Capa First Response is an online platform for families & 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.

Common themes families talk to us about are:

There are many drivers for this behaviour with more and more families concerned around neurodiversity and the impact this has on their child and links to the above behaviour.

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.

Capa First Response Offers free advice and support sessions with specialist workers, 1:1 sessions to support the WHOLE family including siblings, extended family as well as the child using the behaviours.

For professionals we offer FREE consultation sessions, training, supervision alongside team development and strategic thinking.

Capa was set up to fill the gap that families and professionals were telling us was a barrier to getting support. We want to ensure that any family or professional dealing with this issue can get the right support regardless of location.

‘Child or adolescent to parent violence and abuse’ vs ‘A child using harmful and/or aggressive behaviour in the home towards a parent or caregiver.’

Since starting Capa we’ve moved away from using the term ‘abuse’ to describe the actions and impulses of the children in the families we work for. We chose not to change the name of our organisation so that we would be easy to find for families and professionals who need our services, because the term ‘Child & Adolescent to Parent Abuse/Violence’ is the industry standard. We’ve written more about why we’re using different terminology here but you’ll see a few phrases and words on our website and when we work with families, and we hope by using a less extreme term we are working to lessen the stigma that families experience when asking for help or talking to friends and family members about what they are going through.

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

Cases of parents and carers struggling with a child or children in their family showing harmful and aggressive behaviour towards a parent sadly seem to be on the rise. 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.

Meet the Team

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