Research into physical punishment of children will provide timely insights

A new programme of research is seeking to produce important, timely insights into the physical punishment of children in the UK. The research will address a lack of UK research in this area and expects to generate high-quality causal evidence on the impacts of physical punishment on children's development and well-being, complemented by qualitative research exploring questions around law reform.

The research, which is funded at £340,000 by The Nuffield Foundation, sees Dr Anja Heilmann, Professor Yvonne Kelly and Dr Rebecca Lacey partnering with the NSPCC and also working with Future Views Today to involve children and young people in the design of the study.

The new programme involves both quantitative and qualitative research and builds on earlier work which has reviewed existing evidence and informed law reform in Scotland.

Explaining the background to the research, Principal Investigator Anja Heilmann said: "Physical punishment is the most common form of violence against children. Despite the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stating that protection from physical punishment is a right of every child, it is still legal in most countries. Scotland and Wales have recently enacted legislation prohibiting physical punishment in all settings. However, physical punishment in the home remains legal in England and Northern Ireland."

She added: "Research has shown that physical punishment is detrimental to healthy development, but most of the evidence has come from the USA. Research using UK data is very limited, a gap this project will address."

The research team plans to work closely with an advisory group of children and young people to explore the issue of physical punishment and to develop ideas for analysing data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study to examine the impact of physical punishment on child outcomes. The NSPCC will support the researchers' efforts to engage with stakeholders including charities, policymakers, practitioners and parents themselves to improve our understanding of issues around law reform in this area. 

ICLS Director, Yvonne Kelly, said: "The recent law reforms in Scotland and Wales provide a window of opportunity for UK research on physical punishment to directly inform policy developments in England and Northern Ireland so we are delighted to have received support from the Nuffield Foundation to conduct this important work, which we hope will contribute to Nuffield Foundation's mission to advance the welfare of children and families, as well as legal justice."  

Links

• ESRC International Centre For Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health (ICLS)
• Anja Heilmann in conversation with the Children and Young People's Commissioner for Scotland, Bruce Adamson and former Irish Senator Jillian van Turnhout on ICLS' Lifecourse Podcast
• Equally protected?: a review of the evidence on the physical punishment of children Report by Anja Heilmann, Yvonne Kelly, Richard Watt, published by the NSPCC
• Physical punishment and child outcomes: a narrative review of prospective studies Journal article by Anja Heilmann, Anita Mehay, Richard G Watt, Yvonne Kelly, Joan E Durrant, Jillian van Turnhout and Elizabeth T Gershoff, The Lancet
• There is no longer a debate. End the physical punishment of children now! Blog, Child of our Time (UCL)