Social work training on coercive control

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4970jdgq7o

I'm shocked that 90% of social work caseloads involve coercive relationships. The scale of MVAWG is so vast I think it's hard to even grasp.

But also shocking is how poorly abuse is understood.

I’m a specialist DFV social worker and could agree more.

my masters degree in social work including one afternoon of specific DFV training of which coercive control was merely nodded at.

half my job is education other professionals that the client they are working with is experiencing coercive control

I used to be a probation officer and used to spend a large proportion of my time arguing with social workers who didn't recognise DA risk and what we now call coercive control (the term wasn't used back then), the amount of times I was told cases I'd refer didn't meet the threshold for intervention, even though our risk assessment was of high risk of serious harm to known adults (partners) and or children. Also sorry we can't intervene the parent doesn't consent! I'd then have to repeatedly quote the relevant legislation, escalate complaints to get someone to take me seriously.
This sadly doesn't surprise me at all.

A family counsellor was once told by my children and me that my ex sometimes filled the house with his anger.

The counsellor looked at my ex and said “You don’t seem the type of man who would lose your temper.”

Really, the lack of understanding of abuse in those who are supposed to help and protect women and children is terrifying.

Not my area of work(!) but surprised that it would be thought courses at Universities are the best standard for training.

So I looked at Women's Aid training page, and strangely they offer training for members of the legal profession but not social workers.

Maybe they should at least have over sight of the university course content.

But an alarming example of how despite years, if not decades, of public debate about the impact of domestic violence, not just on women, but cost to health, workplaces and so on, and somehow the social work profession isn't aware of this.

(For instance there was a course advertised on eventbrite that sold out in about a day, about the link between animal abuse and domestic violence aimed at people working for animal charities. But then of course in the UK, pets probably get more concern for their well being than women. )

Lets hope this article makes it an issue that social work training will start to deal with.

I'm staggered by this.

It seems such a no brainer to teach.

This should also extend to the courts and police.

'The domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales has described our findings as “baffling” and has called for mandatory levels of coercive-control training for all social workers.'

I'm baffled, too.

By coincidence there was a petition to the UK Government on the Parliament web site about this very issue.

But it got closed early because of the election. (Why? Must be some strange procedural thing.)

Hopefully this could / will be restarted https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/653783

All petitions get closed when an election is called, yep.

Was just thinking that Jess Phillips who is now Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls might be worth contacting.

With the BBC story and the petition started surely this would be grounds to some (an informal group?) of social workers to contact her to raise as a matter of concern in the HoC?

Just a thought.

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".

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').

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.

Absolutely, the coercion and control underpins it all. If that were better understood and more easily recognised, perhaps more dv could be averted.

I'm scunnered that there's so little understanding of it all.

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

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.

Thanks to all the professionals working in this area to improve outcomes for women.

I think we need a huge campaign. I guess it's striking sometimes when discussing abuse on MN how poor general understanding is. We are still at the 'why doesn't she just leave' level societally.

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

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

And are there training providers for this? Do Women's Aid offer anything?

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.

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

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

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

Jess Phillips should be onto this.

We should all.write to her.

I would be making a complaint Cc the Social Worker Regulator

I posted about this earlier in the thread!

And about lobbying Jess Phillips