Journal of Family Violence最新文献

Purpose

The World Health Organisation acknowledges the health sector as playing a key role in responding to those who experience and use domestic, family and sexual violence. Limited resources need to be well spent to ensure the best outcomes for victim-survivors and their families. This study was undertaken to explore: What do victim-survivors, researchers and practitioners see as the key research priorities for improving health sector responses to domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia?

Methods

A Delphi methodology was adopted, with input from those with lived experience. Victim-survivors, researchers, practitioners and policy makers (n = 35) were engaged in a workshop and two rounds of Delphi surveys (n = 72 and 69).

Results

Participants highly rated four themes of research priorities 1) embedding the voices victim-survivors of domestic and family violence in health sector reform; 2) improving outcomes for children, young people and young families: 3) strengthening response to victim-survivors and perpetrators; and 4) better meeting the needs of victim-survivors from diverse backgrounds (including those with a disability, mental health issues, or from culturally diverse or Indigenous backgrounds).

Conclusions

This study identifies a solid research agenda for organisations and individuals interested in conducting or funding research to improve health sector responses to victim-survivors in Australia. It also demonstrates one way in which victim-survivors can be engaged in a meaningful way to inform future research about domestic, family and sexual violence.

Purpose

This article reports on the findings from a larger study focusing on women’s experiences of abuse and subsequent criminal justice interventions. While mothering was not initially the central concern of this research, it soon became clear that it played a key role in informing women’s decision-making within abusive relationships which could not be overlooked. As such, I explore the role of mothering and children in women’s decision-making and responses to the abuse.

Method

This research was underpinned by feminist principles. It involved semi-structured interviews conducted with twenty-nine Portuguese women, between September and December 2017. Data was analyzed thematically.

Results

Findings from this research show that mothering identities surpass victim status. In explaining their decision-making, women more commonly draw on their mothering identities, their behavior being guided by their perceived responsibilities to protect and care for their children. Due to social constructions of motherhood and mothering, in the Portuguese context and beyond, women struggle with the coexistence of both mothering identities and victim status, with the first inevitably erasing the second.

Conclusion

A better understanding of the complex ways in which women act to care for and protect their children within abusive relationships is needed. Contrary to the often perpetuated belief that abused women are incapable of caring for their children, this research highlights how their own victimization and risk is made secondary in their attempts to ensure their children’s safety and wellbeing. The implications of these findings for policy and practice are considered.

Purpose

As criticism of the criminalization of domestic violence (DV) has gained momentum, programs such as the Lethality Assessment Program (LAP) have been developed to enhance victim safety and improve collaboration between the criminal justice system and victim service community agencies. Few studies, however, have explored practitioners’ perceptions of the LAP, particularly as it relates to collaborative efforts between victim service and law enforcement agencies. This study was interested in identifying (1) how practitioners describe the goals of the LAP, (2) practitioners’ perceptions of and experiences with LAP implementation, 2) the perceived challenges, barriers, and successes of the LAP, and 4) practitioners’ perceptions of the LAP as it relates to its promise and effectiveness in expanding beyond a strictly criminal justice response to DV.

Methods

This descriptive, qualitative case study employed 17 semi-structured interviews to explore victim advocates’ and law enforcement officers’ (LEOs) experiences with the LAP in Virginia as an example of such collaborative efforts.

Results

Findings identify challenges and successes of the program that illustrate tensions and opportunities between the criminal justice system and victim advocacy. Examples of identified challenges included language and cultural barriers, DV victims declining to participate in the LAP, and officer resistance to implementing risk assessment. Successes included connecting DV victims to services and improving their knowledge surrounding abuse. Findings also highlight intended and unintended consequences of the program.

Conclusions

Policy implications regarding the potential for collaboration efforts to diminish exclusive reliance on the criminal justice system and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Purpose

The personal, economic, and societal costs and consequences of gender-based violence are significant. Although much violence intervention and prevention work occurs within academia, there is currently no coordinated workforce development approach to recruiting, training, and supporting the next generation of faculty focused on gender-based violence. Here we present an evaluation of Mentoring mcBEE—a mentorship and professional development program for new faculty from a range of disciplines from across the United States.

Methods

Before and after the mentoring program (2017 – 2019) and at least once during each academic term, fellows (n = 22) completed Redcap surveys to assess improvements in faculty skills, work life balance, job satisfaction, and research productivity. Surveys also included open-ended questions gauging fellows’ training and development needs and the value and limitations of the program. Data were analyzed using conventional content analysis with open-coding of free-text survey responses.

Results

Greater participation in this academic program significantly increased the size and support of participants’ networks, enhanced professorship skills, improved symptoms of poorer mental health, and increased academic productivity.

Conclusions

Gender-based violence continues to disproportionately impact the lives of women, girls, and sexual minorities regardless of biologic sex. Ensuring the educational and financial support needed to create and maintain the workforce who can address this health threat is a critical step in making a ‘future without violence’ a reality.

Purpose

Social workers and health professionals play a relevant role in the detection and intervention of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW). However, these professionals may exert public stigma against IPVAW survivors, which prevents disclosure, help seeking and affects women’s health. There are no comprehensive models that explain stigma functioning in Spain. Our aim was to explore the functioning of such stigma that may be exercised by social workers and health professionals in Spain. Their perceived impact of stigma on survivors was also studied.

Methods

Interviews with 18 providers were conducted and analyzed through template analysis.

Results

The findings confirmed the presence of stigma and revealed that it was often unintentional. Factors about the Roots of stigma were identified (e.g., Privileged social identities or Symptom-focused role of psychology), which triggered several Myths about IPVAW and survivors (e.g., Broken toy or Survivor-profile) and Stigmatizing responses (e.g., Being paternalistic or Judging) when offering professional help. Several consequences of these myths and responses showed the perceived high Cost of stigma for survivors (e.g., Leaving support services or Internalizing stigma).

Conclusions

The results confirmed the importance of effective professional training to prevent stigmatizing myths and responses. Training should reduce professionals’ patriarchal values, increase their knowledge about IPVAW, self-reflection on how personal experiences and social identity influence their practice, and self-reflection on their own practice in general. Such training should also promote an intersectional perspective on recovery, a view of survivors as agents, a contextual approach, active listening, close contact with survivors, and informed care.

Purpose

Post-relationship pursuit can range from normative to problematic, including stalking. While there are some theories and research about motivations for engaging in unwanted pursuit behaviors (UPBs), most lack the first-person perspectives of people who pursue. Little is known about the ways these individuals make sense of their behaviors and their related motivations. No qualitative studies have examined such meaning-making in non-forensic, young adult datasets.

Methods

In a larger survey study, 141 undergraduate students who endorsed a history of severe UPBs indicated their personal reasons for engaging in the UPBs. We used reflexive thematic analysis to analyze patterns across the dataset.

Results

Through our analytic co-creation of meaning, we conceptualized participants’ UPBs as located in narratives. Some participants understood their UPBs as instrumental ways to control their stories, using UPBs to grapple with (un)certainty or hold power over their former partner. Other participants understood their UPBs as powerlessly reactive in their story. A subset of participants denied ownership of their UPBs.

Conclusions

Severe UPBs are entwined in personal and social narratives, with people who pursue making sense of the behaviors as having diverse roles and motivations. Meaning-making about UPBs creates social narratives wherein people who pursue create complex realities, including being both victims and offenders, among others. Both personal and social interventions, such as psychotherapy and education respectively, are warranted for the prevention and treatment of severe UPBs. Future research should use more in-depth qualitative methods to understand pathways of UPBs and related processes.

Purpose

Examining the influence of policy change and socio-political factors is paramount for contextualizing and addressing sexual violence. The purpose of this paper is to provide findings from a secondary qualitative analysis of the impacts of national and local high-profile events on the dialogue and actions surrounding violence prevention and response on college campuses.

Methods

Data from mcBEE, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded project exploring the adoption and implementation of violence prevention programming on multiple college campuses in the United States were used for this analysis. Data include responses from 60-min telephone interviews with key informants (i.e., campus personnel in administrative roles or connected to violence prevention programming efforts) between 2017 and 2019.

Results

Interviews (n = 68) revealed that high-profile events (i.e., Title IX legislation, news coverage of sexual assault cases, and the #MeToo and It’s On Us movements) increased dialogue about violence prevention and response on some campuses, while others experienced activism and advocacy surrounding sexual assault, including greater accountability and response from campus leadership. Some participants connected national political discourse (i.e., the 2016 presidential election, Brett Kavanaugh nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court) to increases in violence perpetration and decreased reporting and help-seeking behaviors after sexual assault.

Conclusions

Sociopolitical events and shifts in national dialogue surrounding violence affect perceptions and behaviors among students, faculty, staff, and overall college campus communities. Identifying potential impacts of national events can inform future prevention and response efforts and mobilize campus communities toward meaningful change.

Introduction

Child maltreatment significantly impacts youths’ mental and physical health into adulthood. While resources can help, many victims only disclose their experiences to peers, often through social media. The way children use these platforms to reveal maltreatment is not well understood.

Objective

This research aimed to analyze disclosures of child maltreatment on the online platform TalkLife, focusing on the nature of disclosures, motivations, and subsequent actions or feelings described.

Methods

We conducted a two-phase qualitative content analysis of anonymized TalkLife posts. Initially, we devised a definition for child maltreatment, which we applied to 3,669 posts labeled “suspected family issues” by TalkLife algorithms, identifying 263 posts related to child maltreatment. We then further analyzed these using qualitative content analysis.

Results

TalkLife users revealed diverse maltreatment experiences with mental/emotional, physical, and sexual abuse mentioned most often. Disclosures, largely by victims, often cited nuclear family perpetrators. Factors triggering disclosures included recent abuse, emotional states, or seeing related posts. Users sought to vent, solicit advice, inquire about abuse, joke, or share desires. Many youth shared their emotional and traumatic responses to the abuse which spanned from confrontation to flight. A minority detailed others’ reactions to their disclosures, with both support and disregard observed.

Conclusion

These results underscore the disclosure needs of maltreated youth, showing some turn to online platforms for peer support. As online disclosures grow, we must equip youth to address peers’ revelations. Platforms could also use algorithms to identify such disclosures, offering trauma-informed resources.

Purpose

To develop a response to an identified service gap for domestic violence (DV) victim-survivors who are living with their abusive partner and have children in their care, Keeping Safe Together (KST) was designed as an ‘all of family’ program and piloted over 18-months in Victoria, Australia. The purpose of this brief report is to explore how children had experienced the KST program, and what, if any, changes to their safety and situations they experienced because of the program.

Methods

Interviews were conducted with eight children engaged in the program alongside their family members. Thematic analysis of the data was undertaken to draw out themes.

Results

The children were aware of the impact of the violence and conflict on their families. They demonstrated strong empathy for their family members’ wellbeing, and a desire for change. The children saw the KST program as having a positive impact on their own and their families’ safety and circumstances, particularly in terms of reducing their fathers’ abusive behaviors. The program supported them to increase their own sense of control, happiness, and development of coping strategies.

Conclusions

The findings indicate that the program met a significant support gap and improved the lives of children in this sample who were living with fathers using violence against their mothers. Further trial and evaluation of ‘all of family’ programs such as KST is needed to build the evidence base on their effectiveness for children.

Purpose

Child welfare service provision in Ontario, Canada has evolved significantly over the last two decades, especially regarding child exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV). After the addition of child exposure to IPV to the province’s Eligibility Spectrum, it now constitutes the largest proportion of substantiated maltreatment investigations. However, the interpretation and implementation of these policies by Ontario child welfare authorities remain unclear. The impact on service users has also been understudied.

Method

This study explored the implementation of policies and practices used by child welfare services when responding to families investigated for child exposure to IPV. This study also aimed to better understand the impact of these policies and practices on service users. Data were obtained from semi-structured interviews with senior child protection service supervisors and managers across Ontario. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.

Results

Four themes were identified: (1) collaborating with the violence against women sector brings forth both opportunities and challenges, some of which are linked to distrust and fundamentally opposing ideologies, (2) systemic issues and gaps severely limit workers’ efforts to help families, (3) responses do not meet the intersecting and diverse needs of families, and (4) key differences in approaches when working with perpetrators compared to victims.

Conclusions

These findings emphasize the importance of providing families with flexible and individualized services that better meet their complex needs. The need for increased funding, enhanced cross-sector collaboration, and a shift in focus from the victim to the perpetrator is also underscored.