UNDERSTANDING ADOLESCENT VIOLENCE IN THE HOME

Urgent need for research and policy to better understand young people with disability who use violence in the home

Adolescent violence in the home (AVITH) describes a range of violent, abusive and intimidating behaviours used by young people within their families, typically towards parents and siblings, and often inclusive of familial and non-familial caregivers and grandparents. While this complex form of family violence is gaining increased attention from researchers, service providers and policymakers, there remains a lack of conceptual clarity, which significantly impacts the effectiveness of service delivery. This problem is compounded when violence is used in the home by young people with disability.

Prior research has highlighted the need for academics, practitioners and policymakers alike to better understand the complexity and diversity of AVITH. New research from ANROWS reveals that there is an extensive gap in the literature about the use of violence in the home by young people with disability. While young people with disability are often described as overrepresented in AVITH studies, this new research demonstrates the lack of data on what underpins violence in this context.

Towards a socio-ecological understanding of adolescent violence in the home by young people with disability: A conceptual review considers the existing international literature on AVITH and young people with disability. It finds a distinct lack of research overall and an absence of research that considers disability differently to its construction as an individual-level risk marker, like that of age, for AVITH. This individual-attribute approach to disability must change if AVITH research and policy is to align with Australia’s international obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and key disability legislation, policy and planning frameworks, including Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021–2023.

Research must explore the perspectives of young people and their families with an intersectional understanding that considers the robust set of social determinants that impact the lives of people with disability if we are to understand young people’s use of violence in the home. These perspectives and evidence of the experiences of young people with disability will be critical in building a national evidence-based response.

ANROWS CEO Padma Raman welcomed the new report, noting how important it will be to close the significant evidence gap at the intersection of adolescent violence and the experience of young people with disability.

“This project will form a critical foundation for the national evidence base, informing policy and service design in this emerging field. This report forms part of a larger body of work ANROWS has undertaken to better understand AVITH, domestic violence, young people with disability, and the places at which they intersect,” she said.

“Enhanced understanding of AVITH and young people with disability is urgently required to improve the effectiveness of service delivery designed to prevent and respond to violence within the home. This is an essential part of ANROWS’s goal to end violence against all women and children.”

Project lead, Associate Professor Georgina Sutherland, described the report as an initial step towards building a better understanding of AVITH and young people with disability. “We hope that the report can contribute to a more nuanced conversation in research, policy and practice about this very complex issue.”

The report, published on Monday 9 May, forms the first part of a project to build a framework to prevent and respond to young people with disability who use violence in the home. The second report in this project is an in-depth qualitative inquiry that will present the perspectives of families and key sector stakeholders. The second report will ensure that lived experience informs a prevention and response framework.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE NSW 2022 CONFERENCE

Primary prevention research still in infancy

Earlier this month ANROWS attended the Domestic Violence NSW (DVNSW) conference. Wiradjuri woman and Councillor Yvonne Weldon started the day by thanking conference attendees for “being the voice of our women and children living this heartache in the public eye”. The conference, which took place over two days, was held on Gadigal land.

The opening panel from DVNSW’s Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Women’s Steering Committee had a clear message: “Making Aboriginal-identified positions is crucial.” One speaker, Regan, from the Weave Women & Children’s Centre explained that when she first started at the service, Aboriginal clients made up 70 per cent of their service users but only 11 per cent of those accessing their DFV program due to the “universal feeling of shame”.

The first day was focused on primary prevention. Keynote speaker Tania Farha, the CEO of Safe and Equal Victoria, explained that the recent increase in funding for national primary prevention initiatives through Our Watch is great, but states and territories also need to be coordinated and funded to get the nationwide shift we need.

“For my community we are still experiencing systems sector-based violence and having to navigate violence,” said Nat Webster from the Women and Girls Emergency Centre (WAGEC), explaining the sector isn’t safe for Aboriginal workers. That’s the context under which she delivers her respectful relationships program. Brenda Dobia from NAPCAN spoke to consent education, recently mandated across Australia, saying “the shift into curriculum sounds like a good idea but it comes with challenges”. Rather than implementing a system where teachers take up the full primary prevention load, Brenda advocated for using the existing model of backing teachers up with consent educators.

Moo Baulch from WAGEC talked up the Tangentyere Council Aboriginal Corporation’s primary prevention project “Mums Can Dads Can/Girls Can Boys Can”, so we shared the ANROWS-funded evaluation of the program with conference attendees. We were also able to share in the conference social media stream that ANROWS is currently conducting an evaluation of a respectful relationships program in Victorian schools, led by Professor Helen Cahill.

The conference’s first-day focus on primary prevention concluded with a presentation mapping sexual violence prevention studies. Primary prevention research is “still in its infancy – very few effective interventions exist, especially at the community level,” explained Dr Ison, urging attendees to read her resulting Theory of Change report hosted on the Australian Government Department of Social Services website.

New research and resources

This month we’ve added 13 new research reports, articles and resources to the ANROWS Digital Library. In this edition of Notepad we have links to new research published by a number of researchers who also have projects in the ANROWS Register of Active Research, as well as researchers who have previously collaborated with ANROWS. These newly published works cover topics including technology-facilitated abuse and adolescent violence in the home (AVITH).

Among these is the publication of a journal article related to a research project led by Professor Susan Rees (principal investigator) funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council. The paper (see link below) is “the first systematically recruited longitudinal study of women from refugee backgrounds with a comparison group of locally born women, allowing an examination of associations between traumatic events, intimate partner violence (IPV), mental disorders, functioning and settlement outcomes”.

You can view this list of new research in the Library, along with more than 10,000 records of sector-relevant resources and research.

 

Resources

Sentencing Advisory Council. (2022). Sentencing breaches of family violence intervention orders and safety notices: Third monitoring report. https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/publications/sentencing-breaches-of-family-violence-intervention-orders-and-safety-notices  

Vlais, R., Campbell, E., & Green, D. (2022). Signposts for assessing and reporting family and domestic violence perpetrator behaviour change. RMIT Centre for Innovative Justice, & Stopping Family Violence. https://cij.org.au/cms/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/signposts-for-mbcp-reporting-final-april-2022.pdf  

 

Books and reports

Bartlett, T., Fitz-Gibbon, K., & Walklate, S. (2022). Human rights law and domestic violence: The Australian context. In P. Gerber (Ed.), Contemporary Perspectives on human rights law in Australia (Vol. 2; pp. 219–240). https://legal.thomsonreuters.com.au/critical-perspectives-on-human-rights-law-in-australia-volume-2-book/productdetail/127776

Vlais, R., Campbell, E., & Green, D. (2022). Reporting outcomes from change-focused family violence perpetrator program work with court referrals: A discussion paper. RMIT Centre for Innovative Justice, & Stopping Family Violence Inc. https://cij.org.au/cms/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/reporting-mbcp-outcomes-to-courts-final-april-2022.pdf  

 

 

Articles

Crocker, G. (2022). The dangers of pre-recorded evidence: As soon as practicable? Alternative Law Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969X221097461  

de Boer, K., Arnold, C., Mackelprang, J. L., & Nedeljkovic, M. (2022). Barriers and facilitators to treatment seeking and engagement amongst women with complex trauma histories. Health & Social Care in the Community. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13823  

Zamora, C. L., Boddy, J., O’Leary, P., & Liang, J. (2022). Technology-facilitated abuse against women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds: A scoping review of the literature. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380221098045  

Morgan, A., Boxall, H., & Payne, J. L. (2022). Reporting to police by intimate partner violence victim-survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1177/26338076221094845 

Peck, A., Hutchinson, M., & Provost, S. (2022). Evidencing predictors of adolescent to parent violence re-offending through linkage of police and health records. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/15412040221093009

Rees, S., Mohsin, M., Moussa, B., Fisher, J., Steel, Z., Nadar, N., Hassoun, F., Khalil, B., Youssef, M., & Krishna, Y. (2022). Cohort profile: Intimate partner violence and mental health among women from refugee background and a comparison group of Australian-born: The WATCH cohort study. BMJ Open, 12(5), e051887. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-051887  

Rogers, M. M., Fisher, C., Ali, P., Allmark, P., & Fontes, L. (2022). Technology-facilitated abuse in intimate relationships: A scoping review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380221090218  

Truong, M., Yeganeh, L., Cartwright, A., Ward, E., Ibrahim, J., Cuschieri, D., Dawson, M., & Bugeja, L. (2022). Domestic/family homicide: A systematic review of empirical evidence. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380221082084 

Zark, L., Toumbourou, J. W., & Satyen, L. (2022). Help-seeking for intimate partner and family violence among tertiary students in Australia: Nature, extent, and cross-cultural differences. Journal of Family Violence. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-022-00406-5