Manchester Launch Event by Rachel Condry

Launch of the Home Office Information Guide on Adolescent to Parent Violence and Abuse, Manchester Meeting Place.

On the 18^th March Rachel Condry and Anne-Marie Harris hosted the first of two launch events for a new information guide on adolescent to parent violence and abuse (APVA) published by the Home Office. The event was held at the Manchester Meeting Place conference centre at the University of Manchester and was attended by 40 service leads from local authorities in the North of England.

The University of Oxford have worked together with the Home Office and a working group comprised of experts from a range of organisations to produce this guide. The guide is intended as an immediate source of information for practitioners from a wide range of fields and runs to 30 pages. Over 20 people from government departments, third sector organisations, and academics have advised on the development of the guide and contributed to its content. It now runs to 30 pages of useful information to aid frontline practitioners and service managers in responding to APVA. It is the first document of its kind and the first official guidance on APVA to be published in the UK.

At the Manchester event, delegates were introduced the domestic abuse policy landscape in which the guide sits by Chris Ashely of the Home Office. Rachel Condry then spoke about the findings of the University of Oxford research which led to the development of the guide. Anne-Marie Harris described the content of the guide and the process of its development. Delegates then had the opportunity to discuss in small workshops a number of questions about the problem of APVA in their local areas and how it was being addressed, applying the guidance in their own local areas, and the barriers that they might encounter in trying to do so. This led to some interesting discussions about some of the strategic issues of trying to develop a specific response to APVA and some useful sharing of participants’ experience. It was a very successful day, and the feedback we received from delegates was overwhelmingly positive.