Social work training on coercive control

May be relevant / of interest

https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2024/09/12/social-work-domestic-abuse-and-coercive-control-do-we-know-what-is-going-on-and-why/

Not the role of social work courses to train students in specialist practice areas, say academic leaders
https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2024/09/04/not-the-role-of-social-work-courses-to-train-students-in-specialist-practice-areas-say-academic-leaders/

And there is the long term damage to the woman's self esteem.

Without going into too personal details a friend's daughter after years of in fact 2 abusive partners, has eventually been rehoused with enough room for children (took nearly 10 years). So everyone was this fantastic, she can restart her live, but in fact the reality is that the 2 eldest children, both male, are now intimidating and controlling her and taking financial advantage.

It is so sad.

The rest of the family all blame her for "not snapping out of it".

And although critical of the sons dont in anyway see that their behaviour is just continuing that of their father.

Not to worry, I was just drawing attention to myself!

@ArabellaScott "We are still at the 'why doesn't she just leave' level societally."

I often think this is because if you have not personally experienced coercive control, or seen it play out in close relationships, it is really hard to wrap your head around how it manages to impact literally every area of a woman's (and her children's) life, whether she's in the presence of her coercive partner or whether he is 500 miles away on a 2-week work trip ‐he's still right there inside her head. It's a real blind spot for professionals; and the default is to fall back on 'why doesn't she just leave?'.

Once your life has been blighted by coercive control, it can't be unseen; I for one am now hyper-vigilant to any tell-tale signs, absences, omissions, side-steppings, avoidances, insistances, compelled behaviours etc when I speak to women and children professionally. I know from personal experience that coerced women and children become experts at deflecting and re-directing, flipping narratives and gaslighting themselves. It really is the most wretched bind and it takes a very special professional to not only spot what is happening but also to know how to work with it. If you're not really sure what you're looking for, it's easy to be fobbed off.

I posted about this earlier in the thread!

And about lobbying Jess Phillips

I would be making a complaint Cc the Social Worker Regulator

The series, The sixth commandment, based on true crime was very well done too. Maybe these programmes will ring some bells with people.

Is anybody watching Platform 7 on ITV atm? Very good example of love bombing followed by coercive control and murder.

From what I have seen it's very patchy. I used to work for a London based IDVA service that trained local social workers (half day training) and there some local relationships like this. I also know of a few people who provide a lecture to nurses as part of their training. But it's very ad hoc. There's not any programme set up because there is no current funding for this, but lots of people could do it if we were funded

It's totally u recognised or ignored. My sister was in an abusive relationship. Her partner, the father, did something to one of the kids. Social services knew it was him. Who got sent on a 10 week parenting course and had to meet with SS weekly? You guessed it... the mum not the dad.

I used to work as an IDVA based in children's services, so would take referrals but also offer case consultations and training to social workers.

There's so much work that is needed. Most social workers come into the profession with next to no understanding of DA, despite it being a factor in a large proportion of their caseload. They need high quality DA training which focuses on coercive control. They also need support and training in how to engage perpetrators as social workers are often notoriously bad at this, leading to the focus being overly on the mother as opposed to holding the abuser to account.

There's a lot of focus on this at the moment as the DA Act now defines children as victims so more scope to try to tackle this

When I searched yesterday this was the only "advice" for social workers I could find online.

Training and supervision
You should receive ongoing training and regular supervision to support you in developing the knowledge and skills necessary to understand domestic violence and abuse and the role of professionals in ensuring people’s safety.
If your role is specifically about safeguarding, you should also be confident in identifying and assessing risk (often by using the 'DASH' domestic abuse, stalking and harassment and ‘honour’-based violence tool), safety planning and liaising with specialist support services.
(Extract only, has more but I think not updated for quite a few years)
https://www.nice.org.uk/about/nice-communities/social-care/quick-guides/recognising-and-responding-to-domestic-violence-and-abuse#download-this-guide

Also

BASW England: Domestic Abuse Guidance for social workers (April 2021) but cant get it to download
https://basw.co.uk/policy-and-practice/resources/basw-england-domestic-abuse-guidance-social-workers-april-2021

Yes this is a big issue.
Across the board we all need more educating on this because its so widespread but also complex.

Ideally we need more abuse programs and courses for perpetrators to partake in (notoriously difficult to get them to partake) and support groups for those affected to be able to learn and see all the "invisible" hard to pin point abuse that's going on.

I work with people who have sex/porn addiction and also betrayed partners. I see lots of the betrayed partners are being further traumatised by professionals because they can't see and understand the full picture of trauma and abuse. I suspect this goes on in many different aspects of society where complex and hidden abuse isn't understood or seen.

I also so many professionals ignore big signs of abusive partners (it is mostly men) because they don't know the markers to look for. It is complex and its easy to only see a one sided picture if you're being fed only one perspective. It requires a level of critical thinking to be able to assess someone's behaviour and actions with how they also make others feel. Whilst also being critical of the society we are in and what's "normal" or "common" in society isn't always healthy.

Lundy bancrofts book is a great resource on this.

As its a woman's issue mostly and men benefit from a society that overlook abuse its going to be a uphill battle.

Absolutely. The coercion is the environment which allows abuse to go unchallenged.

if I can make somebody feel indebted, dependant, responsible to/for me and get them to question their reality- I can abuse them and create a question mark over whether they even experienced that at all.

along with understanding coercive control governments need to get real and start treating domestic violence offenders like they do terrorist.

I truly believe DV underpins 90% of social issues in our community

My impression of Social Workers when I have been involved with them professionally is that they are a bit clueless, although these have been dealings with clients finances.

Based on that I can see that if they cant work out how their client will pay their rent then dealing with anything more complex and less obvious might stretch many.

Oh and if their clients kick off they wont come down to sort them out, the poor sods on reception have to do it, never them.

Teachers (that's what I do) need training to recognise coercive control too, alongside more obvious signs of DA impacting the children and young people we work with. I firmly believe that coercive control isn't an 'aspect' of DA but the baseplate upon which many other kinds of abuse also occur: sexual violence, financial abuse, assaults and so on, including neglect. In the absence of coercive control being given greater emphasis in annual safeguarding training, many opportunities to really 'hear' what children (and their mothers) are telling us when they disclose details of their lives are wasted as the clues are missed (or inadvertently dismissed as insignificant 'in isolation').

Someone I know was seeing a counsellor and talked about a previous abusive relationship. He asked if it was violent and she said no,and he said "Oh, so it was abuse with a small a".