Impact of Domestic Violence on Youth

Introduction

The drawing of the attention of the research readership on the spectre of domestic violence born effects on the physical and psychological dispensations of the young personnel aged between 12 and 18 years within the United Kingdom would be the central research approach. Apart from this, the clearly defined academic objective could be also outlined to evaluate policies of the various governments of the United Kingdom to assist in the reduction of the detrimental effects of domestic violence on the physical and psychological demeanour of the young citizens belonging to the aforementioned age group. The point of formulation of such governmental policies would be between the years 2014 to 2018.This would be one of the research objectives. The focus of the research undertaking would be on the determination of the variegated impacts of domestic violence on the young citizens within the age group of 12 to 18 years. Finally, this research proposal will also addressed the rationale and the background in context to the study of domestic violence impact on the health and well being of young people in the UK. And also shed light on the methodology, ethical issues, outline and timescale.

Background and Rationale for the study

Domestic violence could be defined as a specific pattern of behaviour, which is essentially abusive in nature and which emanates from any relationship. The different manifestations of this violence are primarily utilised by the dominant partner to either obtain or to maintain absolute control on the other intimate partner. Furthermore, according to Barter et al(2017), a holistic definition of domestic violence could be comprehended as the aggressive and violent behaviour within the domestic premises which could generally involve the violent abuse or mistreatment, either physically or psychologically or even by both, of either the spouse or the partner by the other partner, involving either familial or marital relationships. Roberson and Wallace (2016) has highlighted the different behavioural aspects related to domestic violence as controlling, coercing, threatening, imparting violence and finally, abusing. These generally take place in between the intimate partners, family members or even between casual partners regardless of the gender identities or sexual orientations of both the victims and the perpetrators. Domestic violence and abuse can encompass the physical, psychological and emotional spheres within any relationship structure.

Domestic violence could be comprehended as one of the most serious problems of public health in the global scale. According to McFarlane et al(2017), more than 800000 men and up to 2 million women could be identified globally on a per annum basis who are severely affected by domestic violence and such cases involve suffrage of serious and life threatening injuries, homelessness, mortality of the victims and increment in the healthcare related costs and in psychological health impairments of the victims.

As per the research of Díez et al (2018), the global statistics regarding the affected personnel from domestic violence, emanating from intimate partners, are reflective of the varied nature of victimhood of such affected men, women and children. As per the research of Barter et al (2015), 3%-5% of the existing adult relationships within the United Kingdom could be identified to be affected by domestic abuse of varying degrees. This statistical representation highlights a disproportionate majority of women and children as having been affected by domestic violence and abuse. Furthermore, according to Fredland et al (2016), out of the total number of female victims of domestic violence, one third are subjected to domestic violence from their intimate partners. As per the research of Afolabi (2015), approximately 1300 deaths are to be credited to the incidences of domestic violence at the UK on a per annum basis, primarily relatable to the BAME communities. Furthermore, the research of Goldman‐Mellor et al (2016) indicates that 50% of the deaths of women murdered at the UK could be credited to the domestic violence based abuse. On the other hand, in between could be 4%- 9% of mortal casualties involving men could be credited to the incidence of domestic violence.

In the context of the United States of America, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services has reported that within the duration from 2010 to 2015, the most frequent perpetrators of violent abuse of children had been female parents who had been acting by their singular accord. According to Jouriles and McDonald (2015), up to 15.5 million children at the United States reside within the households and families where violence does occur for multiple times within per annum basis. Apart from this, there are seven million children who reside within the families where severe violence perpetrated by parents is a definite prospect. According to McDonald et al (2016), the majority of the nonfatal injuries (two third) received by the children and female victims of domestic violence at the United States of America, has occurred when such victims had been at home. Children had been residents of the particular households in 43% of such cases where domestic violence had been definite occurrences. 13485 children had been residing at the shelters for domestic violence victims and transitional facilities on a single month during 2017 at the United States of America.

Furthermore, according to Goldman‐Mellor et al (2016), the research by the NSPCC at the United Kingdom had outlined that the most extensive measure of domestic violence, comprising 78% of the cases which involved children as recipients of such abuse, had occurred at the homes of such individuals. Apart from this, the same report had also brought forward the fact that 40% to 60% of the women and men, who had previously imparted violent behaviour on adults, also had the inclination to violently behave with their children. In a similar manner, in the Asian context also, the scenario of domestic violence is also a complicated one. According to McFarlane et al (2017), at China, the children who could witness their parents battering each other, have 6.5 times greater propensity to be violently abused by their abusive parents as well in comparison to the children who belong to the non-abusive households. As per the research of Pearlman et al (2016), in China, in the year 2009 alone, up to 39000 infant girls had suffered mortality out of dearth of reception of adequate medical attention and care as an outcome of gender based discrimination. According to Callaghan et al (2018), there are approximately 1million children at Asia which have to suffer physically from severe forms of domestic violence. Finally, it could be observed that the study of the United Nations Secretary General on the Violence Against Children has outlined that 275 million children globally have been exposed to various form of domestic violence at various points in time.

One of the causes of domestic violence on children could be identified as the previous experiences of having to suffer abuse as a child. Family is primarily the most potent source of formative influence on the behaviour of the individual. Thus, it is one of the effective causes involving experiences of abuse

Another cause of domestic violence is the dearth of self-control by the perpetrator of violence on children of 12 to 18 years. The lack of control in terms of desisting from abusing or inflicting injuries on the children of this age group could be identified to be the source of domestic violence which is induced by uncontrolled behaviour.

Another cause could be outlined as the consumption of alcohol and drugs. Drinking of alcohol and taking of drugs could lead to the loss of self-control and this could induce abusive and violent behaviour. Since the children belonging to the age group of 12 to 18 years, it is mostly effortless to target such children by abusive parents or guardians. This could be further related to the households where such personnel could reside who could be consumers of narcotics and alcohol and who could have undergone experiences of domestic abuse. This could be considered to be a strategy of coping for the abuse victims who could become future perpetrators of domestic abuse on their partners and on children of the pre-specified age group (Howarth et al. 2016).

In similarity to the factors of alcohol and narcotics, the element of stress could be considered to be another source of domestic violence. Stress has been one of the most serious catalysts of domestic abuse since this could contribute to the complete non-functionality in terms of the ability to exercise self-control on part of the abusive person.

Finally, mental health related problems have a great likelihood of causing domestic violence where such violence perpetrated on children of 12 to 18 years of age could be spontaneous and unplanned. One significant aspect of this could be outlined as the domestic violence based mental behavioural anomalies could be broad based and could not be restricted only to the targeting of any particular individual or to any group of individuals such as children and teenagers of 12 to 18 years of age.

One of the most common contexts of domestic violence at the United Kingdom could be identified as lingering violence between parents which could have profound traumatic effect on the children. This has been one of the most frequently reported sources of suffering for the youngsters of 12 to 18 years of age. According to McDonald et al (2016), at the United Kingdom, 24.8% of the youngsters in between 12 and 18 years of age, had experienced some form of domestic violence at any given point of time. According to Jouriles and McDonald (2015), approximate 3% of the individuals between 12 to 17 years of age had been exposed to domestic violence within the previous 12 months. 63% of the cases of child victims of domestic abuse at the UK also suffered from other forms of maltreatment.

The primary objectives of prevention of domestic violence and the provisioning of support to the victims have been responsible for the different policies and legal regulations which have been formulated by the UK government from 1970s onwards. The utilisation of the multiagency based policy implementation approach has been standardised since the early 1990s. The legislative approaches have been so far formulated on the basis of the necessity to address the vulnerabilities of the women and children of different age groups. The effort has been invested towards enabling the domestic abuse victims to overcome the effects of cultural, social, economic and familial barriers.

According to Pearlman et al (2016) , the prevalence of violence involving the younger age groups, such as the 12 to 18 years old personnel within the United Kingdom had been considerable. Particularly, the women belonging to the 12 to 18 years of age group (11% of the entire number of female victims of domestic abuse at UK), during 2017, had greater propensity towards having to be subjected to differential forms of domestic abuse and violence than in comparison to the personnel who could be between 19 and 25 years of age (2.8% of the entire number of female victims) and 35 to 44 years (1.6% of the entire number of female victims) and 45 to 54 years (1.6% of the entire number of female victims) and 55 to 59 years (0.8% of the entire number of female victims)( ons.gov.uk, 2018).

The adoption of multi-agency based co-operation has been going on within the UK since the mid 1990s and this has been considered to be the most preferred method of addressing the domestic violence and abuse cases involving children and youngsters. The Home Office Inter-Agency Circular on domestic violence, from 1995 onwards and the Crime and Disorder Act in 1998 have been two significant policy examples in this direction. The various recent developments which could be identified in this context are as the following:

1: Changes which have been introduced in the FLA.

2: Application of the DVCVA.

3: Formulation of Specialist Domestic Violence Courts (SDVCs).

4: Formulation of the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs).

5: Formulation of the Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) and Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hubs (MASHs).

The impacts of domestic violence on the health of the victims of the previously specified age group could be, are varied depending on the developmental age of the victim while having to be exposed to such forms of violence. The factors of significance in this regard are residential conditions where violence, intimidation and coercive control are common. The resultant impacts could be determined on the psychological, emotional, physical and cerebral health. Apart from these, the educational and social developments of such victims are also affected considerably. Such effects also extend to the likelihood that such youngsters of 12 to 18 years of age at the UK could become future perpetrators of domestic abuse and violence when they could reach their adulthood. According to Fredland et al (2016), the most dominant behavioural health impacts on domestic violence victim youngsters of 12 to 18 years of age could be identified as dearth of concentration, unwarranted aggression, hyperactivity, disobedience, sleep deprivations, nightmares, apparent lack of emotions, wariness, anxiety withdrawals from the social activities and generally low self esteem, pessimism about their future and cravings of having home conditions which could be devoid of any violence. The physical impacts involve bruises, minor and serious injuries as well as, occasionally broken bones.

Aim and Objectives

Aim of the Research study

The overall aim of the research project is to academically investigate the impact of domestic violence on the youngsters of 12 to 18 years of age. The aim has been constituted for the purpose of achievement effective resonation of the thematic research objectives with the overall research topic.

Objectives of the Research study

To assess the prevalence of the domestic violence based conditions within the United Kingdom. To specifically identify the health and wellbeing monitoring of the conditions of young individuals between 12 to 18 years of age within the tenure of 2014 to 2018 To improve knowledge in a measurable manner regarding the health and wellbeing perspectives associated with the domestic violence affected young victims.

To evaluate the effectiveness and shortcomings of the observed health and wellbeing perspectives. To formulate time bound recommendations for the governmental agencies for future progression of effective policy development regarding addressing the health and care issues of domestic violence based destabilisation of the psyche of youngsters of 12 to 18 years of age.

The aims and objectives of the research have been formulated to describe, with considerable relevance, the goal of the proposed research study. The objectives and the aim are realistic from the perspective that these provide the underlying research rationale for the selection of the particular research issue. The objectives as well as the aim of the research are also reflective of the various stages through which the entire research project needs to progress to finally culminate at the development of the recommendations which could be provided by the Researcher.

Methodology

The selection of the research methodology has been inclusive of the Secondary Research process. The Researcher has intended to review and evaluate the existing research material concerning the selected research topic. This has been considered as a viable method to assess the research data which could be gathered from published secondary data sources (Johnston, 2017).

The key words which would be utilised by the Researcher in this context would be Self-blame, Helplessness, Grief, Ambivalence, Fear, Dread, Terror, Worry, Sadness, Helplessness, Shame, Anger and Numbness. In this respect, the underlying rationale of the selected research methodology could be further comprehended. This methodology is effective particularly to analyse the specific circumstantial evidence of the pathological and psychological impacts of domestic violence on young personnel within the age group of 12 to 18 years. From a collective outlook, this effort is related to a specific objective (Kumar, 2019). This objective is to constantly maintain the factual clarity regarding the evaluation of the scale of the impact of domestic violence on the health and wellbeing of the young citizens of UK. Apart from this, the research methodology of secondary research and data review process is also intended to be utilised by the Researcher to assess the efficacy of the governmental intervention strategies which had been formulated during period of 2014 to 2018. The focus of the data review efforts would be on the overall scenario of domestic abuse related dynamics and the associated impact of the same on the psychological frameworks of the youngsters of the pre-defined age group. Furthermore, the Boolean operators which would be utilised would be AND, OR and NOT.

These specifications, which are also to be considered to be the reflective of the search inclusion and exclusion criteria for the research literature evaluation, could be identified as the following:

1: The criteria of investigation of different avenues through which the youngsters affected by domestic violence could be identified at the initial stages of their ordeal. The research review would make specific efforts to comprehend the effect of the existing information and educational services which are provided by the UK governments to effectively encourage the affected victims to seek medical support and guidance from external sources such as from the peers (Goldman‐Mellor et al. 2016).

2: The criteria of outlining of the most effective research methods to determine the physical and psychological health components which become the most affected in the young victims of domestic violence.

3: The search inclusion criteria would further take into account the aspects of behavioural health of such youngsters after their victimhood could become apparent. The debilitating effects of having to suffer abusive behaviour or having to witness domestic violence at the formative years would be emphasised upon.

4: Assessment of the extent of the potential of trauma and other effects of domestic violence to disrupt the basic development on the children and young people related to such a specific age group.

Such assessment would involve published and evidence based medical research concerning a host of different physical and psychological impacts on both children and young personnel. The inclusion criteria would further focus upon the following:

1: The duration of exposure of the victim to domestic violence.

2. The age of the young victim while the exposure could have taken place.

3. The possibility of child abuse which could have been experienced by the child victim in conjunction with domestic violence.

4.The presence of various stressors which could enhance the effect of domestic abuse and violence. Such stressors include the extent of poverty, incidence of violence at the community levels, substance abuse by the peers and the parents, history of mental illness and finally, the occurrence of disruptions in natural development of familial existence.

5. The availability of secured emotional attachment with the adults and guardians who could be non-abusive.

6. Presence of three critical psycho-social constituents of the victims of domestic violence such as the supportive social networks, ethnic lineages and cultural distinctiveness.

7. The skills which the child or the young victim could have in terms of positively coping with the experiences of such abuse and violence.

8. Accessibility to education, health, residential conveniences, social services and employment (for the comparatively young personnel).

In this context, the Researcher has decided to conduct the entire strategy of searching and evaluating the research literature through the search engines of Google Scholar and Google Books (Silverman, 2016). The academic and professional data bases which could be utilised by the Researcher would be associated with the differential publications which would have to be authentic enough to have been endorsed by various different academic organisations such as those of the Universities of the UK and different governmental agencies. These materials would be the previously published research thesis papers by earlier researches conducted on the same research topic. Apart from these, books and governmental reports, journals and periodicals which could be published by the different national agencies, dealing with the same subject literature, would also be consulted (Flick, 2015).

The critical appraisal tool would be selected by the Researcher in the form of intervention based cohort studies. This would involve a five step based comprehensive review of the arguments and available literature. These five steps are identifiable as investigating the available research, accessing the relevant material and appraisal of the existing arguments. Special emphasis would be concentrated upon the utilisation of the RAMBOMAN tool of appraisal. This would include the randomisation of sequences of the identified results various psychological impacts of domestic violence on the victims f the specified age groups. Furthermore, this appraisal tool would be utilised for the purpose of detecting the differential and crossover elements which could become evident through the study discourse. The RAMBOMAN appraisal tool would concentrate upon the baseline characteristics of the affected children. This would also take into account the mean age of the overall victims of the predefined age group and four different categories related with the same. These would be the gender identities, the ethnicity and the financial status of the victims.

The tool of forming research literature based log charts would be considered to be effective by the Researcher to be applicable regarding the critical appraisal of the entire literature which would be identified for the performing of the secondary research based process. Apart from this, the Researcher would also formulate a conceptual framework of the entire research literature evaluation process through which the different stages of the data collection and evaluation could be depicted in a thoroughly assured and systematic manner (Walliman, 2017).

Dig deeper into Domestic Abuse Among African Immigrants with our selection of articles.

Ethical Considerations

The ethical considerations concerning the research literature would be performed by the Researcher through the utilisation of only the most authentic literature which could be available and could be accessed by the Researcher. Careful effort would be invested towards citing all of the necessary sections of the information and data which could be gleaned from different sources and the citations would be performed in the most systematic manner as well to outline the credits to the appropriate sources of information (Hartas, 2015). This would be effective to avoid any form of similarity index or plagiarism with any previously published research study. Since the research would be based upon exclusively secondary research process, there would be no necessity to seek any approval from Ethics Review Committee since no primary research based participant information anonymity or arranging for mandatory consent from the research participants.

Reference List

Afolabi, O.E., 2015. Domestic Violence, Risky Family Environment and Children: A Bio-Psychology Perspective. International Journal of Special Education, 30(2), pp.44-56.

Barter, C., Stanley, N., Wood, M., Lanau, A., Aghtaie, N., Larkins, C. and Øverlien, C., 2017. Young people’s online and face-to-face experiences of interpersonal violence and abuse and their subjective impact across five European countries. Psychology of violence, 7(3), p.375.

Callaghan, J.E., Alexander, J.H., Sixsmith, J. and Fellin, L.C., 2018. Beyond “witnessing”: children’s experiences of coercive control in domestic violence and abuse. Journal of interpersonal violence, 33(10), pp.1551-1581.

Díez, C., Fontanil, Y., Alonso, Y., Ezama, E. and Gómez, L.E., 2018. Adolescents at serious psychosocial risk: what is the role of additional exposure to violence in the home?. Journal of interpersonal violence, 33(6), pp.865-888.

Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner's guide to doing a research project. Sage.

Fredland, N., McFarlane, J., Symes, L., Maddoux, J., Pennings, J., Paulson, R., Binder, B. and Gilroy, H., 2016. Modeling the intergenerational impact of partner abuse on maternal and child function at 24 months post outreach: Implications for practice and policy. Nursing outlook, 64(2), pp.156-169.

Goldman‐Mellor, S., Caspi, A., Arseneault, L., Ajala, N., Ambler, A., Danese, A., Fisher, H., Hucker, A., Odgers, C., Williams, T. and Wong, C., 2016.Committed to work but vulnerable: Self‐perceptions and mental health in NEET 18‐year olds from a contemporary British cohort. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(2), pp.196-203.

Hartas, D. ed., 2015. Educational research and inquiry: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Howarth, E., Moore, T.H., Welton, N.J., Lewis, N., Stanley, N., MacMillan, H., Shaw, A., Hester, M., Bryden, P. and Feder, G., 2016. IMPRoving Outcomes for children exposed to domestic ViolencE (IMPROVE): an evidence synthesis. Public Health Research, 4(10), pp.1-342.

Johnston, M.P., 2017. Secondary data analysis: A method of which the time has come. Qualitative and quantitative methods in libraries, 3(3), pp.619-626.

Jouriles, E.N. and McDonald, R., 2015. Intimate partner violence, coercive control, and child adjustment problems. Journal of interpersonal violence, 30(3), pp.459-474.

Kumar, R., 2019. Research methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners. Sage Publications Limited.

McDonald, S.E., Shin, S., Corona, R., Maternick, A., Graham-Bermann, S.A., Ascione, F.R. and Williams, J.H., 2016. Children exposed to intimate partner violence: identifying differential effects of family environment on children's trauma and psychopathology symptoms through regression mixture models. Child abuse & neglect, 58, pp.1-11.

McFarlane, J., Fredland, N.M., Symes, L., Zhou, W., Jouriles, E.N., Dutton, M.A. and Greeley, C.S., 2017.The intergenerational impact of intimate partner violence against mothers on child functioning over four years. Journal of family violence, 32(7), pp.645-655.

Pearlman, D.N., Zierler, S., Gjelsvik, A. and Verhoek-Oftedahl, W., 2016. Neighborhood environment, racial position, and risk of police-reported domestic violence: a contextual analysis. Public health reports.

Roberson, C. and Wallace, P.H., 2016. Family violence: Legal, medical, and social perspectives. Routledge.

Silverman, D. ed., 2016. Qualitative research. Sage.

Walliman, N., 2017. Research methods: The basics. Routledge.