The dissertation concludes that Portuguese women's invocation of law is complex, but with a clear preference for using informal mechanisms to address domestic violence. This has consequences for the development of practical ways of helping Portuguese women living in England deal with domestic violence, and informs the recommendation made in the final chapter of the dissertation.

Despite consistent political, academic and media interest in ‘troublesome’ families and antisocial behaviour the voices of those on the receiving end of various familial interventions largely remain unheard. However, it has been increasingly recognised that white, lone female parents are the primary recipients of political interventions to alleviate anti-social behaviour. This qualitative research addressed this gendered, classed, ethnicity and disability based phenomenon by eliciting the experiences of those threatened, and/or evicted from social housing because of the anti-social behaviour of other members of the household. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with those at various stages of the eviction process who were working with a Family Intervention Project in the south of England. The participants employed various practices and strategies to mediate the familial consequences of the eviction process and were far from the feckless parents portrayed in popular and policy discourses. These mediatory practices and strategies entailed engaging with the temporal demands of numerous tutelary agencies and were undertaken against a backdrop of ongoing intra familial violence and intra communal conflict, which blurs any simplistic dichotomy between the victims and perpetrators of anti-social behaviour. The narratives of the participants also revealed the necessity of having a voice within these multi-agency interactions and their own recommendations for alleviating their circumstances, and as such provide valuable insights for academics, policy makers, practitioners and other ‘troubled’ families experiencing similarly deleterious housing sanctions.

Historically, intimate partner violence (IPV) has been conceptualised as a gendered problem of men’s violence towards women, based on a model of male patriarchy. Within this paradigm, ‘victims’ are considered female, and ‘perpetrators’ male. Despite the growing body of research challenging this perspective and suggesting more parity between men and women in their propensity for violence, UK services and treatment programmes continue to be influenced by the gender paradigm, thus neglecting men and women whose experiences do not fit this dominant discourse. The current study aimed to give voice to women who have been abusive and violent towards male partners, to learn more about their subjective experiences. Interviews were conducted with seven women. Transcripts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, underpinned by a phenomenological hermeneutic epistemology. Three themes were developed; the women foregrounded past abusive traumatic experiences in their accounts, and the way they repeated, replayed, and reenacted these is illustrated in ‘Repeating the Past’. ‘From Pain to Violence’ captures how their rage and violent behaviour appeared to be a complex manifestation of these earlier unresolved experiences. ‘Disconnecting’ illustrates the way they disconnected from their experiences, and experienced breakdowns in social connection. The findings highlight the need for practitioners working with IPV to provide multidimensional, relational approaches to treatment, in which the therapeutic relationship is carefully considered. Individualised clinical interventions that develop emotional, psychological, and neurobiological capacities may be beneficial. The study advocates the need for practitioners to be aware of, and open to challenging assumptions about intimate partner violence, thus reflective practice and supervision is fundamental.

Background: Instances of female perpetrated domestic violence are rising yet research in this domain is limited and there continues to be a focus on exploring male perpetrated acts of domestic violence (Steinmetz, 1977; Straus & Gelles, 1986). There is evidence of a population of women who are the dominant aggressors of domestic violence yet few studies explore the experiences of this group (Mills, 2003). This study aims to qualitatively explore female perpetrators accounts of their domestic violence toward men and their perceptions of that, including their understanding as to how those acts arose. This could highlight the treatment and supportive needs of this particular group and could inform the way in which counsellors work with female perpetrators through increasing our understanding of the possible factors that are linked with and contribute to their aggression. Method: Interviews were conducted with eight women who self identified as the primary aggressor of domestic violence in their (heterosexual) relationships. Their accounts were audio recorded and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Findings: Three themes emerged from this including: violence in the wake of multiple triggers, the all encompassing emotional experience, and violence as the unrecognisable intruder.

Rationale: Service provisions for different forms of abuse experienced by men have increased in recent years. However, the voices and experiences of these victims remain significantly unrepresented both in the literature and the public domain. Disclosure of intimate partner violence (IPV) remain under-reported to the police and other personal and professional services aimed at male victims support and intervention. Whilst there is literature indicating the prevalence rates of IPV there is little describing the impact and consequences disclosing the experience of abuse has, particularly upon men. In order for healthcare professional and specialist service providers to provide adequate support and to avoid further trauma being experienced as part of the disclosure process there is a need for professionals to work in a reflexive manner and ensure any bias or personal values they may have and their knowledge of the subject does not hinder those seeking support and guidance. Method: The research follows the qualitative methodology of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Participants were recruited through adverts placed with male support organisations. All participants were required to have made a disclosure within the past two years, however the abuse could have occurred at any time through the lifespan. Interviews were conducted face-to-face or via telephone following a semi-structured schedule. Data was gathered by conducting semi-structured interviews with five males who have experienced intimate partner violence. Results: The results identified five super-ordinate themes including a lack of support; a lack of awareness and stereotypes by personal and professional support; impact on self-identity, self-esteem and self-confidence; and shame, betrayal and isolation. Five sub-ordinate themes were identified and included difficulty recognising an abusive situation; difficulty finding support organisations if not computer literate and a lack of knowledge by frontline professionals. The majority of themes identified appeared to reflect a negative impact from disclosing to another person. A positive sub-ordinate theme was the support of female family members once they had processed the disclosure. Conclusions: Significant strides have been made in the awareness, understanding and provisions for female victims of abuse, the same for male victims’ remains lacking. The present study adds to existing literature by providing ideographic accounts from men who have disclosed intimate partner violence. Implications from the findings highlight a need for frontline staff to have a greater awareness of the needs and presentation of male abuse victims accessing services. The current findings indicate a need to provide earlier intervention, support and guidance for male abuse victims than those disclosed in this research. Despite the limited sample in this data, findings indicated a clear need to review current service provisions and training in the area of male victims of abuse.

The purpose of this research project was to evaluate a preventative parent-training programme delivered as part of the community wide Flying Start (FS) initiative. Flying Start was introduced in 2007 across Wales with the aim of increase service provision for families in Wales living in areas earmarked by the Welsh Government as experiencing high levels of deprivation. The Welsh Government provided Bangor University with 114k to independently evaluate the delivery of Incredible Years Toddler Parenting Programme (IYTPP) in Flying Start community settings, alongside the other three components of Flying Start. This funding, along with three years of PhD funding for the thesis author provided by the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol provided the opportunity to conduct three studies. The first study explored the baseline characteristics of the small sample that were recruited for the RCT trial in terms of level of risk and need of intervention. Risk factors for poor child outcomes were identified and comparisons drawn with a previously recruited sample of disadvantaged families that took part in an RCT of a parenting intervention within Sure Start services (Hutchings et al. 2007). The second study evaluated the short-term effectiveness of the IYTPP using a rigorous RCT design, comparing families allocated to receive the IYTPP intervention with control families. The third study explored the longer-term effects of intervention for families who had provided data across a twelve month period, and explored whether the intervention had different effects for the families who were experiencing elevated levels of the risk-factors identified in study one. The study concluded that to effectively allocate resources to families with the greatest needs, additional targeting measures identifying individual level of risk should be utilised. Delivery of the intervention saw modest short-term improvements in parental mental well-being for intervention families. Long-term findings support the work of others, demonstrating sustained improvements, with families experiencing elevated levels of risk seeing comparable, and often greater improvements when compared with families with a lower level of risk.

Background: The evidence points to the beneficial effects of early parental interventions on maternal and child developmental outcomes, but the effectiveness of group-based interventions delivered in the first year of life has not as yet been systematically reviewed. Method: A systematic literature search was conducted to identify original reports of evaluations of early group-based interventions for parents that recruited parents after their infants' birth but before the end of their first year of life. Twelve published papers provided quantitative data in their evaluations of interventions and also employed baseline to postintervention comparisons and/or control group comparisons of mate mal and (in some cases) child development variables. These studies are reported and their methods and outcomes are critically reviewed. Results: Group-based early parental interventions resulted in some to improvement in parenting skills, increased positive affect and promote interaction quality, all of which may result in positive child outcomes. A range of methodological flaws in the studies means that the conclusions are speculative and calls for more thorough evaluation of the interventions. Conclusions: Long term evaluations, using validated measures, of these interventions are needed to inform the choices made by policy-makers, service providers and parents.

Research suggests that parental affect has a significant influence on child outcomes, and that this is mediated by parenting style and parent-child interactions. This thesis was an investigation of the critical factors which impact on child development, with particular focus on maternal affect, cognitions, and parenting. A review was conducted of the literature investigating the impact of postnatal depression on child cognitive development from 1-6 years. Inconsistencies were apparent in the evidence, with some studies highlighting postnatal depression as a significant risk factor for child cognitive development, while for others this was the case only when an accumulation of postnatal depression and other risk factors occurred, such as chronicity of depression, security of attachment, and socioeconomic status. In several studies it appeared that a positive association was mediated through some aspect of mother-child interaction. The processes involved in parenting were investigated in a study exploring the relationship between parental affect, attributions for child behaviour (child-centred responsibility attributions and parent-centred causal attributions), and inept discipline (laxness, over-reactivity and verbosity) in a community sample of parents commencing a behavioural parenting intervention. High levels of negative parental attributions were found, and mediational analysis indicated that associations between parental affect and parenting style were mediated by both parent-causal and child responsibility attributions.

Research into domestic abuse and alcohol use has been dominated by a focus on associations between male perpetrator’s drinking and physical violence, neglecting issues of power and control. Minimal space has been given to enabling women’s voices to be heard. This study explored the duality of domestic abuse and alcohol use, by not only focusing on alcohol use defined as problematic, but by examining its role in the everyday lives of abused women, and how their experiences were shaped by a gender differentiated society. It was therefore critical to study women’s alcohol use as potentially normal, pleasurable, a constructive and autonomous response to their lives as they balanced multiple risks against each other. A Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) approach deployed the visual method of Photovoice with seven women survivors of domestic abuse in Scotland. Participant generated photographs were used to facilitate dialogue across multiple group sessions. Views of ten stakeholders, working in related fields, were also collected by semi-structured interviews. Combining Johnson’s (2008) typology of domestic violence with Stark’s (2007) framework of coercive control, created a feminist lens through which a nuanced understanding of the complexity of domestic abuse could be revealed. This enabled new insights in relation to not only how women understood, managed and negotiated the use of alcohol within this intimate context, but how gendered societal discourses intersected with those experiences. Telling a different story of domestic abuse and alcohol, one that moves away from the violence paradigm, revealed a new perspective that uncovered the complex and often contradictory discourses which women must negotiate in their roles as women, partners and mothers in the context of domestic abuse. These discourses were found to contribute to women’s entrapment, owing to their invisibility and general acceptance as the ‘wallpaper’ that constitutes the backdrop to women’s lives.

While there has been a general feminist unease with law’s (in)ability to intervene in violent situations in the private sphere, some scholars argue that law not only makes public what occurs in the private, but may also shift gender norms. For the most part, states in the Middle East and North Africa region, while eagerly adopting international frameworks, have been delayed in their efforts to adopt gender-sensitive or women-specific domestic violence legislation. Employing qualitative research methods, this thesis examines how women’s organisations accept, reject or reinterpret international frameworks in the criminalisation of domestic violence in the Middle East and North Africa region. The research also examines the role that transnational or regional women’s networks play in the activism of women’s organisations in Egypt and Lebanon, and the Middle East and North Africa region more broadly. Through the use of the case studies, this research compares and contrasts the debates taking place within the respective sites in order to better understand how women’s organisations and their allies engage with, reject, or reinterpret international norms in their activism to criminalise domestic violence. This thesis argues that women’s organisations and their allies who are responsible for domestic violence laws in Egypt and Lebanon engage with international norms and frameworks when creating such legislation. This is done in different ways. While each law makes specific reference to international frameworks, each engages with international norms concerning violence against women and domestic violence in direct and indirect ways. In Lebanon, this means defying social, religious and political norms and steadfastly engaging with international frameworks and discourse. In Egypt, this involves engaging with international norms coupled with partial vemacularization. Both case studies reveal: (1) the history of domestic violence legal activism in the region is not a new phenomenon; and (2) that such activism is highly contextual.