By
Janet Carter & Susan Schechter
Family Violence Prevention Fund
with support from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
November, 1997
© Family Violence Prevention Fund
A growing body of clinical experience and research evidence tells us that there is a significant overlap between domestic violence and child abuse: in families where one form of family violence exists, there is a likelihood that the other does, too. Unfortunately, while Child Protective Services (CPS) and domestic violence organizations have separately set up programs to address one of these forms of family violence, few programs address both when they occur together in families. Moreover, there are few collaborative efforts between the fields aimed at preventing both forms of family violence.
For the past several years, the Family Violence Prevention Fund, with support from the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, has worked with child welfare agencies and domestic violence programs to develop innovative policies, practice, and collaborative service delivery systems to ensure greater safety for women and children in their homes. Through these efforts it is clear that, in order to help families, both child welfare and domestic violence agencies must work collaboratively to change their policies and practice, and that successful early intervention and prevention efforts can be greatly enhanced through the involvement of other community-based human service organizations as well as individual community residents.
Many of the policy and practice changes recommended in this paper are being implemented by child welfare and domestic violence professionals in several parts of the country. Of particular note is the work of the Clark Foundation-funded Community Partnership Project for the Protection of Children in Jacksonville, Florida, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa; the Massachusetts Department of Social Services; and the Michigan Family Independence Agency.
This paper includes the best ideas emanating from these communities, as well as suggestions which have yet to be
tried. It is meant to serve as a working document rather than the "last word," and it will be subject to revision as
child welfare and domestic violence agencies on the vanguard of creating partnerships learn more about the link
between child abuse and domestic violence, and how to best protect both children and their abused mothers.
While the suggested practices and policies are by no means exhaustive, it is hoped that setting them out will save
agencies from having to "reinvent the wheel," and will, at the same time, motivate them to add
additional "spokes."
Overlap between domestic violence and child abuse
Efforts to protect children from abuse and neglect often overlook one of the most important factors affecting
children's safety in the home: adult domestic violence. Child abuse and domestic violence often occur in the same
family and are linked in a number of important ways that have serious consequences for the safety of children.
First, domestic violence often directly results in physical injury and/or psychological harm to children. Second,
even when domestic violence does not result in direct physical injury to the child, it can interfere with both the
mother's and the father's parenting to such a degree that the children may be neglected. Third, while an intervention
into child abuse may be initially effective, the impact of that intervention will soon be sabotaged, if domestic
violence is also present, and if the perpetrator is not held accountable for stopping the violence and the adult
victim is not protected.
The overlap between child abuse and domestic violence is well documented. In a national survey of over 6,000 American families, researchers found that 50% of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children (Straus & Gelles, 1996). Reviewing 200 substantiated child abuse reports, the Massachusetts Department of Social Services found that 30% of the case records mentioned adult domestic violence (Hangen, 1994). Domestic violence is linked to severe and fatal cases of child abuse. The Oregon Department of Human Resources reported that domestic violence was present in 41% of the families experiencing critical injuries or deaths due to child abuse or neglect (Oregon Children's Services Division, 1993).
Children can be injured as a direct result of domestic violence. Batterers sometimes intentionally injure children in an effort to intimidate and control their adult partners. These assaults can include physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of the children. Children are also injured - either intentionally or accidentally - during attacks on their mothers. An object thrown or a weapon used against the mother may hit her child. Assaults on younger children may occur while the mother is holding the child. Injuries to older children often occur when an adolescent attempts to intervene in violent episodes.
Although many parents believe that they can hide domestic violence from their children, children living in these homes report differently. Research suggests that between 80 and 90 percent of these children are aware of the violence (Carlson, 1984). Even if they do not see a beating, they hear the screams and see the bruises, broken bones, and the abrasions sustained by their mothers.
Children of all ages are deeply affected by domestic violence. Infants exposed to violence may not develop the attachments to their caretakers which are critical to their development; in extreme cases they may suffer from "failure to thrive." Preschool children in violent homes may regress developmentally and suffer sleep disturbances, including nightmares. School-age children who witness violence exhibit a range of problem behaviors including depression, anxiety, and violence towards peers. Adolescents who have grown up in violent homes are at risk for recreating the abusive relationships they have seen (Jaffe & Sudermann, 1995).
Domestic violence can compromise both the battered woman's and the domestic violence perpetrator's ability to parent. A perpetrator is clearly not providing good parenting when he physically attacks the child's mother. Abuse can also compromise a woman's ability to parent. The physical demands of parenting can overwhelm mothers who are injured or have been kept up all night by a beating. The emotional demands of parenting can be similarly daunting to abused women suffering from trauma, damaged self-confidence, and other emotional scars caused by years of abuse. In addition, abusers often - as a means of control - undermine their partners' parenting.
Children whose mothers are abused sometimes suffer at the hands of their mothers as well. Mothers are more likely to neglect or abuse their children while they are in an abusive relationship: one study found that women were eight times more likely to hurt their children while they themselves were being battered than after they left the abusive relationship (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980). Sometimes mothers abuse their children in an effort to protect themselves and the children - for example, a mother might slap her children when the batterer threatens to set the house on fire if the kids aren't quiet. Other seemingly neglectful behaviors on the part of the mother may be a direct result of battering. For example a batterer may prevent his partner from taking the children to the doctor or to school because the child has injuries that would reveal his abusiveness. Or, in an effort to protect her children, a mother may tell them to go outside during an attack on her, even though the temperature is below freezing or it is the middle of the night.
These examples indicate that children cannot be adequately protected unless the presence of domestic violence in their families is investigated, and, if identified, appropriately addressed. Often the most effective way to protect children is to protect their mothers.
Need for child protection efforts to address domestic violence
Although researchers and practitioners have noted an overlap between domestic violence and child maltreatment
for the last ten years, practical responses by child welfare agencies, domestic violence programs, and the
community have lagged far behind. Productive collaborations between CPS and domestic violence programs are in
place in only a handful of communities.
This has meant that CPS workers have had few protective interventions to offer families affected by both child abuse and domestic violence. Many CPS professionals viewed the presence of adult-on-adult family violence as a problem that was irrelevant to their goal of protecting the children. Therefore they did not ask about it during screening, investigation, or assessment, and consequently did not identify domestic violence when it was present. As a result, effective child abuse interventions were often sabotaged by the ongoing occurrence and escalation of domestic violence, and the children remained traumatized and in danger of additional victimization.
In cases where domestic violence was identified as posing a threat to a child, CPS workers often looked to the abused woman as the person responsible for stopping the abuser's violence or leaving the abusive relationship. In part, this was due to the lack of available interventions that both effectively held the perpetrator accountable for stopping his violence, and also protected the children and their mother. When the abused woman was unable to stop the abuser's violence, case workers often felt they had no means of protecting the children other than to force the woman to leave the abuser, or to charge her with failure to protect the children. Unfortunately, these limited remedies left many professionals feeling powerless and prevented many abused women from achieving what they most wanted: protection for themselves and their children.
CPS agencies around the country are facing an ever-expanding case load and decreasing budgets. To the degree that domestic violence is contributing to the child abuse and neglect in the family, addressing this violence may actually result in fewer repeat cases, and less time spent in the system for each case. Clearly, children are not safe until domestic violence is eliminated from their lives
Effective child protection efforts must include developing partnerships with local domestic violence programs. These partnerships can make essential resources available to CPS workers seeking effective interventions, including legal resources, shelters, counseling, support groups, perpetrator intervention, and programs for the children experiencing domestic violence.
Child protection agencies and community-based domestic violence programs have traditionally suffered poor working relationships as a result of historical tensions between the fields. Where agencies have begun to work together to bridge these tensions, results are extremely encouraging: workers in both fields report that families in which one form of family violence may have otherwise gone unnoticed, are now helped in a manner that provides safety for all family members. Successful collaborative efforts recognize the common goal of family safety shared by the two fields and acknowledge and preserve the unique strengths of each collaborative partner.
Collaborative CPS and domestic violence efforts to involve community members in intervention and in the
prevention of family violence
A growing body of experience has revealed the importance of enlisting neighborhood residents in responding to
families suffering from child abuse and/or domestic violence. Innovative ways to help neighbors and friends reach
out to these families are being tested in several communities. These include:
Much work remains to be done to identify effective ways that community members can be educated and
empowered to respond to domestic violence and child abuse. Moreover, such efforts must also address how
community members can be active in preventing such violence by fostering and celebrating healthy, nonviolent
intimate and family relationships and by strengthening social norms supporting these relationships. The
development of these needed approaches can be greatly facilitated by collaborative efforts between child welfare
and domestic violence experts.
As child welfare agencies work to improve their response to domestic violence, they will encounter several significant policy and practice issues that merit attention. These issues vary greatly from state to state, and each state will need to develop additional policy and practice guidance. At a minimum, the following policies in child protection practice are necessary to adequately address the interaction between child abuse and domestic violence:
The following sections review changes in child welfare policy and practice necessary to protect children in homes where domestic violence is present.
Screening and assessment of domestic violence
Screening, investigating, and assessing domestic violence are essential ingredients for an effective CPS response.
Screening procedures should include routine, direct inquiry with clients regarding whether they have ever been
hurt by their partner, as well as the identification of indicators that suggest the presence of domestic violence.
Such screening should occur in an ongoing manner during all phases of working with the family, since violence
could begin at any point during the child abuse investigation, assessment, or intervention.
Once domestic violence has been identified, workers should conduct an in-depth assessment of three factors affecting the child's safety, including:
CPS workers should always ask screening and assessment questions of the adult who is a possible domestic violence victim only when the perpetrator is not present. If the perpetrator will not allow the worker to interview the adult victim, the worker should use his/her authority to set up time alone with the victim (i.e., tell the perpetrator that it is routine [or even required] to have separate time scheduled with each adult family member).
While screening and assessment of domestic violence are essential to a successful CPS response, they should not be done without also implementing other changes in practice, as outlined below, that will facilitate an adequate and effective response to the violence once it is identified.
Confidentiality
Procedures should be developed that enable information on families to be shared between the CPS agency and
local domestic violence programs. These procedures should comply with state statutes and case law governing
what information CPS workers can share with whom, and the often-conflicting mandates governing what
information domestic violence advocates can share. Policies must be developed in a collaboration between the
child welfare agency and domestic violence program, and should include review by attorneys familiar with
governing statutes, case law, and local agency policies.
Policies must reflect awareness of the impact that sharing specific types of information may have on the families. For example, information regarding the whereabouts of an abused woman in hiding can gravely endanger her if it becomes available to the domestic violence perpetrator. Some abusers will subpoena case records searching for the current work or home address of an adult victim. Therefore, child welfare agencies must establish and enforce policies that will protect information provided by, or about, abused women, for example, by establishing separate case plans for mothers and fathers. Procedures for domestic violence program staff to protect confidential information provided by the victim must also be developed.
Interventions
The worker's interactions and interventions with family members should attempt to meet three goals in domestic
violence cases. These are:
Every effort should be made at the onset of a case to intervene in a manner that meets all goals. However, where no interventions exist that will meet all of the goals simultaneously, goal number one should always take precedence over the other goals. Training and protocols should be developed that assist workers in developing interventions that meet all three goals.
In domestic violence cases, a safety plan should be developed for both the child and the adult victim. Safety plans should be developed with the party concerned (e.g., the adult victim's plan should be developed with the victim). Development of the child's safety plan should involve both the child and the non-abusive parent.
Services should be available to abused women at the "front end" of the system's response. In other words, even in cases that are screened out for child abuse intervention but where domestic violence exists, interventions must be made available to the abused woman in order to prevent escalation of the violence.
Interventions by CPS can be strengthened through collaborations with other programs in the community. Examples of services that can play a crucial role in helping to protect children include: emergency shelter and longer-term (or "transitional") housing programs for abused women and their children, legal assistance and advocacy for abused women, law enforcement or prosecution-based domestic violence programs, batterers' intervention and education programs, parenting classes for abusers that stress the impact of domestic violence on children (as opposed to programs that teach abusers how to parent despite their violence), support programs for abused women that help them to help their children recover from the effects of the domestic violence, and programs to help children who have witnessed domestic violence.
Collaborative relationships with these programs should include working out referral procedures that allow adequate follow-up to occur by the CPS worker and provide the collaborating program with the necessary information about the case to enable it to best help the family. These procedures must be developed in accord with state and local statutes governing confidentiality of information between the CPS worker and the client, as well as between the collaborating service program staff and the client. Some programs have dealt with this by asking clients to voluntarily sign release of information forms, and have found that the majority of clients will do so.
Handling child abuse cases involving domestic violence is difficult, and no one institution can do it alone. By working with local domestic violence programs, child welfare workers can create a community-wide network of agencies and institutions to help the abused mother protect herself and her children.
Case disposition: the perpetrator
In cases where the child protection system has jurisdiction over the domestic violence perpetrator, case
dispositions should include ways of holding him accountable for stopping his violence towards the mother
(or towards the mother and children). Examples of such strategies are:
Case disposition: the adult victim
CPS workers often order an abused mother to attend a support group for battered women, believing this will enable
her to better protect her children from the domestic violence perpetrator. However, ordering the victim to attend a
support group inadvertently supports the beliefs of both the adult victim and the domestic violence perpetrator
that there is something wrong with the victim that is causing the violence, and that the perpetrator is not
accountable for the violence or for stopping it. Moreover, women who attend support groups because they have
been ordered to do so may not benefit from the experience. There are also indications that their presence can i
nterfere with the effectiveness of the group for other participants.
An alternative for the worker is to suggest that the woman meet with a domestic violence counselor for an assessment interview and referral suggestions, which may or may not include participation in a support group. In this way, the case disposition can be tailored to the needs of the individual woman.
Every effort should be made to help the abused mother protect herself and the children before more coercive measures, such as citing her for failure to protect, are considered. Such measures should be used only as a last resort after all interventions aimed at holding the perpetrator accountable for stopping his violence have been implemented and all efforts to protect the child and the mother from the abuser have been exhausted. If failure to protect determinations are substantiated against the abused mother, the domestic violence perpetrator should also be cited for endangering the children (in cases where CPS has jurisdiction over the perpetrator).
Staffing concerns for CPS and domestic violence agencies
It is important to have domestic violence experts available to CPS workers to provide consultation on cases
involving domestic violence that present a high level of danger and that the worker does not feel comfortable
handling alone. These experts should have an in-depth understanding of the multiplicity of issues that arise in
cases involving both child abuse and domestic violence. They should be able to participate in case consultation
meetings involving domestic violence, work hand-in-hand with local domestic violence agencies, keep up-to-date
on resources available in the community for abused women, abusers, and their children, and participate in drafting
CPS policy and practice changes aimed at improving child welfare response to domestic violence.
Child welfare agencies have ensured the availability of domestic violence experts using one of two approaches. Either they have hired domestic violence experts as child welfare workers, and then asked these individuals to serve as resource people for others as part of a formally established domestic violence unit; or they have developed a working collaboration with a local domestic violence agency and established formal mechanisms for its staff to provide case consultation to child welfare workers.
Both these approaches may require the redistribution of CPS funds in order to ensure that domestic violence is addressed. However, given the likelihood that the danger posed to children will escalate if domestic violence is not addressed, any additional costs involved in implementing these approaches will most likely save time and resources in the future. Preliminary evidence suggests that an effective response to domestic violence may actually save resources by cutting down on re-referral to CPS.
Domestic violence agencies need to have child abuse experts available to them for consultation as well. These experts must have an in-depth understanding of the multiple and complex problems that arise for these families. Child abuse experts could be asked to train domestic violence staff on child abuse identification and intervention, be available to assist in the assessment and intervention with a woman whose children are also abused, and participate in case conferences.
Training
A minimum of two days of training on domestic violence should be required for all child welfare workers. This
includes both new workers and more experienced staff. The training should cover information on the dynamics of
domestic violence and should assist workers to develop skills in screening for domestic violence, assessing the
danger posed to the children and the abused woman, and intervening in a manner that best meets the goals of
intervention.
It is important that CPS supervisors also participate. Their training should review new procedures and policies relating to domestic violence, and should help the supervisors identify effective supervision techniques to use when a worker is experiencing difficulty responding to domestic violence cases.
The training for both supervisors and caseworkers should be conducted by a team of trainers that includes a CPS staff person and a domestic violence expert. Local domestic violence program workers should also be invited to participate in the training as resource people, and to enhance further collaboration between the child welfare and domestic violence programs.
Working with the courts
The dependency courts play a critical role in the child welfare system's ability to respond effectively to cases
involving domestic violence, but too often they are left out of collaborative efforts.
CPS workers cannot hold batterers accountable if the courts let these cases fall through the cracks. When the batterer is not held accountable by the court, the CPS system looks to the mother to stop the violence or to get the batterer out of her life, and women are frequently unable to do this. Then CPS may put even stronger pressure on the mother to do what the court is unable or unwilling to do: stop the perpetrator's violence. This alienates the mother and pits the domestic violence service network against the child protection system.
A related and equally thorny legal problem is that in some states CPS has no way (except through criminal court) to hold boyfriends who batter women and abuse children accountable for the harm to children. In the vast majority of cases, this means that CPS and the courts expect the mother alone to protect herself and the children.
Child protection and domestic violence agencies working in collaboration should make every effort to involve the courts in strategies to improve response to these cases.
Issues that must be addressed include:
Innovative approaches toward identifying and intervening with families at risk for domestic violence before they come to the attention of child protection or reach out for help are being tested in some communities. Currently, in most communities, nothing is done to intervene with an abused woman unless she reaches out to a domestic violence program, which is often after the violence has escalated to a serious level. Most battered women do not go to a domestic violence program, so there is never any intervention for them or their children. In addition, child abuse is often overlooked in the response to domestic violence by law enforcement, domestic violence services, and batterer's treatment programs.
The following section describes how partnerships between child welfare agencies, domestic violence programs, batterers' intervention programs, law enforcement, human service organizations, and other community networks can reach at-risk families earlier and more effectively.
Immediate services aimed at protecting abused women and their children identified during child abuse assessments, regardless of whether child abuse is substantiated.
An advocate from the local domestic violence program, or a CPS worker designated as a domestic violence specialist, would meet with every battered woman identified in child abuse assessments, regardless of whether the child abuse allegation is substantiated. The advocate would assist the woman in developing a safety plan for herself and the children, and accompany or refer her to appropriate services.
By providing outreach to these women regardless of whether the child abuse allegation is substantiated, intervention could occur at an earlier point, thereby reducing the risk that the violence would escalate, and that both the abused woman and the child would be hurt in the future.
Assessment for child maltreatment immediately following a domestic violence arrest, and provision of services
aimed at protecting the abused women and the children
An advocate trained in both child protection and domestic violence would meet with a battered woman and her
children immediately after the police arrest her husband/partner and while he is in jail, pending arraignment. The
advocate would assist the woman in developing a safety plan for herself and the children, and accompany or refer
her to appropriate services. The advocate would also assess the impact of the violence on the children and refer
them to appropriate services.
A staff person from the local batterers' intervention program would also visit the perpetrator in jail after the arrest and offer the help of the program. This person would also be trained in the impact of domestic violence on the children, and could address this issue with the perpetrator.
This type of outreach effort is underway in some states, and reports indicate that home and jail visits following arrests are reaching thousands of new families at an earlier point in the pattern of violence.
Community-wide outreach and intervention with all members of the family
The needs of families where both child abuse and domestic violence are occurring suggest that more active
outreach and prevention-education services and supports should be offered in places where families "live their
lives." Many women and children experiencing abuse suffer silently, i.e., they are tremendously isolated, and they
hear and see nothing in the community that validates their uneasiness about what they are experiencing or
suggests that an alternative is possible. At the same time, perpetrators of child abuse and domestic violence are
rarely confronted with community sanctions and messages that clearly convey that violence in the family is
unacceptable, and that it is a concern for the whole community, not just a private, family affair.
Neighborhood residents, child care providers, and clergy should be taught how to recognize signs of domestic violence and child abuse, and should be encouraged to talk to a neighbor, congregant, or client about violence in the family. Resource lists and other printed information about child abuse and domestic violence should be displayed where people congregate, such as in rest rooms and waiting rooms, and on wall posters.
Community-based service providers should be taught to identify family violence, and to talk with victims or perpetrators in a manner that supports safety for all family members, victim autonomy, and perpetrator accountability. Outreach and education materials that encourage all family members to ask for help should be prominently displayed in these agencies and in community centers.
Community-based service providers may include:
Staff of these programs should be trained annually to inquire about domestic violence and child maltreatment and to offer education and information about these issues to their clients. Training and the outreach and education materials should also be offered to service providers in private practice.
In addition to training, key agency administrators should develop procedures and protocols to identify and respond to family violence. For example, administrators could internally designate certain staff as family violence specialists to insure that training and appropriate responses are integrated into agency practice.
Follow-up support services for women and their children leaving a shelter or substance abuse program
One of the most critical moments occurs when an abused woman with children leaves a domestic violence shelter.
Some women leave the shelter after very brief stays (2-3 days), and shelters often lose touch with them. When
they return home, their partners are often enraged at them for fleeing. They and their children are undoubtedly
vulnerable to more assaults.
Some battered women stay in the shelter for 6-8 weeks and relocate with the help of staff, but they also are very vulnerable when they leave the shelter. They often face multiple problems ¾ poverty, homelessness, and/or continued assaults or harassment from their partners. Their children may be suffering from the trauma of witnessing frequent violence and moving repeatedly. Many mothers report that their children's behavioral problems increase when the family lives on its own again, making parenting particularly stressful and difficult.
At the very moment these women and their children need additional support, they often find themselves isolated and without resources, since most shelters have no staff who follow families after they depart. This is one of the reasons women return to their violent partners.
A family support or family preservation worker should be assigned to any woman with children exiting a shelter who wants to receive these services. Family support or preservation workers would be trained to offer advocacy and support services, as well as help the woman develop skills to deal with child behavioral problems in a non-violent and supportive manner.
Women who leave substance abuse programs face similar dilemmas. Many substance abuse treatment agencies report that the overwhelming majority of their female clients have been battered. If these women leave treatment and again face constant abuse, they are very vulnerable to relapse. Outreach and support could help prevent recurring trauma and abuse. A family support or preservation worker should also provide follow-up services to any battered woman with children leaving a substance abuse program.
More effective interventions for domestic violence perpetrators
Researchers and practitioners continue to debate the effectiveness of batterers' intervention and education
programs. What is known is that these programs alone cannot stop men's violence towards women. Instead,
they must be an integral part of a larger community response that includes judges who order perpetrators to attend
treatment.
The quality of programs for batterers varies greatly across the country. There is general agreement that these programs need to last at least six months to a year in order to be effective, and that their focus should be on getting clients to accept responsibility for the violence, and for stopping it. In addition, the program must be able to screen out batterers who are unlikely to benefit from treatment, such as those actively abusing substances, men who are unwilling to follow the program's rules, and those whose violence is so severe and generalized that they are unlikely to utilize treatment.
Effective batterers' intervention programs can play a crucial role in collaborative approaches to working with families where both domestic violence and child abuse exist. In order to respond to these families most effectively, these programs should incorporate material on child abuse and the effects on children of witnessing violence. Monitoring of the batterer's progress during the program should consider cessation of child maltreatment as one measure of success.
Ways must also be found for getting more men into treatment programs. Courts must play a strong and consistent role in monitoring the performance of court-ordered participants. In many communities, judges in juvenile, family, and criminal courts do not hold men who batter accountable for attending or completing these programs. Men who drop out of counseling often know that they face no meaningful consequences. An interagency protocol to hold batterers accountable for their continued participation in these programs should be developed and enforced by the courts.
Intervention for children who witness domestic violence
Currently, in most communities, there are no services geared specifically to children who have witnessed domestic
violence (whether or not they are also abused), unless their mother goes to a domestic violence shelter, in which
case they may receive brief psychoeducational services. Since most battered women never use shelters, most of
their children receive no help.
School- or community-based short-term groups for child witnesses to domestic violence need to be developed and made accessible to children of battered women. Some excellent program models exist, including those designed by Hubbard House, the domestic violence program in Jacksonville, Florida, and the Domestic Abuse Project in Minneapolis, St. Paul. These programs play a central role in the community's ability to address the needs of children from violent homes. Since research suggests that these children, if ignored, are at risk to become the next generation of wife abusers, it is important to develop a spectrum of interventions for them.
Intervention for adolescents involved in violent relationships
Violence in adolescent relationships is now considered a serious problem. Research suggests that one out of ten
adolescents experiences abuse in a dating relationship, and some of these victims already have children
themselves. People who work with young women report that many of them do not recognize extreme jealousy,
control, pushing, and slapping as abuse.
Young women and men need tools they can use to address these issues with their friends and programs that facilitate discussions about what is acceptable and unacceptable in intimate relationships. Some of these programs should be gender-specific and presented in same-sex settings, while others should promote dialogue and discussion between the sexes. All of these need to be developed by youth, with adult assistance.
A range of specialized programs, targeted at adolescent males and females to identify and intervene in dating
violence needs to be developed. The staff of home visitation programs and other services that target young
parents need to be trained in how to identify and intervene in both child abuse and domestic violence.
While prevention efforts focusing on one form of family violence or the other do exist in several parts of the country, scant attention has been paid to preventing both child abuse and domestic violence at the same time. Developing collaborative prevention efforts presents an exciting challenge to leaders in both fields.
Both forms of family violence addressed by this paper exist, in part, because of subtle yet pervasive ways in which American society implicitly accepts and condones violence against women and children. Both forms of violence are learned, and then reinforced, by the silence that surrounds them; the belief that family violence is a private matter; the reluctance of friends, neighbors, and relatives to reach out to troubled families; and the lack of information available on how to have healthy, nonviolent family relationships.
This section presents ideas for how we can prevent family violence from occurring in the first place by developing innovative ways to teach young people about healthy relationship skills, and by breaking the isolation that provides fertile ground for violence to begin.
Peer education projects
Even if many more professionals were involved in family violence prevention and intervention, families who do not
interact with agencies or community organizations would still be overlooked. In order to reach more deeply into a
community than is possible using strategies that rely solely on identifying family violence victims through
community-based services, a model, neighborhood-based, peer education program on family violence
identification and prevention should be developed and tested. In addition to reaching families who do not go to
established community agencies for assistance, this approach would dramatically increase the number and type of
people engaged in preventing and intervening in child abuse and domestic violence on a neighborhood level.
This model of peers reaching out to peers has rarely been tried as an intervention in domestic violence, although
a recent effort, funded by the Centers for Disease Control, has successfully trained peer educators among migrant
farm worker women.
Peer educators could also serve as community organizers who work with neighborhood residents to mobilize them into action aimed at preventing domestic violence and child abuse. A variety of organizing strategies could be employed by peer educators to reach deep into the community. For example, a small group of young parents - both men and women trained as peer educators, from various ethnic and racial groups in a community - could do regular outreach and education about healthy relationships and family violence. Peer educators could work with the naturally occurring support networks within neighborhoods to encourage conversations about healthy relationships and family violence in their ongoing activities. Possible sites for these discussions include housing projects, beauty shops, schools, churches, neighborhood block clubs, parent groups, social clubs, and organized athletic events.
Peer educators could strategize with indigenous community leaders about effective ways to hold conversations about prevention. Or a peer educator could help families in a housing project organize to help or protect each other. Another approach might be to give support to a group of adolescents to develop for their peers a traveling theater, video, radio show, or other type of educational presentation about healthy relationships, and how to recognize the signs of dating violence. Communities might also create more innovative prevention strategies by linking groups concerned with preventing community violence to those working on family violence.
Non-stigmatizing family violence prevention/education materials
To date, most educational materials about domestic violence or child abuse are targeted at individuals who are
already experiencing abuse. These materials are usually available in community agencies that require clients to
take on identities which are felt to be stigmatized-- a battered woman seeking shelter services, a child who has
been abused or is a witness to domestic violence, or a batterer assigned to a court treatment program.
Prevention/education materials are needed that would help community residents in nonstigmatizing settings enter into a discussion of healthy, nonviolent relationships between adults and between adults and their children. Messages must be carefully crafted in order to ensure that they effectively reach those who are at highrisk for child abuse and domestic violence - in particular, young mothers and young fathers. To be most effective, the messages should be developed not by agency staff alone, but by a council of young mothers and fathers from neighborhoods targeted by the prevention project, ensuring that the messages developed will work with diverse cultural groups in different settings.
These materials should be available and adapted for use in many settings, like the doctor's office, the day care center, the family visitation program, church/temple/synagogue, or the local gym. Informational videos about how to have healthy relationships, and how to discipline children without using violence, should be created for use in clinics, child care settings, gynecologists' or obstetricians' offices, and schools. Brochures or comic books, aimed at adolescents, about healthy non-violent dating relationships should be widely available. Several pilot projects should be established in specific settings to design these educational materials in collaboration with young people living in the targeted neighborhoods, and to help professionals and lay people gain the confidence to use them with families.
Few professionals or lay helpers have been taught anything about preventive interventions in domestic violence
and child abuse. More must be learned about the specific barriers that various groups such as clergy experience
when they consider providing prevention education, and messages should be developed that work effectively for
them.
The recognition that there is significant overlap between child abuse and domestic violence in troubled families - and the concomitant recognition that partnerships between child protection, domestic violence, and other human service agencies, the courts, and individuals in the community must be developed to address the multiple, complex, and often conflicting needs of these families- has been a giant step forward in making families safe for women and children. Many innovative and creative solutions involving the whole community are being tried, with encouraging results.
Gaps remain. Many avenues of collaboration are unexplored between the two fields, particularly in the area of
joint community-wide prevention efforts. The development and testing of innovative ways to address both types
of violence in at-risk families present an exciting challenge to leaders and policy makers in both fields.
Carlson, B.E. (1984). Children's observations of interparental violence. In A. R. Roberts (Eds.), Battered women and their families (pp. 147-167). New York: Springer.
Felix, A.C. III, & McCarthy, R.F. (1994). An analysis of child fatalities, 1992. Boston, MA: Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Social Services.
Jaffe, P., & Sudermann. (1995). Child witness of women abuse: Research and community responses. In S. Stith, & M. A. Straus (Eds.), Understanding partner violence: Prevalence, causes, consequences, and solutions (Vol II). Families in Focus Services.
Hangen, E. (1994). Department of Social Services Interagency Domestic Violence Team Pilot Project: Program data evaluation. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Department of Social Services.
Oregon Children's Services Division. (1993). Task force report on child fatalities and critical injuries due to abuse and neglect. Salem, OR: Oregon Department of Human Resources.
Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R. J. (1996). Physical violence in American families. New Brunsweek, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Straus, M. A., Gelles, R. J., & Steinmetz, S. K. (1980). Behind closed doors: Violence in the American family. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Anchor.
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