Dr. Kate Fitz-Gibbon and Associate Professor Silke Meyer, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre

The complex needs and experiences of young people who use family violence in the home: A Victorian study

Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre

This presentation will present the findings of a qualitative study which collected Victorian practitioner views alongside first person accounts of adolescent family violence. The presentation will examine the study findings as they relate to better understanding the needs and experiences of young people who use family violence in the home.

It will explore what is known about the role of age and gender in young people uses of family violence as well as the impact of intergenerational violence, disability, and school disengagement. Implications for practice and the development of service responses will be considered alongside the limits of criminal justice responses to adolescent family violence. The study emphasises the need to understand the complex needs and experiences of young people and the imperative of developing multi-agency service responses.

The experiences of young people growing up with and displaying family violence: exploring the need for holistic and trauma informed responses 

Associate Prof Silke Meyer, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre

This presentation will focus on the role of childhood exposure to FV in children’s development of aggressive and abusive behaviours in the home, primarily targeted at mothers/ female carers and siblings.

The observed overlap of childhood exposure to and subsequent adolescent perpetration of FV suggests the need for trauma informed responses to AFV perpetrators. While research establishing prevalence rates of childhood exposure in AFV perpetrators is limited, qualitative research and practice evidence suggests that childhood exposure to FV is a common issue featuring in AFV perpetration. Drawing on interviews with mothers who previously experienced intimate partner violence and have subsequently found themselves at the receiving end of AFV, this presentation will aim to make sense of the complex experiences of young people growing up with and displaying FV.

Findings suggest that a holistic approach to mothers and children is needed where mothers and children experience FV to minimise the risk of intergenerational transmission of FV and reduce mothers’ risk of repeat victimisation, initially by the other parent and subsequently by adolescent (primarily male) children. Further, findings highlight the need for trauma informed responses to AFV perpetrators that need to screen for childhood exposure and provide responses that assist with accountability as well as trauma recovery work.

Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon is Deputy Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre. She is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Law and Social Justice at University of Liverpool.

Dr Silke Meyer is an Associate Professor in Criminology and the Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre at Monash University with adjunct affiliations at CQUniversity and Griffith University. She is a criminologist and social worker by training, bringing practical and theoretical expertise to her research, teaching and writing.

To find out more about Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention service go to: https://www.monash.edu/arts/gender-and-family-violence/research-project