“There’s Got to be More to Life than this”: Resources and Needs of Children living with Parental Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Abstract Purpose

Children’s experience of parental intimate partner violence (IPV) often coexists with other types of victimization and is associated with negative short- and long-term health and well-being outcomes in both childhood and adulthood. Research on factors that protect against these adverse outcomes is mostly quantitative in nature and limited by the lack of qualitative exploratory work in this area. This paper reports on the resources on which children exposed to IPV have relied, the barriers they have identified to talking about IPV and other victimizations, and their unmet needs.
Methods

Data were collected in 2022 through semi-structured individual interviews with 20 youth aged 14–28 years who had been exposed to IPV while they were minors, and whose parent had consulted a clinical forensic consultation for IPV between 2011 and 2018. The interviews covered all major areas of the participants’ lives since birth. A thematic content analysis was conducted on the interview transcripts. The study utilized Brofenbrenner’s ecological framework, as adapted by Heise, and the analysis drew on Grych, Hamby and Banyard’s Resilience Portfolio Model to explore children’s resources.
Results

Participants reported personal strengths and assets known to be particularly important for resilience: meaning making strengths, self-regulatory strengths and interpersonal assets including support from family, and especially from the victimized parent. Engaging in hobbies provided them with various benefits, as did some interactions with various professionals. However, participants rarely discussed IPV and other victimizations with professionals or with family and friends, and barriers to doing so were identified. In terms of unmet needs and advice to parents and professionals, participants argued that violence should stop, and identified their need to be heard and protected, and that IPV should not be a taboo. In their view, professionals need to be particularly attentive to changes in children, and be proactive with them. Involving children in decision-making processes was also identified as important. Finally, the analysis showed that these children’s resources and needs evolve over time.
Conclusions

Children exposed to IPV use a full range of resources, both personal and external to them, and demonstrate agency to cope with adversity. Professionals need to be aware of each child’s specific resources and needs in order to support them. Results also suggest the need for long-term follow-up. Recommendations address prevention, detection and intervention.