In a recent (28th August 2024) news article the BBC drew attention to the lack of training for social workers on coercive and controlling behaviour https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4970jdgq7o. The Article stated that despite Coercive control being a criminal offence since 2015, training on the subject for social workers is extremely poor with some universities only offering one hour of training during the entire three year course.
Is this gap unique? We certainly don’t think so. It’s clear that over the past years there has been a lot of attention on domestic abuse and on coercive control, with phrases such as ‘gaslighting’ becoming commonly used and thrown about in all areas including the school yard but what does it all mean?
Coercive control is a type of domestic abuse that is a crime and can be prosecuted. It is not limited to a single incident, but rather a pattern of behaviour that occurs over time or on multiple occasions.
The Home Office has published statutory guidance to help identify, charge, prosecute, and convict coercive control. Some examples of coercive control include:
- Preventing access to communication
- Preventing access to medical equipment or medication
- Preventing access to health or social care
- Reproductive coercion
- Using substances to control the victim
- Using children or pets to control the victim
- Using the victim’s workplace to control them
- Preventing normal leisure activities
So what about Gaslighting?
Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that involves a partner repeatedly manipulating another person’s reality to gain power and control:
- Denying facts
- The gaslighter denies facts, the situation, or the victim’s feelings and needs.
- Questioning reality
- The gaslighter convinces the victim that they’re remembering things wrong or misinterpreting events.
- Making the victim doubt themselves
- The gaslighter presents their own thoughts and feelings as the truth, making the victim question their own perceptions and judgments.
- Shifting the focus
- The gaslighter shifts the focus of concern from their abusive behaviour to the victim’s supposed emotional instability
With society learning about these terms and using them frequently, how does this impact on our work? In order to answer this we have to first accept a fact about perpetrators of domestic abuse and that is that they will often lie in order to avoid responsibility. This can, and does, include them presenting to friends, family members and to professionals as being the victim of the abuse. We have to stop deluding ourselves that only victims see the media messages and accept that when we educate society we are, by default, educating perpetrators. We teach them the language to use to appear credible, the ways to behave to remove any doubt and the services that they can use to continue to manipulate and revictimise individuals whilst avoiding personal consequences. So do we avoid educating society? Of course not, but with knowledge comes risk and this is something we cannot ignore.
So what about the training gap? With these increasingly complex cases it is vital that we address the training gap that exists. We know that social workers , and other professionals feel woefully underskilled to respond to these complex allegations and increasingly, counter allegations of abuse. Phoenix can help with this and does provide training around these elements including dealing with counter allegations and understanding perpetrators however this is an issue that cannot be tackled by any single agency and really needs a coordinated, funded response to stop us from continuing to place victims and families at risk and also risking the continued burn out of professionals within the field.
