Today Respect launches a landmark survey aiming to create a national picture of the public’s understanding and experiences of child and adolescent to parent violence and abuse, known as CAPVA.
CAPVA is used to describe the dynamic where a young person (8-18 years) engages in repeated abusive behaviour towards a parent or adult carer. It is known as a hidden harm: 40% of those experiencing CAPVA refuse to report it, often due to shame or out of fear their child will be criminalised, but prevalence is estimated to be high, with CAPVA-related offences representing 21-27% of cases within youth offending services.
The anonymous survey will explore adults’ and young people’s understanding of CAPVA, and - in cases where people have needed support related to the issue - we are asking them:
- whether they sought support
- if they didn’t seek support, what the reasons were
- if they did access support, how they would rate the effectiveness of that support
- how their experiences or identity impacted their help seeking
- whether they have any suggestions to improve things for people in their position.
The survey is now open for anyone aged 13+ based in the UK, and will close on 29 August at 5pm. We are particularly keen to reach adults and young people who have experience of CAPVA, so we can improve our services.
Amanda Flanagan, Young People's Service Development Manager, said,
“We know anecdotally that public awareness of CAPVA is low, and that for those experiencing this hidden harm, it can be hard to reach out and find the support they need. We want as many people as possible to take part in this survey, so that we can start to build an understanding of the British public’s knowledge and experiences of seeking help with CAPVA. By knowing more about people’s experiences we can better tailor our work to support people going through this with their families”