New research: Young people’s experiences and use of violence in the home

Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon has co-authored an article published this week in Child Protection and Practice with Professor Silke Meyer (Griffith University) and María Atiénzar-Prieto. Drawing on their ANROWS funded survey of over 5,000 young people in Australia, the article examines children’s experiences of family violence and the role of different types of child maltreatment on young people’s own use of violence in the home.

The ANROWS-funded survey collected data on children’s experience of violence (including childhood experiences of domestic violence, verbal and emotional abuse, physical abuse, and sexual abuse) under the age of 18 years old as well as young people’s use of family violence in the home up to the age of 20 years old.

The article findings show:

• Childhood experiences of domestic violence between parents/carers is the most common victimisation experience among children in Australia,
• 1 in 6 children have experienced multiple types of child maltreatment on a regular basis,
• Gender non-normative young people are 2.5 times more likely to experience multi-type abuse and 3 times more likely to experience all four types of abuse than gender-normative young people, and
• Children living with a disability are 6 times more likely to experience emotional/verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse and childhood experiences of domestic violence.

We also found that experiencing verbal and emotional abuse, and children’s experiences of domestic violence in the home, each increase the risk of an intergenerational transmission of violence in the home 5.5 fold.

The findings highlight the significant need for a greater focus on early intervention and prevention measures designed to break the intergenerational cycle of violence. Identifying and responding to children’s experiences of non-physical forms of child maltreatment is critical and must form part of professional development initiatives for educators, child and family welfare services, child and youth health services and disability services. 

You can read the article in full here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950193824000512?via%3Dihub