Understanding CAPVA

1 A rapid literature review on child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse for the Domestic Abuse Commissioner s OfficeUnderstanding CAPVABy Victoria Baker and Helen BonnickNovember 2021 ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr Victoria Baker Victoria has worked as a researcher within academia and the third sector for around ten years and has recently completed her PhD on child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse at the University of Central Lancashire s Connect Centre for International Research on Violence and Harm. Victoria is currently supporting the domestic abuse charity Respect with the development and evaluation of their Respect Young People s Programme (RYPP), in addition to exploring domestic homicide as part of her role as Research Associate within Manchester Metropolitan University s HALT (Homicide, Abuse, Learning, Together) Research Team.

2 Victoria is also a long-standing Associate of the Dartington Service Design Lab. Helen Bonnick Helen is a social worker with over 30 years of experience in the field of family work, at both practitioner and supervisory levels, based first within local authority social services teams, and then within schools for around 16 years. She also worked for a number of universities, supporting and assessing social work students on placement. In 2004 Helen started researching the difficulties experienced by parents in finding help when their children were violent or abusive towards them; and since 2016 her work has been exclusively within this field, writing, training and consulting.

3 She has a website, , which acts as an international discussion and resource hub; has been a member of a number of working groups; and regularly speaks on the radio, at training events and conferences. Her book, Child to Parent Violence and Abuse: a practitioner s guide to working with families, was published in May 2019 by Pavilion, and offers advice and guidance to all those engaged in work in this developing field. Helen is a member of the Respect board of trustees. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions and critique provided by Neil Blacklock and Ciara Bergman from Respect, and Simon Corkery from the Domestic Abuse Commissioner s Office, contributions which were extremely useful in refining ideas and highlighting blind spots.

4 Recommended citation Baker, V. and Bonnick, H. (2021) Understanding CAPVA : A rapid literature review on child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse for the Domestic Abuse Commissioner s Office , Respect. CONTENTS Background to the review _____ 1 Purpose and scope _____ 1 Search methodology _____ 1 An overview of the literature _____ 2 Structure of the review _____ 2 PART 1: Understanding CAPVA _____ 4 Section 1: What does CAPVA look like ? _____ 4 Defining child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse ( CAPVA ) _____ 5 Who is involved? Characteristics of parents and young people _____ 9 Section 2: What are the impacts of CAPVA ?

5 _____ 12 Impact on parents/caregivers _____ 12 Impact on young people _____ 14 Impact on siblings _____ 17 Impact on relationships _____ 17 Section 3: How common? CAPVA as a hidden form of abuse _____ 20 Prevalence and incidence _____ 20 The taboo of parent abuse secrecy, shame and minimisation _____ 24 Difficulties in researching and measuring CAPVA _____ 25 Section 4: Why does CAPVA happen? _____ 26 An ecological approach _____ 26 Explanations at the individual ontogenic level _____ 28 Explanations at the family microsystemic level _____ 32 Explanations at the community/social structure exosystemic level _____ 36 Explanations at the sociocultural macrosystemic level _____ 38 Typologies of CAPVA _____ 40 Section 5: CAPVA as part of a continuum of violence _____ 41 CAPVA , does it end at age 18?

6 _____ 42 Links with later intimate partner violence and abuse _____ 42 Links with parricide _____ 44 PART 2: ADDRESSING CAPVA _____ 45 Section 1: The policy context _____ 46 A policy silence _____ 46 A form of domestic abuse? _____ 46 Section 2: Practice models and theoretical approaches _____ 47 Restorative practice _____ 47 Cognitive behavioural approaches _____ 47 Trauma-informed approaches _____ 47 Non-violent resistance (NVR) _____ 48 Systemic/family systems _____ 48 Solution-focused _____ 48 Domestic abuse-informed _____ 49 Section 3: Contexts and modes of support _____ 49 Books and self-directed support _____ 49 Helplines telephone and webchat _____ 49 Peer support for parents _____ 50 Professional support at a prevention/early intervention level _____ 50 Professional support utilising generic skills _____ 51 Specialist responses _____ 51 CAPVA intervention profile: Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) _____ 53 CAPVA intervention profile: Who s in Charge?

7 _____ 54 CAPVA intervention profile: Step-Up _____ 55 CAPVA intervention profile: Break4 Change (B4C) _____ 56 CAPVA intervention profile: Respect Young People s Programme (RYPP) _____ 57 Specialist agencies _____ 59 Section 4: The impact of Covid-19 _____ 59 New challenges_____ 59 The response of CAPVA services _____ 60 Moving forwards _____ 61 Section 5: Gaps, inconsistencies and the need for shared learning _____ 62 PART 3: RECOMMENDATIONS _____ 64 For research _____ 64 For policy and practice _____ 67 References _____ 72 1 Background to the review Purpose and scope This rapid literature review1 on child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse ( CAPVA ) was commissioned by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner s Office in February 2021, with the aim of providing policy makers and practitioners with an accessible overview of the subject and its main issues, the current approaches taken to intervention, and the gaps in the evidence base.

8 To this end, the following research questions guided the review : What does CAPVA look like and who does it typically involve? What do we know about its prevalence and incidence? What are the challenges in researching and measuring this form of family abuse? What are the causes and contexts of CAPVA why does it happen? What are the links between CAPVA and other forms of abuse? What do we know about the impact of CAPVA on the family? What are the current approaches and interventions used to address the issue? What is the nature and quality of the evidence underpinning programmes and practice?

9 How has Covid-19 impacted upon CAPVA and the services/supports addressing it? What and where are the key gaps in knowledge and research? The review also sought to identify recommendations for where future research efforts and funding should be directed, in order that identified gaps in knowledge be filled and policy and practice in the area improved. Search methodology The review draws significantly from (and expands upon) the literature review carried out as part of the first author s recent doctoral thesis Exploring adolescent violence and abuse towards parents: the experiences and perceptions of young people 1, where relevant peer-reviewed journal articles, books and reports were identified using the abstract and citation databases Web of Science, Scopus, and ProQuest, supplemented by searches of key journals, including the Journal of Adolescence, Journal of Family Violence, and Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

10 Boolean searches used various combinations of the terms: child-to-parent , adolescent-to-parent , parent abuse , mother abuse (AND) abuse , violence , 1 Being rapid rather than systematic, this literature review attempts to provide a detailed, although not exhaustive, account of the subject area. 2 aggression (and their variants). Searches using the Google online search engine helped to identify grey literature , most commonly evaluations or research relating to small-scale CAPVA interventions both locally and globally. Unpublished texts such as internal programme evaluations were obtained through professional contacts.