What everyone can do for child protection

A clear need for public health measures to educate people about how to resolve domestic conflict has emerged from Unit senior researcher Vashti Berry's newly-completed doctoral study.

Her work, which concentrated on children under the age of 18 in 300 Dublin families found that most families regularly use aggressive and, at times, violent tactics to resolve disputes.
 
The impossibility of distinguishing between anger, aggression and violence meant that some exchanges between parents and parents and children could be regarded as maltreatment or abuse.
 
Her evidence suggested child protection interventions were needed in a significant number of cases, partly because of the lack of any public health measures to educate the general population about coping with the underlying pressures of family life.
 
Vashti will graduate from Bath University in summer 2009.