Protecting Children Archives - Page 9 of 10

April 11, 2016

If I saw Mum was upset… Children’s experiences of coercive control

‘If I saw Mum was upset I’d give her a cuddle or something like that, try and make her feel happy.’ (Bob, aged 12)

The Archers –

a ‘contemporary drama in a rural setting’ – is apparently the world’s longest-running radio soap opera.

Recently it has barged its way into our national consciousness with the unfolding storyline of the increasingly controlling behaviour of one of the main characters, Rob Titchener, towards his new wife, Helen. The narrative appears to have captured something of the reality of coercive and controlling behaviour that many women (and also fewer, though still many, men) in our society suffer as a daily, lived experience.

It is a reality that I am coming across increasingly in the Serious Case Reviews I have been studying as part of a Department for Education-funded project to explore the lessons that can be learned nationally from serious and fatal child maltreatment. Out of 175 case reviews where a child has died or been seriously harmed through abuse or neglect, 94 (54%) have had evidence of domestic violence within the parents’ relationships. I suspect the reality may be even higher.

And, sadly, that doesn’t capture the far greater numbers of children living with the fear and intimidation of ongoing domestic violence (both physical and through other coercive behaviours).

Beyond the physical incident model

In our January issue of Child Abuse Review, we published an important paper by Emma Katz from Liverpool Hope University: Beyond the physical incident model: How children living with domestic violence are harmed by and resist regimes of coercive control. Dr Katz interviewed 15 mothers and 15 children who had managed to separate from perpetrators of domestic violence.

‘Lots of times when Mum was giving me attention he’d tell her to go over to him so she’d have to leave me to play by myself.’ (Shannon, aged 10)

The responses to her interviews demonstrated how, even in the absence of specific incidents of physical violence, these children and young people experienced horrific lives which were dominated by the coercive, controlling behaviour of the perpetrators, including:

Control of the women’s and children’s time, movement and activities within the home
Preventing mothers spending time with their children
Limiting the children’s ability just to be children
Isolating mothers and children from their families, friends and sources of support
Restricting what mothers could spend their money on

‘[Because of the perpetrator’s/father’s control] I just didn’t go out, so then the children didn’t go out. It was just school and home. So they missed out on days out, family trips, socialising with people. And they’ve missed out on knowing what healthy relationships are about in other families because children don’t make as many friendships if you can’t mix with other mums.’ (Marie, mother)

However, in spite of the extremely negative impacts on these children, Dr Katz also found examples of remarkable resilience: of children and their mothers finding ways to support and sustain each other, and ultimately to escape from the entrapment that had been built around them.

In her paper, Dr Katz argues that we need to move beyond models based on specific incidents of physical violence, to be aware of the daily lived reality of many of these mothers and children, and to seek ways to recognise and support their attempts to build resilience and break free.

You can read and download Dr Katz’s report for free from the Child Abuse Review website.

March 18, 2016March 18, 2016

SIDS, restorative justice and big tobacco: why I’m feeling angry

The other day I visited a couple whose baby had recently died suddenly and unexpectedly. This family stood out as unusual in that neither parent smoked. The vast majority of bereaved parents whom I have visited over the past years have been smokers, and it seems clear to me that this is one of the biggest modifiable risk factors for SIDS.

In our South West study of sudden infant death in 2003-6, we found that 59% of mothers of SIDS infants had smoked during pregnancy, compared to just 14% of mothers whose babies had not died, equating to a 13-fold increase in risk[1].

And this makes me angry.

Not at the mothers or fathers who expose their babies to such risks, but at the callous greed and indifference of those who continue to produce and market the cigarettes that are killing these babies.

Over the past few months, Lois and I have had the privilege of visiting a local family assessment unit as lay chaplains. The families placed here for assessment come from a range of backgrounds, but all have been treated harshly by life, and the odds seem stacked against them and their babies. Every Saturday night many of these parents come to the chapel with their babies for a bit of space: away from the constant scrutiny and surveillance. Here in this sacred space they can be themselves. We have a laugh together, share some of Lois’ home baking, and join in a simple liturgy of reflection. Many of them ask us to pray a simple prayer of blessing over their baby: they, like all parents, long for their babies to have a better life.

After our time together, almost without exception, these parents congregate outside the chapel, with their babies, in the outdoor smoking shelter. We sometimes stop and chat a bit longer before heading off. And I feel angry. There in that shelter, these parents are slowly poisoning themselves and their babies.

But the parents themselves are victims: victims of the aggressive marketing of the cigarette companies that got them addicted in the first place; victims of a society that alienates and marginalises them; victims of their background and culture that leaves them feeling powerless to change, so that often the only solace they can find is in that little fix of nicotine and tobacco.

And meanwhile, the tobacco companies continue to produce their poison.

In 2012, 5,800,000,000,000 cigarettes were smoked globally.[2]

The WHO estimates that one person dies from tobacco every 6 seconds; 10% of these as a result of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.

Meanwhile, the tobacco giants continue to rake in their profits. Jonathan Gornall, writing in the BMJ, cited operating profits of 9.2 billion pounds for Philip Morris International, and £6.1 billion for British American Tobacco.

When I sit down with a parent whose baby has recently died and they ask me that deep, deep question, ‘Why?’ I am sometimes tempted to cry out in pain, ‘Because of the greed and indifference of the chief executives, the board members and the shareholders of the big tobacco companies who have made you and your baby victims! Don’t ask me why your baby died, go and ask them.’

But surely those people, too, must have a heart, somewhere, that beats?

Is it too much to hope that somehow those hearts could be changed?

In his book The Book of Forgiving, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with his daughter, Mpho, reflect on their painful experiences through their lives in South Africa, and particularly the Archbishop’s involvement in the Truth and Reconciliation commission. Back in the 1980s it seemed impossible to hope that the perpetrators of apartheid and the unjust systems of that country could ever change. And yet, they have found that through the hard, long road of restorative justice, people have changed; truth has come to light; and reconciliation has occurred.

Do I dare to dream of the possibility that just one of these CEOs, or a board member of one of the tobacco companies could one day accompany me as I visit a bereaved family; that they, too, could hear their story; and maybe, just maybe, a glimmer of compassion could be awakened in their heart?

[1] Blair, P. S., et al. (2009). “Hazardous cosleeping environments and risk factors amenable to change: case-control study of SIDS in south west England.” BMJ 339: b3666.

[2] Gornall, J. (2015) Slaying the Dragon: how the tobacco industry refuses to die. BMJ 2015;350:h2052

March 13, 2016May 31, 2016

Safer Sleep Week

Safer Sleep Week, from 14-20 March, is The Lullaby Trust’s national awareness campaign aiming to raise awareness of the importance of safer sleep and how to reduce the chance of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

In the early 1990s the UK, along with many other countries, saw a dramatic reduction in the number of babies dying as SIDS. In the 1980s over 1,000 babies in England and Wales died suddenly and unexpectedly each year. Following the Back to Sleep and other campaigns, this figure dropped by 2/3, and has continued to fall since. Nevertheless, every year over 200 families lose a baby in this way.

SIDS Incidence, England & Wales, 1985-2011

Over the past 15 years I have met and spent time with lots of families whose babies have died suddenly and unexpectedly. Every single one is heart-breaking: to sit with parents whose baby has just died, to feel their anguish, and to hold their big questions, knowing that there are no easy answers, and nothing I can do to take away the pain.

And yet, perhaps the most heart-breaking thing of all is that so many of these deaths could be prevented. We may not know the causes of SIDS, but we do know very clearly how to prevent it.

The messages are really very simple:

So please, share this blog, get the messages out, and maybe you might help to save a baby’s life.

You can get more information, support and resources on the Lullaby Trust website: http://www.lullabytrust.org.uk/LThome

March 3, 2016

The shifting culture of child protection

The year 2016 marks the 25^th anniversary of Child Abuse Review and I am pleased to announce that our first issue of the anniversary volume is now freely available online. The issue contains five stimulating original articles along with two training updates, two book reviews, and our accompanying editorial.

The primary paper to launch this anniversary volume is Nigel Parton’s review of the contemporary politics of child protection, based on his Founder’s lecture at the 2015 BASPCAN congress in Edinburgh. Parton provides a wide-ranging review of the issues facing child protection in the UK today and his paper is well worth reading.

Over the past 25 years a lot has changed in the child protection field.

Parton argues that the child protection systems introduced through the Children Act 1989 were in response to a number of high-profile cases of physical and sexual child abuse within the family, and that this created a tension between professionals intervening ‘too little and too late’ or conversely, ‘too early and too much’.

‘The Children Act 1989 was thus centrally concerned with trying to establish a new set of balances between the state and the family in the care and protection of children. I argued (Parton, 1992) that the idea of child protection at that time, in the early 1990s, was essentially concerned with both the protection of children from ‘significant harm’ in the family and also the protection of the family from unwarrantable and inappropriate state interventions. Crucially the focus of law, policy and practice was how we could best address the abuse of children within the family and the primary concerns were physical and sexual abuse.’

Over the past two decades, however, the nature of child protection has changed, and reflects broader shifts in our culture. The recognition of both physical and sexual abuse within a variety of institutions and community settings, along with research highlighting the long-term impact of chronic abuse and neglect, has led to a broadening and an increasing complexity of what now constitutes child protection or safeguarding:

An increasing focus on the full range of the life-course from pre-birth to young adulthood, particularly as the dangers of child neglect in the early months of life and its impact on the brain and child development have received considerable attention;
The recognition that young people themselves, as well as adults, can perpetrate abuse;
The growth of new dangers including those related to the internet and a range of forms of social media and, most recently, the dangers of ‘radicalisation’;
The identification of new forms of abuse which include female genital mutilation, forced marriage and child sexual exploitation.

Within this context, child welfare professionals across the country work incredibly hard to support families and protect children. In the research I am currently working on for the Department of Education, we have identified a year-on-year increase in child protection activity, but in spite of this, no change in the number of deaths directly caused by maltreatment, and, if anything, a reduction in fatality rates in all but the late adolescent group.

During the years 2011-14, a total of 1,856,400 referrals were received by children’s social care services in England, an average of 619,000 per year.

However, in contrast to this recognition of the extremely good and sensitive work being done by professionals, Parton argues that ‘debates about child protection have become increasingly emotionally charged and politicised’ with what he calls ‘a politicised narrative of blame and failure’. Rather than being seen as motivated professionals who are committed to working for children’s safety and well-being, child protection workers are blamed both for failing to protect children and for disrupting families.

In a complex world in which children grow and thrive, are abused, exploited and neglected, have fun and participate, laugh, play, cry and cower in fear, we need to challenge this culture of blame and failure, and instead work to support children and families, and the professionals who work with them every day. We need to move to a narrative of ‘progress and hope’, celebrating all that has been achieved in supporting children’s rights, and taking those opportunities to learn and improve.

I’d encourage you to take a look at Nigel Parton’s paper and the other papers in this special anniversary edition of Child Abuse Review.

Child Abuse Review, Volume 25, Issue 1: Contents

Jane V Appleton & Peter Sidebotham. 25 Years of Supporting Professionals in Safeguarding Children (pages 3–8)

Scars across humanity

This being the inaugural sexual abuse and sexual violence awareness week (#itsnotok), it seems pertinent that I should have just received my copy of Elaine Storkey’s new book, Scars across humanity: understanding and overcoming violence against women.

What a powerful, accessible, and challenging book.

Elaine Storkey, a feminist sociologist and theologian, has painstakingly explored the issues of violence against women across the globe, starting from the premise that violence against women is never acceptable.

“There is one universal truth, applicable to all countries, cultures and communities: violence against women is never acceptable, never excusable, never tolerable.”

– United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Elaine has somehow managed to combine the dispassionate objectivity of academic rigour with a very human compassion for those countless women who have suffered as victims and survivors of violence. Drawing on her encounters with women across the world in her role as President of the International Aid Agency, Tearfund, Elaine has carefully compiled both data and human stories from as far afield as the United Kingdom and Ecuador, the United States and Afghanistan, to provide a comprehensive overview of the nature and impact of violence.

But Elaine does more than simply record facts and stories on issues as diverse as rape, trafficking, selective abortion and female genital mutilation. Through the pages of the book, she offers a unique critique of both sociological and religious understanding of women and their place in society, and our cultures that permit such violence to occur.

“Rape travels alongside trafficking and prostitution as the exercise of power over vulnerability. And that power is often layered and multi-faceted, pitting the economic, political or social status of the perpetrator against the insignificance of the victim. When the unbalance is made even more uneven by the lack of safeguarding measures, or indifference from authorities, trying to bring redress can simply feel like a task too overwhelming, and impossible to achieve.”

– Elaine Storkey

The book makes for harrowing reading. But it is a book that is also full of hope, presenting a vision of a future in which violence against women is no longer accepted, stories of change and progress, and holding out the possibility of healing and restoration for those affected by such scars across humanity.

“And I have seen the ugly face of hatred

As it ripped my flesh and seared my soul

Mocking my refusal with malicious, brutal force.

But I am learning to erase that gaze

And seek instead the gentle face of love

Which stoops to soothe my fear with tender touch

And travels patiently in step with me

On the long journey towards peace.”

– Survivors’ workshop

February 2, 2016February 4, 2016

#itsnotok: Sexual abuse and sexual violence awareness week

This week is the inaugural Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness week ‘#itsnotok’ (1-7 February 2016), a national awareness campaign supported by BASPCAN, the NSPCC, NAPAC and other organisations.

In support of this, we have published a special virtual issue of Child Abuse Review:

Child Sexual Abuse and Children’s Rights

This collection of eleven papers, all of which are available on open access, has been selected from a much larger body of work that BASPCAN has published in Child Abuse Review over the past 24 years. Each paper has helped to stimulate the ongoing debate in respect of child sexual abuse and children’s rights to better protection and therapeutic services.

In an accompanying editorial, Jonathan Picken, Independent Consultant; and Chair, Education and Learning Sub-Committee, BASPCAN points out the timeliness and importance of this issue:

Papers published during this period helped shape professional practice and supported colleagues who were often severely criticised for their attempts to bring the scandal of such abuse and exploitation to the attention of the public. It is apt, therefore, that the recent critical assessment of child sexual abuse (CSA) in the family network, ‘Protecting children from harm’ (Office of the Children’s Commissioner, 2015) should highlight the true prevalence of sexual abuse across England and help continue the campaign to ensure rights enshrined within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) are fully recognised and protected.

I would encourage you to read Jonathan’s editorial and the associated papers of the virtual issue. Sexual abuse and sexual violence are crucially important issues that are not going to go away. Perhaps more than any other kind of maltreatment, sexual abuse hits at the core of a person’s identity, and leaves deep scars. We owe it to women and children the world over to take this seriously and to continue to strive to improve our responses to sexual abuse and violence, working to prevent such violence and to support those affected by it.

Like many other authors whose work has helped inform our understanding of CSA, authors of these 11 papers have contributed much to the ongoing battle to end such abuse and exploitation. Their work is celebrated here in the hope that it will continue to provoke debate across the coalition of partner organisations coordinating #itsnotok and efforts to raise awareness of sexual abuse and violence and the services available. The associated week of action comes at an opportune moment as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse chaired by Justice Goddard progresses its work. The need for similar investigations across the five nations perhaps finally vindicates the efforts of BASPCAN members and other colleagues who have continued to highlight the needs of those affected.

Virtual Issue Contents

The pattern of child sexual abuse in Northern Ireland
(Volume 1, Issue 2, 1992)
M. T. Kennedy and M. K. C. Manwell

Pornography and the organization of intrafamilial and extrafamilial child sexual abuse: developing a conceptual model
(Volume 6, Issue 2, 1997)
Catherine Itzin

Prevention of sexual abuse in children with learning disabilities
(Volume 7, Issue 5, 1998)
Ana Maria Martorella and Ana Maria Portugues

The neglected priority: sexual abuse in the context of residential child care
(Volume 8, Issue 6, 1999)
Meg Lindsay

Assessment and intervention in cases of suspected ritual child sexual abuse
(Volume 10, Issue 4, 2001)
Bernard Gallagher

Commercial and sexual exploitation of children and young people in the UK – a review
(Volume 14, Issue 1, 2005)
Elaine Chase and June Statham

Twenty-first century party people: Young people and sexual exploitation in the new millennium
(Volume 22, Issue 3, 2013)
Margaret Melrose

Dealing with a problem that doesn’t exist? Professional responses to female perpetrated child sexual abuse
(Volume 16, Issue 4, 2007)
Lisa Bunting

In Demand: Therapeutic services for children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse
(Volume 21, Issue 5, 2012)
Debra Allnock, Lorraine Radford, Lisa Bunting, Avril Price, Natalie Morgan-Klein, Jane Ellis and Anne Stafford

Disclosure of child sexual abuse: Delays, non-disclosure and partial disclosure. What the research tells us and implications for practice
(Volume 24, Issue 3, 2015)
Rosaleen McElvaney

Social work intervention to protect children: Aspects of research and practice
(Volume 1, Issue 1, 1992)
Olive Stevenson

January 4, 2016

Parental beliefs and child protection

In 2012 a young infant was admitted to a London hospital, having been found unresponsive in his cot by his parents. A post-mortem examination showed that the child had died of florid rickets caused by severe vitamin D deficiency (Windibank, 2014). The parents, strict vegans with strong religious beliefs had refused any medical intervention for their child, including routine immunisations and health surveillance. They also refused vitamin D supplements, recommended by doctors when it was identified that both he and his mother were deficient. When the child became unwell with an infection, the parents did not seek any health care, stating that they were awaiting a ‘sign from God’.

In June 2015, 3 Muslim women from Bradford, UK, disappeared along with their 9 children, aged between 3 and 15 years. It is believed that they travelled to Syria via Saudi Arabia and Turkey, that their motivation was that they didn’t want their children growing up in England, and that they had a brother who was understood to be fighting with extremists in Syria (BBC, 2015).

In both these situations we could assume that the parents loved their children and would not have wished any harm to come to them. The parents were apparently motivated by their beliefs; we presume that none perceived their actions as abusive. And yet, all these children were either seriously harmed or at least potentially put at risk of harm.

Parental beliefs have the potential to be a great force for good in a child’s life and development; they also have the potential to cause great harm. Deciding when the state has a duty to intervene and act in contravention of a parent’s beliefs is fraught with legal and ethical dilemmas. However, it is not an issue we can ignore, particularly given all we know of abuses suffered in religious institutions, and a growing awareness of the risks posed by strongly-held fundamentalist beliefs (Gilligan, 2009; Sidebotham & Appleton, 2012).

The latest issue of Child Abuse Review, published just before Christmas, explores these issues. The issue includes papers on the complexities of exploring child protection within Islamic contexts and attitudes towards corporal punishment, both of which I discuss in the accompanying editorial. In addition, there are papers on child protection in sport; sex offenders’ awareness of online security; young people’s understanding of parental substance misuse and domestic violence; and the needs of child protection workers.

Click Here to see the Editorial and full list of contents

BBC (Producer). (2015, 9.9.15). Missing Bradford sisters: Mother ‘didn’t want children to grow up in UK’. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33201176

Gilligan, P. (2009). Considering religion and beliefs in child protection and safeguarding work: is any consensus emerging? Child Abuse Review, 18(2), 94-110. doi: 10.1002/car.1059

Sidebotham, P., & Appleton, J. V. (2012). Understanding Complex Systems of Abuse: Institutional and Ritual Abuse. Child Abuse Review, 21(6), 389-393. doi: 10.1002/car.2253

Windibank, O. (2014). Serious case review: Baby F: D.O.B. 01/01/2012: D.O.D. 14/06/2012: independent overview report. Bexley: Bexley Safeguarding Children Board.

July 17, 2015November 23, 2015

Learning To Listen: To Young People, Parents, Perpetrators

I don’t want to talk about it… It’s too horrible. But in the end I became so frightened of her I used to start shaking when she came into the room.

So said Matilda’s teacher, Miss Honey, in Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book (Dahl and Blake, 1989, p. 198). In a simple children’s story, Dahl poignantly captures just how difﬁcult young people (and adults) ﬁnd it to talk about the abuse they experience:

I have found it impossible to talk to anyone about my problems. I couldn’t face the embarrassment, and anyway I lack the courage. Any courage I had was knocked out of me when I was young (p. 195).

The reality of that is captured in the ﬁrst paper in the latest issue of Child Abuse Review. In a review of research on disclosure of child sexual abuse, Rosaleen McElvaney (2015) highlights both quantitative data on the prevalence of non-disclosure and delays in disclosure, and qualitative data exploring the complexity and individuality of issues around disclosure. McElvaney concludes that ‘signiﬁcant numbers of children do not disclose experiences of sexual abuse until adulthood and adult survey results suggest that signiﬁcant proportions of adults have never disclosed such abuse’ (p. 161)

Continue reading “Learning To Listen: To Young People, Parents, Perpetrators”

The Archers –

Beyond the physical incident model

And this makes me angry.

The messages are really very simple:

Original Papers

Training Updates

Book Reviews

Virtual Issue Contents