Full Description
Child to parent abuse (CPA) remains a complex and often misunderstood form of family harm, frequently hidden within wider narratives of behaviour, safeguarding and domestic abuse. Practitioners are often left navigating high levels of risk, fear and uncertainty, with limited guidance on how to respond in ways that are both safe and constructive.
Drawing on over a decade of specialist practice in CPA, this book offers a comprehensive and reflective exploration of CPA through the lens of Solution Focused Brief Therapy. Each chapter integrates theory, research and detailed case studies to examine the relational, developmental and systemic factors that shape CPA, including domestic abuse, trauma, adult mental health, neurodiversity and professional responses. Rather than positioning families through blame or pathology, the authors foreground collaboration, responsibility and hope.
Written for professionals across social care, mental health, education, youth justice and family support services, this book offers a thoughtful, practice-based contribution to the field and a grounded framework for supporting recovery, reconnection and change in families affected by CPA.
Contents
Introduction 1. Why We Must Talk about Child to Parent Abuse 2. The Roots of Harm: Domestic Abuse, Trauma and Silenced Children 3. When a Child Becomes 'the Abuser' 4. Breaking the Cycle: The Family as a System of Change 5. Blame, Shame and Relational Distance 6. Navigating the System: Social Care Missed Moments 7. Working with Silence: When Young People Do Not Speak, but Think 8. Neurodivergence and Misunderstood Behaviour 9. What Helped? Solution-Focused Techniques in Action 10. What Progress Really Looks Like in CPA Work 11. Holding Hope in Complex Practice 12. Conclusion: Holding Families in Complexity
