Not afraid to take a stand

With thanks to Durham University’s fantastic Career Service, we had the absolute pleasure of hosting an incredibly self-motivated and hard-working 2nd year Social Sciences student as an intern conducting a rapid research project for us. Here, Alice Westall blogs about the work she did for us, and shares the resulting report, published on the University’s international research-sharing platform.

Over 5 weeks throughout March and April 2023, I had the opportunity to work as an independent researcher with the team at Changing Relations and Durham University to produce a report that detailed the essential and innovative nature of the Rabbits in Headlights project. This project aims to support non-specialist professionals to help the children and young people accessing their services to overcome the challenges arising from being exposed to domestic abuse.

The project will be based on Changing Relations’ illustrated book, Sometimes it Hurts, and a series of creative tools designed to explore the themes and situations presented within the stories.

I analysed the aims and approaches of existing intervention practices as well as highlighting what could be considered ‘good practice’ when working with young people.

Goals of the Research

The aim of the report was to determine the extent to which what Rabbits in Headlights aims to offer is innovative and necessary, and, through building an understanding of the current gaps in provision, to ensure the project’s development of materials is informed by what both children and young people and non-specialist professionals feel is needed to strengthen the response to those young people exposed to domestic violence.

Data revealed the aspects of existing service provision that children and young people found to be barriers to disclosing, inquiring about and receiving support for experiences of domestic abuse.

The research revealed:

• Gaps in confidence among non-specialist professionals
• Lack of representation of young voices
• A homogenous, one-size-fits-all approach
• A lack of focus on intersectionality.

Methodology

The final report details the findings of a systematic, desk-based digital review of secondary literature that discusses the aims and approaches of existing intervention practices. The data was collected through critical searches of peer-reviewed and grey literature identified in academic sources, with the secondary data being comparatively analysed to identify patterns, gaps, and how current approaches to intervention work with children experiencing domestic abuse met or missed recommended ‘good practices’. Conclusions about the gaps drawn from this literature review were compared to the approach of the Rabbits in Headlights programme to identify and evidence how its unique, creative and collaborative approach offers necessary solutions to the gaps presented by the currently available intervention resources we appraised. An example would be to encourage more timely responses and more accessible support for children and young people through the empowerment of non-specialist support workers, who are often the first to receive disclosures of domestic abuse from children but struggle to respond.

Inspiring Professional Confidence

Non-specialist professionals such as teachers and social workers are in a pivotal role to identify and respond to children and young people’s disclosures of abuse due to their unique relationships of trust built through their time spent with young people. We know that these non-specialist professionals struggle to hold space for these disclosures and the research indicates that this may be due to a lack of confidence in managing these disclosures, as they are often unclear about their role in the child protection process and feel that they lack the training and resources necessary to offer effective support for children disclosing abuse.

This apprehension then leads to inaction, creating barriers to inquiry and disclosure with teachers’ uncertainty disempowering young people from sharing their experiences and therefore being in a position to go on and receive support.

Thus, the research indicates good practice must focus on providing more accessible resources and training materials in order to empower these non-specialist professionals with the knowledge and skills to bridge difficult conversations with children and young people. To overcome the fear and confusion that prevents non-specialist professionals from acting to aid children, understandable and accessible resources are necessary to empower non-specialist professionals to act as first responders to disclosures of abuse, ensuring the availability of quick and accessible support.

Rabbits in Headlights offers an essential and innovative solution to this lack of confidence and consequent inaction:

• The use of creative illustrated stories provides an accessible and understandable tool for non-specialist professionals to utilise in bridging difficult conversations with children and young people about the abuse they have experienced.
• These resources have the potential to empower non-specialists to feel more confident in opening much-needed conversations, which has the potential to reduce the delay and difficulty children and young people often face in accessing support, due to referral and waiting list processes for specialist services. Rabbits in Headlights serves to demystify the diverse experience of domestic abuse by allowing both non-specialists and children and young people to feel more confident in identifying, discussing and navigating the experiences and challenges of domestic abuse to support young people’s recovery.

Platforming Voice

The secondary analysis of existing intervention programmes served to identify good practice, with recurring findings that point to children and young people feeling isolated from, and unable to identify themselves, in the support programmes and resources provided to them, indicating that effective intervention programmes must recognise children as sentient social actors, with their voices and experiences being considered in decisions about resource creation and service delivery. This is vital to ensure young people are able to identify and understand their experiences, thus overcoming barriers to support rooted in feelings of confusion, isolation and guilt.

The research findings indicate that existing resources focus too heavily on increasing awareness among parents, professionals and specialists in isolation from the children and young people they are attempting to support. This creates barriers to disclosure whereby young people’s lack of understanding of, and inability to identify experiences of abuse, prevents them from disclosing their experiences and reaching out for help.

“It’s funny how you never know what’s going on inside a person’s head” [Alfie’s Story]

 

The homogenous approach of existing intervention programmes cannot recognise the diversity of experiences of, and responses to, abuse amongst children and young people. This fails to empower children and young people as agents in their own healing. This, in turn, enhances feelings of isolation that prevent the disclosure of abuse and consequently, render children invisible to support services. Therefore, intervention programmes and supportive resources which take a more participatory approach, one which promotes the platforming of young survivors’ voices in research and practice will ensure resources meet their unique and individual needs.

Rabbits in Headlight’s participatory ethical approach provides an innovative solution to the homogenous approach of existing practice:

• Its child-centred approach ensures that content and tools created for children and young people are directly informed by those with lived experience, therefore, producing resources that are engaging and accessible.
• These shared stories provide a source of identification and understanding for other young people and will help them to better communicate and understand their own experiences and challenges.
• The illustrated stories communicate a shared experience of tackling barriers to disclosure rooted in shame and guilt by helping children and young people to feel they are not the only ones experiencing these challenges.
• By sharing and validating young people’s experiences of abuse, the stories provide a stimulus that acts as a buffer for young people to open up conversations about their abuse and better articulate their feelings, thus empowering young people to access support.

Creative, Collaborative Approach

As mentioned, this review indicates that existing intervention practices take a pre-packaged homogeneous approach, whereby the diverse experiences of young survivors are silenced by the specialist discourse that dominates resource creation.

Consequently, there is a lack of resources that empower young people to identify their experiences and understand their emotions in such a way as to be able to seek support, whereas a more creative, collaborative approach with creative therapies, such as bibliotherapy, storytelling and the use of art can act as a buffer to enhance communication and break down barriers to disclosure by facilitating the navigation of the sensitive topic of abuse between young people and non-specialist professionals.

• Creative approaches serve to combat feelings of anxiety and low self-esteem by providing a gentle way for children and young people to identify and describe their experiences and emotions by enhancing communication around sensitive topics and preventing re-traumatization.

Rabbit in Headlights offers a solution to the homogenous nature of existing buy-in, specialist-based intervention programmes to produce more accessible resources that break down barriers to disclosure and support:

Research indicates that intervention programmes are more effective when promoted through collaborative practices with trusted adults, such as teachers. The collaborative nature of Rabbits in Headlights is likely to promote a more open discussion of children and young people’s experiences of abuse by providing children and non-specialists with illustrated stories that gently introduce sensitive topics. This will mean that young people’s challenges can be discussed and worked through in a safe and non-traumatizing way. The use of creative, illustrated stories enables children and young people to identify their shared experiences and emotions, encouraging them to share more freely and feel less isolated in their experience, therefore, encouraging fuller disclosure and understanding and making them more visible to non-specialists who can offer first response support.

Intersectionality 

Intersectionality refers to the way multiple and converging systems of oppression and social identities compound to produce unique life experiences. The research revealed a common gap in the homogeneous, one-size-fits-all approach of existing intervention resources which focus on demographic variables (such as gender, class and ethnicity) in isolation instead of considering the intersectional relations that produce inequalities in experiences of abuse and access to support. The lack of diverse representation of different children’s experiences of, and responses to, abuse in existing resources, encourages feelings of isolation and confusion that create barriers to disclosure and access to support for different groups as children struggle to identify their experiences and seek aid for their challenges.

The homogenous approach of existing intervention programmes and resources fails to account for the qualitative gap in the ability of certain social groups to access support and the diverse experiences of abuse for different groups of children.

For example, ethnic minority children are most likely to be victimised by domestic abuse but are least likely to disclose and receive support as many existing, specialist-based support programmes require children to be identified as victims and referred for support.

The focus on diversity and representation in the creation of Rabbits in Headlights resources overcomes the gaps in service provision caused by this one-size-fits-all approach. As the illustrated stories are informed by the direct experiences of a diverse group of children, it ensures the resources recognise the diverse needs and experiences of children exposed to domestic violence, thus strengthening prevention and intervention response strategies.

• To ensure resources for children and young people are informed by them, the Sometimes it Hurts illustrated stories are informed by a range of experiences of diverse groups of children from different cultural, socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, ensuring different groups of children are able to identify and connect with the resources.

• By ensuring that the resources are informed by the diverse experiences of a range of young people, Rabbits in Headlights promotes greater inclusivity for victims who are disadvantaged by intersectional inequalities that produce outcomes such as a higher likelihood of mental health difficulties and the increased risk of repeat victimisation in adulthood.

Conclusion

My comparative analysis of the aims and approaches of existing intervention programmes served to highlight how Rabbits in Headlight’s innovative, creative and participatory approach provides solutions to gaps identified in existing practice. By providing non-specialist professionals with accessible resources (in the form of illustrated stories), the Rabbits in Headlights tools can be used to bridge difficult conversations with children and young people about their experiences of abuse, thus widening the pool of those ready to reach out and offer supportive conversations while young people await specialist referral.  Furthermore, the creative, participatory approach, through the production of illustrated stories detailing other children’s diverse experiences of abuse, offers innovative and necessary solutions to the gaps in existing practice identified in the research with a focus on inspiring professional confidence, platforming young voices, taking a creative, collaborative approach to resource production and drawing out intersectional experiences and challenges.

The report, therefore, concluded that the accessible illustrated stories included within Sometimes it Hurts, together with the plans to develop a set of creative resources to help young people navigate these stories of abuse as part of the Rabbits in Headlights project, could serve to close gaps in existing practice.

The full report is available here: Not afraid, to take a stand: Project report from a desk-based review of programmes designed to improve responses to young people’s experiences of abuse – Durham Research Online

We’re really grateful to Alice for this fantastic work, to Dr Nikki Rutter and Dr Ladan Cockshut for their invaluable support during Alice’s rapid research project and to Durham University’s Careers Service for creating this internship opportunity for Alice and ourselves.