistency. So it's not just uh you know a little bit of funding for six months and then you're on your own, mate, but um a sense that this is something we need to address, and in order to address it properly, we've got to have that that um consistency and and proper serious support. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Just hearing you both speak, it just makes me think how how like the relationships in families can become so organized around the violence, and that can become the main thing that their day-to-day interactions is focused on, and all the other stuff that families experience or you know you would want them to experience just gets lost, and how damaging that can be. And I was just thinking when I was hearing you, Helen, talk about like strategies to help families and and professionals with this, it's beginning to kind of step back and maybe understand some of what takes place and the processes, even things about how families can just neglect that parents can neglect their own lives, you know, uh in dealing with the problem, managing the symptom or the managing the difficult violent behavior becomes everything that they focus on, and there's just energy not left for anything else. And it that kind of brings us on to the NVR stuff, doesn't it? That's kind of some of the stuff that NVR talks about. It's really good to like your book is so accessible in terms of what to try, what to think about, and you you're very careful in not taking an expert position, but also it's very containing in it as well to say these are some of the stuff that's going on potentially. Try this stuff, there's some resources here. Um and I guess we're we're interested in what next really you're beginning to you began to start saying it. Um, what would be your hopes for the next stage of development in research in the area?
SPEAKER_02There's um there's some interesting research going on at the moment, but there's a there are huge gaps in the research, and I'm very conscious that um that different communities will have a different experience of these issues because of different of different family structures and expectations. Um, and I think that's been overlooked up till now, and um so I would want to see more um research drilling down into what what the what is the experience of black families, what's the experience of families where there's disability, what's the experience for traveller families? Um so we don't just have one model which is the unspoken white middle class model, if you like, or whatever, and the assumption that this is this will hold true for all families. Um we need to be much more careful about about how we understand difference and and how that might be played out in different communities. And I absolutely don't mean by that that well, violence is okay in some communities and we should accept it, but about understanding that we can't just go in with a set of assumptions about what the solution will look like. Um, understanding different networks of support, understanding that some things may not be so easy for people to access because of um their situation, um, understanding the different pressures that being part of a community might bring in terms of further discrimination or um problems in accessing other things. So that I I really want to see some more focused um work going on in that respect. But what I I did mention that that I've got another project on the go, which is really trying to build on, because I'm such an inveterate networker, um, trying to build on that um that that those links that I have with people and to bring people to the table to talk about what next. Um, so trying to encourage people at a higher level, a strategic level, people with um funding, if you like, to start to say, um, how do we work together? We've all we're all involved in this, we've all coming across it in our own organizations, in our own departments. So, what happens next? How do we make this sustainable? How do we make this joined up? Um, how do we support families better going forward? So that's what I'm trying, that's what some I've got some energy going into it at the moment. And um it's slightly nerve-wracking because I'm outside my comfort zone again. Uh, but that's yeah, that's what I'm um trying to think about at the moment, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thank you, Helen. I think that's um it's very admirable. I like I like hearing that you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone as well because it again it makes it, you know, it gives a little bit of encouragement to all of us to do that. I think that's a a good place to be. And um it's been a real privilege to have this conversation with you today. And I know Sarah said, but your book is I just couldn't believe how much knowledge um and resources there is in the book, and it's just so easy to read and enlightening on the topic and practical, actually, to help you. So thank you. Thank you for writing it.
SPEAKER_02And that's I mean, all everything that you said is what was at the back of my mind that I wanted it to be so accessible and to be very practical. So I'm so glad that it's hit the mark and that you found it useful in that way. It's it's very encouraging to hear. I should say that as soon as it's of course, as with every book, as soon as it's published, you start doing the the corrections and the updates. So I've got a big file on my computer for um a few years' time when we do a second edition or whatever. Because and that's partly because um, you know, this there is it's been a the last few years have been a time of immense growth in knowledge and understanding and research. So that you know, I the the having to do updates is frustrating, but it's also good because that we're moving on so fast, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I suppose the only other thing we didn't mention the website, holes in the wall is brilliant. That's a great place for people to go and find out more.
SPEAKER_02And I always say that it's um it's not my website, it's everybody's website because it's a place um for people. I I welcome contributions if people want to write a blog, if they want to share something they've read, whatever they want to do, tell me about a training or a conference. Um, it's a place for people to network and and and meet together. So yes, please. Brilliant.
SPEAKER_00Okay, thank you very much, Helen. And um, we do look forward to the to the next next stage of the development. And if when there's a second edition, I look forward to reading that as well. Um for your project.
SPEAKER_02Thank you so much for having me today. It's been a real um pleasure to speak with you and to um share my excitement and my journey.
unknownThank you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.