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Aim:The aim was to discover longitudinal trajectories and patterns of events preceding adolescent-to-mother family violence in a geographic locale in Australia.Design: This was a retrospective case series.Methods: Routinely collected administrative data were sourced and linked from police and health service electronic records for adolescents born between 1994 and 2006 who had been issued a legal action for a family violence-related offence (n = 775). A time-stamped log of events from birth (where available) was created. Process mining was employed to discover dominant events and trajectories in the log from birth until adolescents' first recorded offence against their mother.Results/Findings: Most adolescents in the case series offended against mothers (63%, n = 486). Trajectory analysis confirmed dominant early childhood events were repeated exposure to parental intimate partner violence (P-IPV), parental drug and/or alcohol use and neglect. During early adolescence, pathways towards adolescent-tomother violence involved other offending, drug and/or alcohol use and mental health service contact. Conclusion:The trajectories evidenced provide a complex picture of the emergence of adolescent-to-mother violence. From an early intervention perspective, it was found that many children and mothers were identifiable from police records in early childhood, at an average age of 35 months. Responses to adolescent family violence need to acknowledge the impact of childhood trauma and emerging mental health problems, along with strategies to mitigate the effect of P-IPV on mother-to-child relationships.Impact: This is the first large-scale study to specifically examine trajectories from birth for adolescents who engage in violence towards mothers. The findings have important implications for the design and delivery of early intervention childhood services and interagency collaboration in nursing and midwifery services. In early adolescence, contact with mental health services represents an opportunity for screening and support interventions. This is an important preventive timepoint for family violence, adolescent drug and alcohol use and other offences.

Current knowledge about the characteristics of adolescents involved in recidivist adolescent to parent violence offending remains limited. This study employed more than 50,000 linked administrative police (from birth) and health (from age five) data events to examine predictors of adolescent to parent violence recidivism in a geographically-distinct case series of 775 Australian adolescents. The predictive association between adverse childhood experiences, health and police involvement related characteristics and frequency of recidivism was found to vary by sex and level of exposure to parental intimate partner violence. Events occurring before an adolescent’s first offence, including sustained exposure to adverse childhood events and IPV exposure combined with sexual offence victimization, amplified the frequency of re-offending. Developmental life-course trajectories involving family violence verbal arguments, and other antisocial behaviors in mid to late adolescence, had a stronger predictive association with the frequency of re-offending. These results highlighted several key intervention points with adolescents and families across the life course.

AimTo discover developmental risk trajectories for emerging mental health problems among a sample of adolescent family violence offenders to inform service delivery focused on early preventative interventions with children and their families.DesignA retrospective case-series design employing data linkage.SettingAn Australian regional location.ParticipantsAdolescents (born between 1994 and 2006) issued a legal action by the NSW Police Force for an adolescent-to-parent family violence offense (n = 775).ProcedureDiscrete routinely collected episode data in police and health service electronic records for children, and police data for parents, were linked and transformed into longitudinal person-based records from birth to 19 years to identify trajectories for mental health problems.ResultsSixty-three percent (n = 489) of adolescents had contact with a mental health service before age 19. The majority of these adolescents received a diagnosis for a stress or anxiety disorder (n = 200). Trajectory analysis found childhood exposure to parental intimate partner violence and parental drug and/or alcohol use were dominant events in the pathway to receiving a mental health diagnosis. Being a victim of a sexual offense was found to increase the odds of adolescents having a diagnosis for each of the main mental health categories (with the exception of drug or alcohol disorders).ConclusionsPathways to mental health problems were characterized by inter-related adverse childhood events and poly-victimization for many adolescents. Early identification of at-risk children must be a continued focus of child health services in order to reduce and identify early emerging mental health problems.