Profile

Areas of expertise

• Child abuse and child protection
• Gender and crime
• Violence against women

Brief biography

My interest in social policy, and particularly the criminal justice and child protection systems within that, was first sparked when I was involved in the rape crisis movement for five years in the 1980s. After that I went to study social policy as a postgraduate student at the LSE (having done my undergraduate degree in English Literature and Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge earlier), and became interested more broadly in women’s experiences of the welfare state. My PhD research reflected all those interests, focussing on women whose children had been sexually abused by another family member, and exploring their perspectives both on events within their families and on state intervention. Child sexual abuse has become a matter of huge public concern in recent years but at that time the extent of the problem was just beginning to be recognised. Despite the growth of awareness and developments in policy since, only a small proportion of cases still come to the attention of any agency, and by and large the work of protecting children is done by their parents, mostly their mothers. Understanding their perspectives is therefore vital to practitioners.

My recent work has focussed more on the long-term impacts of childhood abuse – which include an increased risk of mental health problems, offending, and parenting problems in adult life, amongst other outcomes - and their implications for services. A project commissioned by the local health authority focussed on the needs of adults with a history of childhood sexual abuse. The findings were used to help them develop more appropriate services in the community with the aim of preventing unnecessary hospitalisation for mental health problems. Another piece of work, for the prison service, reviewed the literature on experiences of victimisation amongst women offenders, and considered the implications in relation both to their duty of care (for a population with a high level of mental health problems) and to the aim of reducing reoffending. I’ve recently completed a project with the NSPCC exploring the experiences of families living on a low income. Parents with histories of maltreatment often lack the support from extended family members which helps to buffer the stresses of poverty. Children who are maltreated in this context may be doubly disadvantaged unless services become more responsive to their and their parents’ needs. It is always exciting to be engaged in research which can make a difference to policy and practice, and in turn to people’s lives.

I teach option modules on Gender, Crime and Justice, Victimisation and Child Abuse and Social Policy.

Research

PhD supervision

PhDs supervised to completion include:

• Nicole Westmarland, Rape and human rights legislation: a feminist perspective
• Cathy Davis, Housing association responses to women homeless because of domestic violence
• Stewart Kirk, Social workers’ child protection practice in cases of familial sexual abuse of adolescent girls

Publications

Featherstone, B, Hooper, CA, Scourfield, J & Taylor, J (eds) (2010), Gender and Child Welfare, Wiley-Blackwell.

Hooper, CA (2009 f/c), ‘Gender, maltreatment and young people’s offending’, in B Featherstone, CA Hooper, J Scourfield & J Taylor (eds), Gender and Child Welfare, Wiley.

Gorin S, Hooper CA, Dyson C Cabral C & (2008), Ethical challenges in research with hard to reach families, Child Abuse Review, 17, pp 275-287.

Hooper CA, Gorin S, Cabral C & Dyson C (2007), ‘Poverty and ‘place’: does locality make a difference?’, Poverty 128 (Autumn), pp 7-10.

Hooper CA, Gorin S, Cabral C & Dyson C (2007), Living with hardship 24/7: the diverse experiences of families in poverty in England, The Frank Buttle Trust.

Hooper, CA and Kalowski, A (2006), ‘Rewriting the paedophile: a feminist reading of The Woodsman’, Feminist Review, Special Issue on Sexual Moralities, 83, pp 149-155.

Hooper, CA and Warwick, I (2006), ‘Gender and the politics of service provision for adults with a history of childhood sexual abuse’, Critical Social Policy, Special Issue on Gender and Child Welfare, 26, pp 467-479.

Hooper, CA (2005), ‘Child maltreatment’ in Bradshaw J and Mayhew E (ed), The Well-being of Children in the UK 2005 (volume 2), London : Save the Children/University of York.

Hooper, CA and Koprowska, J (2004), ‘The vulnerabilities of children whose parents have been sexually abused in childhood – towards a new framework’, British Journal of Social Work, 34, pp 165-180.

Hooper, CA (2003), Abuse, interventions and women in prison: a literature review , Home Office/HM Prison Service.

Hooper, CA (2002), ‘The maltreatment of children’ in Bradshaw J (ed), The Well-being of Children in the UK, London : Save the Children/University of York.

Hooper, CA and Koprowska, J (2000), ‘Reparative experience or repeated trauma? Child sexual abuse and adult mental health services’, in McCluskey, U & Hooper, CA (eds), Psychodynamic Perspectives on Abuse, London: Jessica Kingsley.

McCluskey, U and Hooper, CA (eds) (2000), Psychodynamic Perspectives on Abuse , London: Jessica Kingsley.

Hooper, CA (1992), Mothers Surviving Child Sexual Abuse , London: Routledge.