Moving beyond moral condemnation of parents: Vulnerable children and families in the context of trauma, neglect and abuse
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Moving beyond moral condemnation of parents: Vulnerable children and families in the context of trauma, neglect and abuseThis special issue makes a vital contribution to how we may better understand the contexts of vulnerable children and families and the way intergenerational trauma impacts, influences and manifests within and across family systems.The articles within this special issue carefully challenge a sometimes commonplace attribution of harm solely to individual behaviours.Instead, we seek to shine a light on the role that moral condemnation plays in perpetuating cycles of disadvantage and family hardships.Parents who struggle to provide good enough care for their children, who may abuse, neglect or inadvertently expose them to harm, are difficult for many people to understand.It is easy for people to respond empathically and with compassion to the children who are harmed, but much more difficult for people to respond to their parents with the same care and consideration.However, these parents were often child victims themselves.When families are embedded in systems of intergenerational disadvantage and trauma, the trauma that flows between generations can powerfully affect the quality of parental care.The emotional judgements that people make in response to severely compromised parenting, combined with narratives that warn against condoning harmful behaviour, can entrench conscious or unconscious moral condemnation, hindering therapists' capacity to provide effective whole-family care.Within this special issue, we explore the imperative to identify and address moral condemnation, the role of shame in motivating difficult-to-understand behaviours and innovative ways that practitioners have found to respond, without condemnation, to traumatised parents and their children.Effective and meaningful support for vulnerable families requires approaches that address entrenched (mis)understanding and advocate for family-inclusive practices that reflect the lived realities of those involved.Moral condemnation offers little beyond a sense of privileged and positioned 'knowing', it should be pushed aside in favour of practices that seek to unpick the intergenerational threads of trauma.Practitioners and therapists-broadly conceived-are in a unique position to pioneer such approaches, challenging atomised views of family dynamics, and how multiple and interconnected factors impact family interactions and parental capacities.Insights from diverse fields and settings beyond traditional therapy offer valuable perspectives for advancing holistic, family-centred care.Several of our contributors within this special issue would not see themselves as family therapists, or even therapists, some are new to academic writing, and this is deliberate.Working with traumatised, vulnerable families and children requires us to stretch beyond our traditional boundaries to find ways to meet the challenges of providing compassionate and effective care.As an editorial team, we are based at Centacare Catholic Community Services, a leading nongovernment organisation (NGO) in South Australia that offers an extensive array of programs, including intensive family services, reunification, foster care, disability support, family and domestic violence, homelessness, counselling and mental health services.In our collective roles, we are charged with the responsibility of implementing an innovative therapeutic framework across the organisation.This framework-stabilising trauma in everyday practice (STEP)-is a foundational inspiration for this special issue, as it reflects our commitment to rethinking and challenging traditional therapeutic models.Our aim is to democratise therapeutic practices to develop genuinely trauma-informed and
DOI: 10.1002/anzf.1616
Institutions: University of South Australia, Flinders University
Language: English
Topic: Child Abuse and Trauma
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4406069112