The state enables abusive parents to block recovery support for child victim-survivors, including children experiencing suicidal thoughts, according to new research.
The Backbone Collective surveyed 63 protective mothers whose 113 children had their access to therapeutic services such as counselling blocked or otherwise compromised by abusive legal guardians.
In some cases mothers reported the Family Court prohibited children from accessing therapeutic services, against the recommendations of healthcare professionals, due to abuser objections.
“…[T]he health service is adamant that he doesn’t get a say but family court were adamant he did. It’s ridiculous,” wrote one mother.
Protective mothers reported their children experienced negative impacts of violence and abuse on their wellbeing, wairua, relationships and self-confidence, including bed-wetting, nightmares, stuttering, deep anxiety, behavioural issues, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. For some children, suicidal thoughts worsened or appeared after the abuser blocked recovery support. One mother reported “What my children went through, they require professional help which I am not capable of.”
Many mothers had tried for years to get recovery support for their children, and were told if they took their children to therapeutic services without the abuser’s consent, they could lose daily care or access to their children. One reported: “[My] trying to get the kids help was used against me in Hearings to suggest I was overly anxious.”
Lead researcher and Backbone Collective manager and co-founder Deborah Mackenzie said it was unacceptable that protective mothers were left to battle the system alone on behalf of their children, and that abusers were enabled to continue their abuse by blocking or interfering in children’s access to recovery support. “Authorities must always prioritise child wellbeing and their right to live free from abuse and to heal from abuse. Our challenge to policy-makers is to stop putting distressed children in the ‘too hard’ basket and start protecting them.”
Ministry of Justice documents show the Family Court makes decisions about children’s care and healthcare not necessarily knowing if there is family violence or sexual violence being perpetrated by someone in the family. Mackenzie says independent family-violence and sexual-violence experts are needed in Family Court to ensure all relevant information is put before the court.
“Family violence and sexual violence experts in the Family Court are not the only change required to ensure children victim-survivors can access the recovery support they need, but it is a necessary one,” she said.
Kaupapa Māori services were among those blocked by abusers. Researcher Tomina Apiti said “tamariki Māori must be able to access culturally safe therapeutic support, including kaupapa Māori and rongoā Māori healing, with their views and needs informing that support.”
As one mother reported in the survey: “I expected my abusive, controlling and manipulative ex to make getting therapeutic services support for my [child] difficult. What I didn’t expect, was the system that’s meant to protect children to work with the abuser to prevent a child from getting the support [my child] needs, despite this being recommended twice by their own psychologist.”
For those children victim-survivors able to access recovery support (at least temporarily), the beneficial effects included fewer nightmares, less anxiety, less anger and self-harm, improved confidence and self-worth, and/or better concentration at school. One mother reported that her child stopped hitting her and started hugging her again. Another reported: “Every [therapeutic service] session [they] left with a spring in [their] step like a weight has been lifted and [they] could smile again, speak, was allowed to be happy and over time began to believe [they were] worthy of love and life and is truly valued. [They were] able to go without conflict at school, begin to socialise more confidently, less defiance, less headaches.”
The Backbone Collective report “Daddy says no”: Mothers’ accounts of abusers blocking and compromising therapeutic services for children victim-survivors is available on the Backbone Collective website.
This research supports the recommendations of the Focus On Safety campaign supported by 100 violence-prevention organisations and specialists to reform family justice to protect child and adult victim-survivors of family violence (including intrafamilial sexual violence).
This research is the second report Backbone Collective has released this year outlining grave concerns regarding Family Court decision-making supporting abusers over victim-survivors. The first was Just ticking the box: Victim-survivor insights into the uses and abuses of stopping-violence programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand.
