Children’s experiences of domestic violence and abuse: agency, resistance, resilience

Callaghan, J., Alexander, J., Fellin, L. and Sixsmith, J. (2015) Children’s experiences of domestic violence and abuse: agency, resistance, resilience. Symposium presented to: Violence: Children, Family & Society Conference 2015, The University of Northampton, 24-26 June 2015. (Unpublished)

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Abstract:

Understanding Agency and Resistance is a four-nation, European Commission funded project, exploring children’s capacity to construct resistant, resilient and agentic selfidentities in situations of domestic abuse. Academic and professional literature on domestic violence tends to represent children and young people as relatively passive, describing them as ‘exposed’ to violence, as ‘witnesses’, ‘impacted’ by the violence they see (Øverlien 2013; Mullender et al. 2003). This two year action research project involved semi-structured interviews with children and young people in Greece, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, exploring their experiences of domestic violence and abuse, and their capacity to maintain a sense of agency, and a capacity for resistance as part of their experience of violence at home. In this symposium, we present four papers which explore findings our interviews with 100 children from all four participating countries, the creative methods that were used to facilitate young people’s expression of their experiences, researchers’ reflections on working with young people, including the ethical dilemmas and practical problems they encountered while completing the research, and the intervention that arose from this work with children and young people.

Subjects:

H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Women > HQ767 Children. Child development
H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV6001 Criminology > HV6251 Crimes and offences > HV6626 Family violence
H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV697 Protection, assistance and relief > HV701 Children

Creators:

Callaghan, J., Alexander, J., Fellin, L. and Sixsmith, J.

Funders or Sponsors:

European Commission (Daphne III)

Grant Reference Number:

Just/2012/DAP-AG-3461

Projects:

Understanding Agency and Resistance Strategies (UNARS)

Date:

25 July 2015

Date Type:

Presentation

Event Title:

Violence: Children, Family & Society Conference 2015

Event Dates:

24-26 June 2015

Event Location:

The University of Northampton

Event Type:

Conference

Language:

English

Status:

Unpublished

Refereed:

Yes

Related URLs:

Conference