Cruel But Not Unusual: Violence in Families in Canada, 3rd edition

by Ramona Alaggia (Editor), Cathy Vine (Editor)

Overview

Picture family life in Canada. Does it include women or girls being murdered, on average, every two and a half days? Or the fact that intimate partner violence counts as nearly one-third of all reports to police? Or that child or elder abuse is more common than you might imagine?

Written for students, instructors, practitioners, and advocates in all related fields, this expanded and updated third edition of Cruel But Not Unusual: Violence in Families in Canada offers the latest research, thinking, and strategies to address this hard reality in Canada today.

Violence takes many forms inside relationships and families, and the systems charged with responding and helping can actually add to the harm, further isolating and endangering victims. Nowhere is this more evident than in intentionally marginalized communities, such as Indigenous, Black, people of colour, LGBTQI2S+, people with disabilities, and immigrant, refugee, and non-status women. From recommendations on resisting anti-Black state-sanctioned violence, to a call to action on partner abuse within LGBTQI2S+ communities, the book offers bold ideas for moving forward, highlighting the work of researchers and activists from these communities.

Using a range of perspectives (feminist, trauma-informed, intersectional, anti-oppression) and including diverse couple and family relationships and settings (foster care, group homes, institutions), the contributors track violence across the life course, addressing the impact on the brain, trauma, coercive control, resilience, disclosing abuse, the MeToo movement, self-care, and providing practical case examples and guidelines for working with children, youth, adults, couples, families, and groups. The result is an authoritative source that offers new insights and approaches to inform understanding, policy, practice, and prevention.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771125352
Publisher:	Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Publication date:	09/27/2022
Edition description:	3rd ed.
Pages:	650
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ramona Alaggia is Associate Professor of Social Work and the Factor-Inwentash Chair in Children’s Mental Health at the University of Toronto where she teaches social work practice with children and their families. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, her studies examine disclosure processes of child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence survivors, the impact of various forms of justice on survivors of sexual violence, and help-seeking for survivors of intimate partner violence. The results of this research have culminated in Dr. Alaggia’s most recent publication, Risky Business: An Ecological Analysis of Intimate Partner Violence Disclosure. She currently consults to and evaluates programs delivering services to survivors and their children, and for fathers who expose their children to intimate partner violence.

Cathy Vine engages in research, writing and action projects to advance the well-being and rights of children and youth. Recently she worked with Ontario’s Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth to support young people to hold the first ever Youth Leaving Care Hearings at Queen’s Park, home of the Ontario Legislature. Previously, Cathy oversaw publication of 40 reports on children’s issues and worked extensively with children, youth, and adults affected by child abuse and intimate violence, conducting research and developing innovative support and clinical services. She taught part-time at the School of Social Work, Ryerson University, and publications include the recent co-authored report, Resilience: Successful Navigation through Significant Threat (2010), and the co-authored book, Gardens of Shame: The Tragedy of Martin Kruze & the Sexual Abuse at Maple Leaf Gardens (Greystone Press, 2002).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Radical Resilience for the Times We Live In / Ramona Alaggia and Cathy Vine
Spotlight: Radical Resilience—From Individual Self-Care to Collective Action
GROUNDING OUR WORK
1 Violence, Trauma, and Resilience / Michael Ungar, Delphine Collin-Vézina, and Bruce D. Perry
Spotlight: Guidelines for Trauma-Informed Practice to Build Resilience
2 Violence Against Women: A Structural Perspective / Colleen Lundy
Spotlight: A Stalled Revolution and Ways to Move Forward
3 Easier Said Than Done: Disclosing Gender-Based Violence in the MeToo Era / Ramona Alaggia Spotlight: Ten Ways to Provide a Trauma-Informed Response to Gender-Based Violence Disclosures
4 Giving Voice to Women and Children Killed in the Context of Domestic Homicide: Lessons Learned from Death Review Committees / Peter Jaffe, Deborah Sinclair, Laura Olszowy, Michael Saxton, Katherine Reif, and Carolyn O'Connor
Spotlight: Parent Alienation as a Shield Against Domestic Violence Allegations
INTENTIONALLY MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES AND VIOLENCE 5 Systemic Oppression, Violence, and Healing in Indigenous Families and Communities / Cyndy Baskin
Spotlight: Progress Report on the TRC's Calls to Action 1
6 Black Out: State-Sanctioned Violence and the Black Experience in Canada / Roberta K. Timothy
Spotlight: Recommendations for Resisting Anti-Black State-Sanctioned Violence
7 Linking the Structural Violence of Immigration to Gender-Based Violence Against Immigrant, Refugee, and Non-Status Women in Canada / Rupaleem Bhuyan and Margarita Pintin-Perez
Spotlight: Building Leadership Capacity to Address Gender-Based Violence Against Non-Status, Refugee, and Immigrant Women Across Canada
8 Taking Up Power, Control, and Exclusion: Partner Abuse Within LGBTQI2S+ Communities / J. Roy Gillis, Shaindl L. Diamond, and Mariam Ayoub
Spotlight: Community Call to Action
9 Violence, Protection, and Empowerment in the Lives of People with Disabilities / Sonia A. C. Sobon and Richard Sobsey
Spotlight: Questions about Empowerment and Domination
VIOLENCE ACROSS THE LIFE COURSE 10 More Than Just “Ghosts in the Nursery”: How Violence and Trauma in the Lives of Infants and Young Children Affect Parenting and Child Development / Angelique Jenney and Chaya Kulkarni
Spotlight: Baby Amy and the Impact of Intimate Partner Violence and Trauma
11 Addressing Child Maltreatment in Canada: What Have We Learned? / Cathy Vine, Melanie Doucet, Nico Trocmé, and Barbara Fallon
Spotlight: Three Ways to Reduce Child Maltreatment in Canada
12 “Correcting what is evil in the child”: Child Corporal Punishment and Canadian Law / Anne McGillivray and Joan E. Durrant
Spotlight: Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting
13 Thinking It Was Love: Adolescent Dating Violence / Martine Hébert, Alison Paradis, Mylène Fernet, Andréanne Fortin, and Laurie Fortin
Spotlight: SPARX, a Multicomponent Program
14 Whose Failure to Protect? Child Welfare Interventions When Men Abuse Mothers / Susan Strega
Spotlight: Promising Interventions with Violent Fathers
15 “Change Your Number”: When Technology Intersects with Coercive Control, Intimate Partner Violence, and Legal Systems / Ramona Alaggia, Carolyn O'Connor, and Marsha Scott
Spotlight: Domestic Abuse Act (Scotland)
16 Identifying, Assessing, and Counselling Male Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators and Abused Women / Leslie M. Tutty
Spotlight: Working With IPV Perpetrators—A Scary Prospect?
17 The Sombre Side of Care: The Abuse and Neglect of Older People in Canada / Lynn McDonald
Spotlight: Public Inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-Term Care Homes System Report
Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

"This book makes a positive contribution to our understanding of violence amongst intimates, especially in terms of emphasizing the continuum of violence. The literature reviewed in different chapters is often extensive.... I do recommend this book for university and college libraries.'' — Aysan Sev'er, Canadian Journal of Sociology

"Cruel but Not Unusual explores the dynamics and scope of violence in families and its long-term impact on women and children who experience it, as well as our societal response to it. Written for students, academics, and professionals in the field, the book offers new insights, critiques, and ideas to inspire and enhance our understanding and practice.... A valuable resource for moving us forward. '' — Lisa Tremblay, Herizons

From the Publisher