Pointers for Practice: Practitioner responses to resistance and aggression

Adults at risk and their carers may respond in different ways when they are informed of initial checks and evaluation. Those initial responses may continue throughout the assessment. Practitioners encountering hostility and aggression should consider how they are responding to this as their response may distort the enquiries and deflect attention away from the adult at risk and their needs.

There are several different responses that practitioners make when encountering resistance and confrontation which include:

Colluding with the carer who is an abuser by avoiding conflict.

• Avoiding contact in person (home visits);
• Using remote contact methods (e.g. telephone and email contact instead of visits to see the adult at risk);
• Accepting the carer's version of events unquestioningly in the absence of objective evidence;
• Focusing on less contentious issues such as benefits / housing;
• Focusing on the carer's needs, not the adult at risk's;
• Not asking to see the adult at risk alone;

Changing behaviour to avoid conflict.

• Filtering out or minimising negative information;
• Conversely, placing undue weight on positive information (the 'rule of optimism') and only looking for positive information;
• Fear of confronting family members about concerns;
• Keeping quiet about worries and not sharing information about risks and assessment with others in the inter-agency network or with managers

All practitioners involved in these types of assessments should ask themselves whether:

• They are relieved when there is no answer at the door;
• They are relieved when they get back out of the door;
• They say, ask and do what they would usually say, ask and do when making a visit or assessment;
• They have identified and seen the key people;
• They have observed evidence of others who could be living in the house

Practitioners and their supervisors should keep asking themselves the question: what might the adult at risk have been feeling as the door closes behind a practitioner leaving the family home?

For further information see:

Robinson, A, Rees, A and Dehaghani R (2018) Findings from a thematic analysis into adult deaths in Wales: Domestic Homicide Reviews, Adult Practice Reviews and Mental Health Homicide Reviews Cardiff University (Accessed 21/ 7/ 2019)

SCIE (2018) Gaining access to an adult suspected to be at risk of neglect or abuse: a guide for social workers and their managers in England. London: SCIE (Accessed 21/7/2019)