Abstract
In July 1985 Steve and Susan Amphlett established Parents Against Injustice (PAIN) to support and represent parents falsely accused of child abuse. The Amphletts ran the organization from their own home, and struggled to gain funding, before closing PAIN in 1999. PAIN was to an extent a reflection of the ‘new politics’ of identity and lifestyle, concurrent with the rise of New Social Movements, as falsely accused parents utilized communication technologies to make their experiences public, and to contact and support one another. At the same time, PAIN also sought to exert political influence through relatively traditional channels—contributing to public inquiries, encouraging their membership to write letters to Members of Parliament, and shaping media critique. Despite its small size, PAIN was able to act as an intermediary between parents and politicians, social workers, solicitors and physicians. PAIN represented, but also collated and shaped, parents’ experiences. The case study of PAIN suggests that small groups have been able to mediate between ‘public’ and ‘experts’, effectively working with both groups because of their ability to combine experience and professionalism. These groups have brought experiential knowledge into social policy, and more broadly shifted the roles and responsibilities accorded to children, families and parents.
Highlights
In July 1985 Steve and Susan Amphlett established Parents Against Injustice (PAIN) to support and represent parents falsely accused of child abuse
The history of late-twentieth-century Britain remains incomplete without attention to the small voluntary groups who acted as ‘buffers’ between new identity-constituencies and traditional sources of ‘expertise’ such as physicians, social workers, solicitors, and policy-makers
Alongside PAIN, groups have emerged to support, represent and empower adults who were abused as children, including national groups such as the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, One in Four UK and Phoenix Survivors, and regional groups including Survivors Swindon, Survivors Helping Each Other, Nottinghamshire, and Norfolk’s Surviving Together
Summary
PAIN worked effectively with falsely accused parents because the Amphletts themselves had had personal experience of the child protection system, as had many of PAIN’s other staff and volunteers. Susan Amphlett described PAIN as a ‘self-help organisation’ in the group’s first newsletter.[65] Providing a preface to this newsletter, the social work academic Nigel Parton wrote that PAIN ‘is not a professional group with its own professional interests to advance It is a group of parents who have come together primarily because of similar experiences. PAIN’s publicity materials regularly reiterated that the organization had been formed because of personal experience, and PAIN did seek to create structures through which falsely accused parents could help one another, through the phone line, support groups, and the system of Regional Administrators. The leaders of PAIN mediated between parents and solicitors and physicians and social workers, and themselves became ‘experts’ in this area, their own knowledge-base stretching beyond personal experience alone
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