Sarah Nelson: Protecting children from parents’ own troubled past

Published on Thursday 10 November 2011 01:40

CAMPAIGNS like this one are necessary and useful. However, other factors must be considered when dealing with families with problems such as drink and drug use.

It is very easy to end up blaming the mothers, and particularly young and vulnerable mothers, focusing the problem entirely upon them.

There are at least two ways in which babies and children are commonly killed by a parent which are both very different.

One is to do with mental health issues, which are often long-standing. The other is a pattern in domestic violence where the father or male partner will kill the children and often try to kill himself as a punishment for the mother separating from him.

When talking about tackling domestic violence, it is important that these issues are recognised and it is not just about helping women who are struggling with domestic violence, but recognising the dangerous aspect to both the women and children.

Proposals have to talk not just about home visiting for these families, but should also focus on putting more pressure on the police and legal system to protect women and their children where there has been a record of domestic abuse.

The legal system and the police must enforce protection against domestic abuse.

I work with survivors of sexual abuse, and what we can find is that after that experience, people may take refuge in drink and drugs as a way of drowning out the pain and flashbacks.

So there are lot of people affected by drink and drugs being targeted by campaigns like this who have previously suffered sexual abuse.

My plea would be that young parents with anger issues and drink and drug issues need more programmes to address their own childhood abuse. This is often a very neglected area.

There are different kinds of attention that are needed to help these families to make sure children have the best start in life and the parents also get the support they need.

• Dr Sarah Nelson is a specialist in child abuse and child protection at Edinburgh University.

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