Listening to practitioners talking about child to parent violence and abuse: Some findings from an action research project

Abstract

Contemporary debates about violence within the family are usually limited to the dynamics and prevention of adult-initiated violence. This largely ignores other kinds of challenges that social workers and other practitioners working with children and families in the voluntary and statutory sectors in Ireland are increasingly facing in their day to day practice (Coogan & Holt, 2015). This article takes as it s starting point one of these additional challenges known as child to parent violence and abuse (CPVA), a relatively recently identified form of violence within the family in Ireland. This problem occurs when a child under the age of 18 years uses tactics of abuse and/ or violence to coerce, control or dominate parents or those occupying a parental role, such as grand-parents or foster carers, for example. The article also describes an action research project that emerged from the practice dilemmas when working with families living with CPVA. These shared dilemmas led to an action research project, completed in 2015, in which seventy-five practitioners from social work and other disciplines in Ireland were invited to become involved in research based on a two day training programme on Non-Violent Resistance for CPVA. This research project is proposed as an example of action research, demonstrating one way in which practitioners in statutory and voluntary agencies can work together with researchers to addresses some key questions relating to emerging forms of violence in the family.