About Us

Who we are

Capa First Response provides online, compassionate, expert support for both families and professionals navigating child to parent aggression and and/or harmful behaviours.

We are a support service for families and professionals – supporting those impacted by a child using harmful and/or aggressive behaviours towards a parent or caregiver. This is often referred to as ‘CAPVA’ – Child or Adolescent to Parent Violence and Abuse.

For families, we offer online crisis intervention, guidance, and resources to help them through challenging times with care and understanding.

For professionals, we deliver specialised training, consultation, and support services to enhance their ability to respond effectively to families needs.

Our dedicated team ensures that individuals and organisations have the tools, knowledge and understanding they need to support families with confidence and compassion.

An increasing number of families are struggling to find the right support. We offer direct bespoke support to help identify the drivers behind the behaviour, help build strong communication, trusting relationships and clear boundaries and expectations.

How we can help

Capa First Response offers free support regardless of your location to the whole family.

For families we offer:

Weekly online Drop-in sessions

Advice & support sessions

Group Work

Intensive one-to-one sessions

For professionals we offer:

FREE consultation sessions

3 hour introduction training (online)

1 day training (online)

Take a look at our Frequently Asked Questions.

Read more about why Jane started CAPA here.

Why we don’t like to use the term ‘abuse’

Since starting Capa First Response we’ve moved away from using the term ‘abuse’ to describe the actions and behaviours of the children in the families we support. Read why here.

We do recognise that using ‘CAPVA’ (Child Against Parent/caregiver Violence/Aggression) is the industry standard but we explain why we don’t like to use the word ‘abuse here. You’ll see a few phrases and words on our website linked to the term CAPVA. We want to work to not only help to lower the numbers of families suffering, but to also reduce the stigma in the hopes that families won’t put off asking for help when this is something being experienced.

At least 40% of child-to-parent violence and abuse incidents are unreported to police, according to research by the VRU (the Mayor of London’s Crime Reduction Unit in 2022)

Drawing on data from 2011-20, the research found that while there was no single cause of child-to-parent violence and abuse, the issue was often under-reported to police due to fears of criminalisation, stigmatisation or the risk of having a child removed from homes. Other factors include cultural and linguistic barriers, and a mistrust of services resulting in patchwork support and resources for families.

In another example, a woman who had been a victim of intimate violence from her previous partner, was not supported by her family when her child became abusive. Her family blamed her for “not being hard enough” on her children.

Source: The Guardian

Raising Awareness

CAPVA is on the rise, with more families seeking support and professionals identifying the issue earlier. However, data and research in this area remain limited, making it difficult to fully grasp the scale and impact of child-to-parent aggression. We are actively engaged in national strategic forums and networks, advocating for greater awareness, funding, and comprehensive research.

By keeping this issue at the forefront of government discussions, we aim to drive meaningful change and ensure families and professionals receive the support they need.

Whole Family Evidence-Based Approach

We take a whole-family approach grounded in evidence-based frameworks, including Attachment Theory, Neuroscience, Pro-Social Modelling, and Solution-Focused methods.

Our specialist practitioners understand complexities and provide tailored, bespoke support to meet the unique needs of each family.

We recognise the importance of addressing the entire family dynamic and offer dedicated support for families navigating neurodiversity, ensuring that every member feels heard, supported, and empowered.

Collaboration & Community

Standing together and working with our community and collaborators is vital to ensuring meaningful change. We believe that ending child-to-parent aggression and harmful behaviour requires a united effort. By fostering strong partnerships, sharing knowledge, and supporting one another, we can deepen our understanding of why these behaviours occur and develop effective solutions.

Building a connected and informed community is key to creating lasting change.

Be part of the change

Did you know?

Each month…

We share our resources with over 5000 people
We offer over 200 families and professionals our services

Over a year that’s 62,400 people who have access to support around this issue.

What do people say about our services?

100% of families tell us they would recommend our support to other families

98% of families said their relationship with their child has improved since seeking our support

About the team

All the practitioners that work at Capa have knowledge and experience of supporting families. Each practitioner has been hand picked to work with us at Capa, we know how they work and understand their methods. Each practitioner brings a different strength and understanding to the work enabling us to allocate families to a practitioner’s strength.

We have a practitioner who specialises in working with families where the young person has a neurodivergent diagnosis, as with many more families experiencing this we want to give families the best possible resources to support them in their specific circumstances.