RESEARCH REPORT WRAP around families experiencing AVITH: Towards a collaborative service response
The 2020 ANROWS report The PIPA Project: Positive Interventions for Perpetrators of Adolescent Violence in the Home found that young people and their families experiencing adolescent violence in the home (AVITH) were not receiving adequate service responses.
This research identified that to appropriately address the complex needs that families were presenting to services with, service interventions in AVITH need to take the form of wraparound, collaborative responses.
WRAP Around Families Experiencing AVITH: Towards a Collaborative Service Response was designed to respond to the above recommendation stemming from the PIPA project. With a specific aim to develop a framework for evidence-based and holistic responses to AVITH, the project also explored current barriers in the service system and enablers of consistent and collaborative practice.
The project drew on two data streams: focus groups with 75 practitioners in Victoria (including a small number from Aboriginal community-controlled organisations), and a mixed methods case study of an intervention developed by Drummond Street Services (a Victorian community organisation serving vulnerable families and young people).
Findings were grouped into three categories: practice challenges, system challenges and promising practice. Difficulty understanding and identifying AVITH remains a barrier to effective practice, with many services operating within an inappropriate binary framework that sees young people as either victims and survivors or perpetrators.
In addition, the impacts of past and current experiences of adult-perpetrated domestic and family violence (DFV) were the “single greatest contributing factor” to the support needs of mothers seeking help for their child’s behaviour and the needs of the children themselves.
The report includes a practice framework designed to underpin collaborative practice, which has also been published as a standalone resource.
The project provides policymakers and practitioners with the information and understanding they need to “consider next steps”, including potential reform. The findings complement those of other ANROWS research projects focusing on AVITH: see in particular “Building a framework to prevent and respond to young people with disability who use violence at home” and “Adolescent family violence in Australia: A national study of prevalence, use of and exposure to violence, and support needs for young people”.
Publication details
This work is part of the ANROWS research reports series. ANROWS research reports are in-depth reports on empirical research produced under ANROWS’s research program.
Authors
ELENA CAMPBELL
Associate Director, Centre for Innovative Justice, RMIT University
RILEY ELLARD
Manager, Centre for Innovative Justice, RMIT University
ELIZA HEW
Project Officer, Centre for Innovative Justice, RMIT University
MATILDA SIMPSON
Project Officer, Centre for Innovative Justice, RMIT University
BETH McCANN
General Manager, Centre for Family Research and Evaluation, Drummond Street Services
SILKE MEYER
Chair in Child and Family Research, Griffith University and Adjunct Professor, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, Monash University
ISBN: 978-1-922645-66-1 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-922645-67-8 (PDF)
128 pp.
Suggested citation
Campbell, E., Ellard, R., Hew, E., Simpson, M., McCann, B., & Meyer, S. (2023). WRAP around families experiencing AVITH: Towards a collaborative service response (Research report, 04/2023). ANROWS.