'Social work, domestic abuse and coercive control: do we know what is going on and why?'

By Brid Featherstone and Kate Morris

We have been involved in a research project for over two years now the state of knowledge about domestic violence and abuse (DVA) in child protection (Rethinking domestic abuse in child protection: responding differently - Nuffield Foundation).  Our research in three case-study sites has interrogated:

• The data that is gathered about prevalence and dimensions of the problem.
• Manager and practitioner understandings of causation, typologies and alternative modes of response.
• How intersecting inequalities shape experiences and responses.
• Family members’ understandings and perspectives on professional responses.

Debate over coercive control training

We were, therefore, very interested in the findings from the recent study by the BBC highlighting the lack of specific training on coercive control on more than a third of social work courses and the large variations in content on the remainder.

According to the authors, this lack of training was of particular concern as coercive and controlling behaviour is recognised as underpinning all domestic abuse. The BBC research led the Domestic Abuse Commissioner to call for such training to be made mandatory

In response, a spokesperson for the Joint Universities Social Work Association (JUSWA) argued that initial education does not claim or have a remit to prepare newly qualified social workers to be “thrown into the deep end” of what should be regarded as highly specialised practice.

We welcome the opening up of conversations about the training and role of social workers but worry that both ‘sides’ are in danger of making assumptions about the robustness of the current knowledge base and, in turn, what service responses should be.

Findings from child protection and domestic abuse research

We offer the following findings from our research not only as a contribution to troubling such assumptions, but hopefully to help promote further discussion:

1. We found that we are simply not collecting the kind of data that helps us understand what is going on in families’ lives in relation to domestic violence and abuse. This means that statements about prevalence must be treated with caution and there is an urgent need for the Department for Education to pay attention to how best to capture robust data in order to inform commissioning and services.  For example, the current categories, being used in the children in need census do not provide the data needed for effective responses. Moreover, practitioners are not being supported to understand why collecting robust data matters and why it might improve practice responses.
2. Crucially, the data being collected cannot help us to understand the impact of intersecting gender inequalities. Furthermore, the international literature on intersectionality is not well known in practice. Therefore, the risks and vulnerabilities attached to those living in poverty, from differing minority ethnic groups, abilities, ages and sexualities are not being fully addressed.
3. While there are pockets of excellent practice in this regard, overall, there is little knowledge about the literature that explores the differences between types of abuse and violence and consequent risks. Moreover, practitioners are not being supported to have empirically grounded conversations about ‘what’ and ‘why’ with all those impacted. This results from, and contributes to, practice cultures dominated by reductive terms such as, ‘there is dv in that family’, or, ‘coercive control is present’. This use of non-specific generic descriptors feeds a generalised sense of fear and impotence among practitioners and means the lived realities of those impacted are rarely captured.
4. Individualised case work is being relied upon to tackle what is generally recognised as, including by all involved in the research, a problem that needs action at multiple levels across society.
5. Multi-agency working is the routine response to calls for service improvement, but we found limited evidence of multi-agency working that utilised the expertise of family members and communities. Given that many respondents were concerned about levels of distrust among families and communities towards services, this reliance on multi-agency working seemed rather curious and concerning, especially given the well-documented issues for minoritised communities.

The challenges of doing things differently

It is important to note that we found many attempts to ‘think and do differently’ in relation to domestic abuse and a number are offered here to highlight some of the challenges that emerged that need to be acknowledged if change is to become a widespread reality.

One area had developed a very well-evidenced and robust specialist service, which engaged with the literature on different types of abuse, developed responsive approaches to the women, children and men concerned and was doing groundbreaking work on community engagement. However, this was not becoming embedded in frontline practice despite recognition of the need to do so. The lack of time to build meaningful trusting relationships was cited as a key barrier here, as was workforce instability and churn in a landscape dominated by the impact of austerity on an impoverished local authority.

Another area had sought to involve family members and move away from more punitive formal interventions focused on mothering.  However, the constraints of addressing a complex social problem within the confines of a narrow risk-focused child protection system curtailed imaginative and holistic approaches, especially in relation to working with men.

The limits of individual casework

Overall, we found that, despite sterling attempts by amazing practitioners and managers, they were often trapped within approaches that relied on individual casework and risk management. This, in turn, translated into the outsourcing of safety and protection responsibilities to those most vulnerable and least able to respond (often impoverished mothers).

Daring to ‘think and do differently’ in child protection in relation to domestic abuse requires the opening up of conversations about the status of our knowledge and the expansion of who gets to contribute to those conversations.

The training of social workers is very important as part of such endeavours, but it is part of a bigger story that must involve multiple storytellers, with all those who are impacted at its heart.

Brid Featherstone is emeritus professor of social work at the University of Huddersfield and Kate Morris is professor of social work at Sheffield University. You can find out more about Brid's work by reading our interview with her for Community Care's 50th anniversary.