New views on how to stop the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment. Constructing a theory grounded in the perspective of care-experienced parents

Child maltreatment is a major issue, and it is considered a priority by public health policies around the world. Among the causes of abuse, mechanisms of intergenerational child maltreatment (ITCM) have become of central importance in research. However, although many studies have focused on this theme, there is limited exploration of the first-hand experiences of parents who have survived maltreatment, particularly in regard to their strength and resilience. The aim of my research was to provide a critical contribution to the development of the theoretical framework of ITCM by exploring the perspectives of those who appear to have interrupted it. Moreover, I sought to include groups underrepresented in previous studies, such as fathers and parents with school-aged children. For this purpose, I involved care-experienced parents, namely individuals who because of maltreatment in the family have a background in foster or residential care. We can consider care-experienced parents as ones who have been highly exposed to ITCM, with those who succeed in parenting potentially able to break such cycles. My main reference was the family practice framework (Morgan, 2011a), and I adopted a participatory research approach. I investigated my informants’ everyday parenting experiences, thereby obtaining a new understanding of how such parents handle complex situations often framed by risk factors. This approach encouraged me to consider life contexts more extensively and to move beyond an individual-focused interpretation, recognizing the socio-cultural dimensions inherent in parenting experiences. My research contributes to the debate on how to break cycles of maltreatment by introducing novel concepts, such as that of the “zero family”, whose implications for both theoretical development and practical applications are discussed. This is an article-based dissertation, and I will introduce eight publications authored during my PhD. Specifically, my research is part of a wider project (“Constructions of parenting on insecure grounds. What role for social work?”) focused on parenting in insecure circumstances, and which has been funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and University.