Hearing Young People Talk About Witnessing Domestic Violence
First published in 2013
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
Copyright © Susan Collis 2013
Foreword copyright © Gil Hague 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Collis, Susan, 1948-
Listening to young people who have experienced domestic violence / Susan Collis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84905-378-5 (alk. paper)
1. Family violence. 2. Victims of family violence--Rehabilitation. 3. Youth and violence. 4. Abused children. I. Title.
HV6626.C647 2012
362.82’92--dc23
2012031796
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84905 378 5
eISBN 978 0 85700 735 3
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Hearing Young People Talk About Witnessing Domestic Violence
Exploring Feelings, Coping Strategies and Pathways to Recovery
Susan Collis
Foreword by Gill Hague
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
Contents
Introduction: ‘It’s OK to Talk’
Foreword
I am pleased to write the foreword for this interesting and creative addition to the literature on young people and domestic violence. Building on an innovative, reflexive study, the book uses in-depth interviews with young people which are then sympathetically drawn out to build a graceful and powerful analysis of their stories.
A brave, unusual book in many ways, it presents hidden and silenced voices, full of hurt and trauma – but in the end, in some cases anyway, leading to peace, hopefulness and resolution. The often courageous and painful journeys described lie at the heart of insightful contributions from the author, adding to our understanding of the devastating impacts domestic abuse can have on children and young people.
Sue Collis categorises the voices of the young people as ‘knowing’, ‘hurting’ or ‘suffering’, and ‘healing’. Sometimes the voices are agonised, confused and guilty, sometimes aggressive but always complex, leading into the multiple strands which make up each story of a person, still more or less at the beginning of their life, but traumatised and struggling to transcend abusive experiences.
This issue of domestic violence began to come to the fore in the 1970s and 1980s. However, it was not until the 1990s that the effects on children experiencing, or living with, domestic violence between their parents or carers began to gain attention in this country, with key texts by Audrey Mullender, Liz Kelly, Caroline McGee, Ravi Thiara and Cathy Humphreys, among others, as well as Marianne Hester, Ellen Malos, myself and associates in the Centre for Gender and Violence Research at the University of Bristol. These texts began to right previous wrongs in terms of the scandalous ignoring of domestic violence in child protection cases as well as the issue of neglect in general in the past. Children and young people carried their pain from their domestic violence experiences without anyone much showing the slightest interest.
Now things have changed. Domestic violence is an issue of child protection concern and there are at least some services, both in refuges and elsewhere (although limited and often with threatened funding). There have been various research studies and books. Some of these have begun the project of raising, and learning from, the actual expressed voices of children and young people.
This new book is in this tradition. However, it takes the subject further in terms of the detailed and perceptive analysis presented, and the respect and ‘highlighting’ accorded to each young person’s story and their own view of their story. The book leads on to suggest ways in which such profound and careful listening to young people can lead to improving and deepening practical
