Why Work with Female Carers

The purpose of the work with female carers is to empower them by recognising and developing strengths and thereby increasing their confidence to support and protect their children. This cannot be achieved if professionals merely mirror the behaviour of the abuser by making decisions about the child without involving the mother (Print and Dey 1992)

Too often, female carers are accused of colluding with the sexual abuse and failing to protect children. Rather than recognising the potential women have for helping their children overcome the effects of abuse, there is evidence that social workers tend to hold on to pre-conceived notions that blame mothers for the abuse (Dempster, 1993). Working with female carers may assist our understanding of abusing parents and improve our abilities to help and protect children who have been sexually abused as well as extending scare resources (Trotter, 1996).

There are important issues to be raised about the concept of ‘failure to protect’. The word failure implies circumstances that are controllable and in the context of sexual abuse as well as domestic violence, this suggests that the failure was due to the mother not taking some action that would have protected her children.

Magen (1999) stated “the concept of failure to protect requires mothers to protect children from fathers who are equally responsible for and available to the children”.
For female carers to avoid allegations of failure to protect requires either leaving the situation and/or taking action against the perpetrator. If they do not, then the problem is defined in terms of what the female carer failed to do rather than in terms of the perpetrator’s actions.

It assumes that leaving is a woman’s responsibility, that leaving is a solution to the abuse, and that leaving is appropriate and available to all women. The professionals who ask ‘Why didn’t she leave?’ continue to reflect victim blaming attitudes. This is clearly a blaming and fault approach to child protection (Lyon 1999).

The evolution of work with female carers of children who have been sexually abused has been protracted, low key, a low priority and incomplete. There is a need to provide a framework to guide workers to assess a woman’s ability to protect, and to join with this the needs of these carers at each stage of the child protection process, exploring how particular approaches and professional strategies create a pre-determined view of them (such as “collusive” or as an “accomplice”). Such approaches disable the carer in their parenting tasks. It also prevents an objective assessment of their ability to protect from taking place.

Society’s failure to act in the issue of sexual abuse lies partly within the very causes of child sexual abuse, male power and masculinity which have produced male biased theories and policies of intervention. This analysis poses enormous challenges for statutory agencies and for individual workers. If we look at the decision making in child sexual abuse cases, we begin to understand how the female carer (mother) is frequently assumed to be culpable for the harm to her children.

Farmer and Owen (1998) pointed out that mothers have tended to be under-represented in relation to offers of service and over-included in respect of agencies’ efforts to control them. They also highlighted from research that there is a significant gender bias at each stage of the child protection process.

They found that 27% of mothers in their sample had actively sought help and initiated action from the child protection agencies, yet this is an unused fact in determining subsequent responses. The women actively turned to the child protection agencies in the hope that they will receive assistance either in dealing with their own problems, or in regulating the actions of the men with whom they were living.

Unfortunately, rather than being treated as allies in the protection of their children, they were treated with suspicion. This often led to them rejecting subsequent offers of help in the guise of child protection plans.

We need to develop an environment in which the containment of anxiety allows a more balanced and considered response to sexual abuse work, and in particular female carers.

In this culture, anxiety is seen as normative, allowing for the expression of healthy uncertainty, and differences, where ‘mistakes’ are opportunities for learning, not punishment. Risks are taken and innovations are attempted. The irresolvable nature of many issues is openly struggled with, from which unexpected and creative solutions may come.

Children who have experienced abuse almost always significantly depend on their non-abusing caregivers for protection from future abuse and in overcoming the effects of previous abuse. All abuse has an emotional impact on the victim and sexual abuse has the potential to inflict serious and long-term psychological and emotional damage.
Non-abusing carers therefore should have the motivation, capacity and ability to understand and respond to the psychological and emotional needs of a child who has experienced abuse. Research has identified that incest victims who received the support of their mothers had a far more positive long-term prognosis than those who did not.

Jones and Ramchandani (1999) argued that without such support the child’s recovery and future psychological development are likely to be impaired and even significantly damaged, even if no further abuse occurs.

The relationship between a parent’s past history and current parenting behaviour is important when looking at issues of sexual abuse, Martin (1980) noted the most obvious long term effect of the abusive environment is its influence on parenting patterns in the next generation. This reinforces the importance of non-abusing female carers being enabled to act to protect their children which will enhance the child’s recovery, thus acting to break the intergeneration cycle of abuse for future generations
Byerley (1992) set out the following list of needs experienced by mothers followingdisclosure of sexual abuse:

• Someone to talk to: to express trust and belief in them, often for weeks or months afterwards.
• Someone to counsel them about their own abuse: as the child’s disclosure may have resurrected memories.
• To know what happened: as this is essential as well as painful: they need to know the nature, the frequency, extent, the time and place, the child’s feelings etc.
  
• To know they were not the first carer this had happened to: so they are not alone, and can possibly meet others and learn from shared feelings.
• To have a break from the perpetrator: non-abusing carers need space away from the perpetrator in order to gain a perspective, consider their feelings about the relationship etc.
• To be treated as a person: to have their feelings listened to seriously, to be acknowledged when they are present
• To regain control of their lives and minds: particularly in the case of sexual abuse within the family where they need to resume control over the day to day events and their personal thoughts.
• To obtain basic information on survival: to embrace new aspects of their life, such as courts, police, treatment etc.
• To understand how domestic violence and sexual abuse were related: and to understand they are separate issues to be addressed.
  • To make basic life decisions: to move away, separate or divorce their husband, tell people, etc.
• To know options regarding contact and custody: both in relation to their partner, but also if the child has been removed from home by the local authority.
• To know how the children will react: as everyone will be affected to some degree by the trauma.
• To ensure that this will not happen again: taking steps to safeguard the child from continued sexual abuse is important, such as no contact or supervised contact.

The needs of non-abusing female carers can be neglected as professional responses focus on the children who have been abused, their siblings, and on the perpetrators of the abuse. In this sense, the professional response system is insensitive to the needs of women.

However, both for the women’s emotional survival and growth and so that they can provide appropriate parenting for their children, which in turn reduces the need for their children to be removed from their care or remain there long term, these women need therapeutic opportunity to deal with their feelings about what has happened and to adjust to the major change that has taken place in their lives.

References

Byerley, C. M. (1992): How to Survive the Molestation of your Child. Kendall-Hunt Publishing Co.

Dempster, H. (1993): The Aftermath of Child Sexual Abuse: Women’s Perspectives. In Waterhouse, L. (Ed.) Child Abuse and Child Abusers. London, Publisher, 58-72

Farmer, E. & Owen, M. (1998): Gender and the Child Protection Process. British Journal of Social Work. 28(4): 545-64

Jones, D. & Ramchandani, P. (1999): Child Sexual Abuse: Informing Practice from Research. Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press.

Lyon, T.D. (1999): Are Battered Women Bad Mothers? Rethinking the Termination of Abused Women’s Parental Rights for Failure to Protect. In Dubowitz H (Ed.). Neglected Children: Research, Practice and Policy. Thousand Oaks, Sage, 237-59

Magen, R. (1999): In the Best Interests of Battered Women: Reconceptualising Allegations of Failure to Protect. Child Maltreatment. 4(2): 127-35

Martin, H. (1980): The Consequences of Being Abused and Neglected: How the Child Fares. In Kempe C and Helfer R (Eds.) The Battered Child. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Print, B. & Dey, C. (1992): Empowering Mothers of Sexually Abused Children: A Positive Framework. In Bannister, A. (Ed.). From Hearing to Healing with the Aftermath of Child Sexual Abuse, pp57-81, London: Longman.

Trotter, J. (1996): Illusive Partnerships: Gender and Sexuality Issues Relating to Child Sexual Abuse and Child Protection Practices. Presentation to ISPCAN Conference, Dublin, Ireland.

[BACK]