ABSTRACT
Adulthood, following adolescence, is the longest phase of the life-course, and represents a period of ongoing development and opportunities for both harm and healing. In adulthood, there is great diversity of pathways into and away from victimisation, revictimisation and sequelae of earlier victimisation, as well as perpetrator trajectories, offending and recidivism. As adults also carry the responsibility for the children in their care, parents are implicated in the response to and prevention of childhood family maltreatment even when they are not directly abused or abusive. In the later stages of adulthood, parents may become dependent on their children, and the relationships of responsibility shift. Finally, societal level responses to and infl uences on violence and abuse are generally shaped and reproduced by the adult population, and adults who are neither perpetrators nor victims remain implicated in the shared responsibility for positive values and attitudes towards healthy, safe and respectful interpersonal relationships.
