The 'Dark Side of Families': Adult Child to Parent Abuse

About me and my research

First, let's start with my name. Thien Trang means either Garden of Heaven or Heavenly Peony, depending on my inclination. Peonies happen to be my favourite flowers, so I often feel inclined towards the latter.

I have over 12 years of experience working in the field of domestic abuse and violence against women as, among others, Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA), Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) Coordinator and Manager, and Training Lead at Standing Together Against Domestic Violence (Standing Together). This diverse experience has led me, in a rather serendipitous fashion, to my decision to embark upon a full-time PhD in September 2018, focusing on Adult Child to Parent Abuse - the abuse of parents by their adult offspring.

Serendipity is certainly the keyword here. Although I had never considered myself fit for academic pursuits, being practically-minded both in terms of professional background and personal temperament, I had found myself increasingly troubled by the lack of research, knowledge base, and practice guidance and tools in this particular area of domestic abuse. Years after I moved away from front-line work, I still remember vividly my experience supporting women abused by their adult children, most of whom sons, and the barriers they faced as survivors. I still remember - and continue to hear from colleagues - the challenges of developing an effective action plan at the MARAC for cases involving parents and children. I still remember examples raised by participants at my training sessions of mothers who, having left abusive partners, were now having to deal with abusive behaviours by their children.

In 2016, Standing Together commissioned the Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University to analyse the 32 Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs) the organisation had chaired. I took part in a series of workshops discussing themes arising from the analysis. The discussions and final report, which highlighted the dearth in research around violence and abuse perpetrated by adult children and family members (Sharp-Jeffs and Kelly, 2016), helped crystallise those disparate fragments of uneasiness into a (relatively) more coherent awareness and burgeoning interest.

Thus, on a Monday in early February 2018, back in the office after a week away training staff members of a housing provider, I was wading through unread emails and ignoring those "FYI" ones which I would normally file in my "Interesting to read" folder. I chanced upon an email from our CEO. Based on its title, it was an obvious "FYI" email. For reasons unfathomable to me, I opened it. It was about an exciting PhD Studentship opportunity that Simon Kerss, former Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Partnership Manager for Cambridgeshire, now Lecturer in Criminology at Anglia Ruskin University, had asked her to circulate to her networks. An "FYI" email about doctoral research: even more eligible for the "Interesting to read" folder!

For reasons even more unfathomable to me (given the number of unread emails I had yet to go through), I clicked on the link. The Studentship was for research on Adult Family Violence, which it confirmed was under-researched. Its key reference was the Standing Together DHR analysis. Did I mention serendipity?

For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that I might just be interested in doing a PhD after all. At that precise moment, a colleague walked over to me. I showed her the link. I told her I might just be interested, and who knows I might even be capable of doing it. The application deadline was the following Monday. Should I even consider it? I was full of doubt. She simply said : "Why not? Just apply!"

The rest, as they say, is history.