Updates on the UK
September 2018. A very recent article in the Times highlighted the sheer lack of progress with the perpetrator programmes, Duluth and hybrids of course. Linked here is the article and my comments in blue!
Cafcass – the Children an Family Court Advisory Service – has been working up a programme to tackle the child abuse involved in “Parental Alienation”. This is due to be put before parliament very soon and a pre-view of the changes is to be presented in October.
My working partner, Mrs Denise Knowles and I, are due to go to pre-view next week of a film commissioned by the BBC into our work with domestic abusers. Our fingers are crossed that it is a “fair” representation of our work. It is due to be broadcast before Xmas.
There was a very hard-hitting 2-day Parental Alienation conference in London 2 weeks ago, attended by more than 200 people each day. There were many contributors from the USA. The link to the programme is here and to the speakers is here. We are awaiting the link to the various presentations.
I attended a NIA conference earlier in the year where two speakers from Duluth were still advocating their “power and control wheel” – despite the recognition in 1999 of their guru, the late Ellen Pence, that “power and control” was not an issue in the vast majority of men with whom she worked but that she and her colleagues had nevertheless taken every opportunity to point out to the men that they were so motivated and merely minimising and denying their behaviours. Eventually she realised that they were only finding what they set out to find! The link to the book and quotes is here.