Introduction

This chapter discusses the ways in which existing policy and legislative frameworks shape frontline service responses to parent abuse, and how families experience these responses. Discussion focuses on criminal justice responses (focusing on the police, the judiciary and youth offending services), local authority social service responses (focusing on children's social care and adult social care) and education and health service responses. The chapter also explores how voluntary and community organisations have attempted to respond to parent abuse, using examples from domestic violence support, victim support and parenting organisations. Analysis suggests that while these organisations are unequipped to respond to parent abuse within their existing policy frameworks, there is nevertheless potential for them to respond in more innovative and creative ways. Based on this analysis, the chapter concludes with five suggested recommendations for change.

Because a coherent policy analysis needs to be grounded within a specific set of organisational structures, this chapter focuses specifically on England and Wales. However, where relevant, international data are drawn on both to identify consistencies across juridical and international borders and to highlight particular innovations in policy development that might usefully translate across borders.

Frontline service responses: inconsistency, perversity and a policy silence

The ambiguity and secrecy that surrounds the problem of parent abuse has no doubt contributed to its silence in public policy across Euro-American borders. In England and Wales, practitioners working within a range of statutory, voluntary and community agencies have observed an increase in reported cases of parent abuse and a lack of professional guidance in how to respond to this. This has left practitioners struggling to ‘make do’ within the parameters of existing policy frameworks (Galvani, 2010; Misch et al, 2011; Holt and Retford, 2012; Nixon, 2012). One outcome of this is that practitioners both across and within particular frontline services use different languages and conceptual frameworks to understand ‘parent abuse’, resulting in inconsistent ‘ad-hoc’ agency responses to parent abuse and perverse outcomes for families (see Holt and Retford, 2012).

If parents do attempt to seek formal help for adolescent-to-parent abuse, evidence suggests that it is sought from a range of agencies, often at the same time. For example, in a web-survey based in the United Kingdom (UK) (Parentline Plus, 2010), 56% of parents said that they had sought outside help for parent abuse (Table 5.1 lists the sources of support sought).