About PEGS

Dr. Amanda Holt (BA, MSc, PhD) is a Reader in Criminology at the University of Roehampton in London.

Much of  Amanda’s research in recent years has focused on the problem of adolescent family violence. Amanda is the author of the UK’s first book on the topic, Adolescent-to-Parent Abuse: Current Understandings in Research, Policy and Practice (Policy Press, 2013) and is also the editor of Working with Adolescent Violence and Abuse towards Parents: Approaches and Contexts for Intervention (Routledge, 2016).

Amanda has completed several research projects on adolescent family violence, has spoken about it at international conferences and on local and national radio and television, and has worked with the UK Home Office to produce the first UK policy guidance on the issue. 

Dr Andrew Newman is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist. All of his practice as a psychologist has been in forensic settings. He regularly works with professional networks where there is concern within the family about child to parent abuse.

He has numerous roles that includes working in a Community Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service that covers a region of England.

In this role, he works with professional networks offering consultation and assessment where a young person (under 18) is considered a risk to others and presents with mental health difficulties, to include neurodiversity and learning disability.

Dr Newman is also the clinical lead for the Bristol Probation Mentalisation Based Therapy (MBT) Service. He is currently the Child and Adolescent Representative & Treasure of the British Psychological Society (BPS), Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP), Faculty of Clinical Forensic Psychology.

In addition, he regularly offers training to external agencies and presents at conferences. He offers expert witness assessment for the family court, crown court, youth court, magistrates and parole board and has published a number of papers within the field of psychology.

Shani Wright is a qualified social worker who works for a local authority. Before this role she was an education welfare worker, learning mentor and qualified careers adviser too.

She has over 15 years’ experience working with children and families making sure that the children’s voice is paramount but also supporting parents get the right support for themselves to improve their situation.

Vickie Crompton is the Domestic Abuse & Sexual Violence Partnership Manager for Cambridgeshire & Peterborough and has been the strategic lead for domestic abuse since 2010.  In this role, she is responsible for the MARAC process and the Independent Domestic Violence Adviser service, which is growing each year.

She is keen to ensure that the issue of Child to Parent Abuse is addressed effectively across the area, and will be one of few areas in the country with a dedicated CPA Adviser for parents in the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub.

Before working in domestic abuse, she was the substance misuse commissioner – responsible for young people’s and adults’ drug and alcohol treatment services in Cambridgeshire for a decade.

Vickie promotes a trauma-informed approach to service delivery: “so many people face challenges on a daily basis, services must have kindness and humanity at their heart as an absolute minimum.  CPA can be misunderstood as a failure in parenting, which can feel victim-blaming for those suffering abuse, I am determined to increase awareness and support so that parents no longer need to suffer alone.”

Thien Trang Nguyen Phan has over 13 years of experience working in the field of domestic abuse and violence against women as, among others, Independent Domestic Violence Advisor (IDVA), Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) Coordinator and Manager, Training Lead, and Criminal Justice Project Officer helping coordinating the Specialist Domestic Abuse Courts at Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse (Standing Together), an innovative second-tier organisation who aims to achieve system change through a coordinated community response to domestic abuse.

She recently completed her doctoral research at the Policing Institute for the Eastern Region (PIER), Anglia Ruskin University, focusing on mothers’ experience of abuse by their adult children. She has drawn on her professional and academic expertise to further research and practice in domestic homicides and domestic homicide reviews as a Research Assistant with the National Policing Vulnerability, Knowledge, and Practice Programme (VKPP) Domestic Homicide Project and, currently, a Domestic Homicide Review Chair Associate with Standing Together.

She has delivered trainings and presentations on adult family violence and adult child to parent abuse to a wide audience. 

Caroline Caesar-Caston is a Mental Health Advocacy Service Manager trained in Independent Mental Health Advocacy and Mental Health First Aid, as well as having a BSc (Hons) in Couns. Psy. and MBPsS.

A mental health, adult, adolescent, child and families practitioner, passionate in promotion of trauma-informed support and recovery interventions, Caroline has specialties in advocacy, counselling, youth offending services, and children's services.