Therapy with Harming Fathers, Victimized Children and their Mothers after Parental Child Sexual Assault
Parental child sexual assault is one of the most hidden and complex forms of child abuse and one of the most difficult to guard against. This is the first book to provide an evidence-based approach to working with parental child sexual assault which includes intervention with the offending father, child victim, mothers, and other non-offending parents and family members.
Building on 25 years of experience with the Cedar Cottage Program, a treatment model aimed at working therapeutically with parental child sexual offenders and victims, this book is grounded in the authors extensive knowledge as clinicians and researchers. Underpinned by current international research on the extent, nature and dynamics of intra-familial sexual offending and treatment outcomes, the model is fully described to enable understanding and implementation for new and experienced therapists, illustrated by extensive use of case examples drawn from clinical practice. By examining parental perpetrator tactics and behaviour in the lead up to child sexual assault, the chapters consider therapeutic approaches for child victims and families affected by parental sexual assault and aim to forge enduring safety for future potential victims.
Providing a comprehensive overview to working therapeutically, this book serves as an invaluable resource for supporting professionals in determining the best practice for long-term safety, whether the client is the child, offender or family.
Dale Tolliday OAM is the Clinical Advisor Sexual and Violent Behaviour, NSW Health and Clinical Advisor to the New Street Services within NSW Health. Dales work with people who have sexually harmed others spans nearly 30 years. Dales professional training is in Social Work and Law. He has a particular interest in training and professional standards for people working with those who have sexually harmed children. Dale is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers and a founding member and past President of the Australia and New Zealand Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abuse (ANZATSA).
Jo Spangaro is a Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales where she teaches in the social work program. She is an internationally recognised researcher in the field of health responses to gender-based violence. Her research draws on over 20 years practice and policy experience in domestic and sexual violence, with both victims and offenders. Jo is a member of the New South Wales Sexual, Domestic and Family Violence Council. Jo worked as a treatment coordinator at Cedar Cottage and later chaired the programs advisory board.
Lesley Laing is Honorary Associate Professor in Social Work in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney where her research and teaching focus on violence against women and children. Her research builds on policy and practice experience in community health, child and adolescent mental health, child protection and violence against women. She was founding Director of the Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse and the NSW Health Education Centre against Violence.
Therapy with Harming Fathers, Victimized Children and their Mothers after Parental Child Sexual Assault
Forging Enduring Safety
Dale Tolliday, Jo Spangaro and Lesley Laing
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2018 Dale Tolliday, Jo Spangaro and Lesley Laing
The right of Dale Tolliday, Jo Spangaro and Lesley Laing to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Tolliday, Dale, 1957- author. | Spangaro, Jo (Joanne) author. | Laing, Lesley, author.
Title: Therapy with harming parents, mothers and victimized children after parental child sexual assault : forging enduring safety / Dale Tolliday, Jo Spangaro and Lesley Laing.
Description: 1st Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017054059 | ISBN 9781138286450 (hbk) | ISBN 9781138286467 (pbk) | ISBN 9781315268439 (ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Child sexual abuse. | Abusive parents--Behavior modification. | Sexual disorders in children--Treatment.
Classification: LCC HV6570 .T65 2018 | DDC 362.76/86--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017054059
ISBN: 978-1-138-28645-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-28646-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-26843-9 (ebk)
The sexual abuse of a child by their parent is a profound violation of trust that has the potential for devastating, life-long impacts on the victimized child. It also fractures family relationships, in particular the motherchild relationship and the victimized childs relationship with siblings, but also relationships across the extended family. We wrote this book to share the knowledge gained over 25 years practice by the therapeutic team at Cedar Cottage, the Pre-Trial Diversion of Offenders Program based in Sydney, Australia. This program was a unique collaboration between the justice and health sectors. It ensured that parents who had sexually abused a child were held legally accountable for their serious criminal behaviour while at the same time being encouraged to take responsibility by facing up to their victim and all others harmed about their abuse and the tactics that they had employed to establish the conditions for abuse, to conceal it and to avoid the consequences of discovery.
Establishing a program such as this takes considerable political courage to move beyond simple law and order responses, which fail to recognize that few incest offenders are prosecuted through the traditional criminal justice system, leaving those victimized burdened with guilt, shame and divided family relationships, and potential future victims unprotected. The victim-centred, family approach to therapy described in this book aims to end the abuse of the victimized child; to protect potential future victims; and to repair the harms done to the victimized child and all family members.
Each author brings a unique history of engagement with the Cedar Cottage Program. Dale Tolliday was Director of the program from its first intake of participants in 1989 and subsequently to 2010. He was Clinical Advisor to the program until its closure in 2014 and remains Clinical Advisor on sexual and violent behaviour to NSW Health. Jo Spangaro was a Treatment Coordinator in the program for 12 months in 1994 and later Chair of its interagency advisory board in her role as Policy Manager, Child Protection and Violence Prevention for the NSW Health Department from 2000 to 2005. Lesley Laing, together with Bronywn Tuffy, wrote the initial proposal for the therapeutic program and later conducted doctoral research with fathers, mothers and children as they moved through each stage of the program.
