Minnesota Rural Project for Women and Child Safety

County and Reservation Community Needs Assessment Results

September 2000

Authors:
Cindy Anderson, Beth Olson-Hallen, Denise Parrish, and Kathy Hesch
Project Specialists

Rose Thelan
Project Consultant

Collaborative Project Participants

Minnesota Department of Human Services
Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning
Minnesota Center for Crime Victim Services
Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse
Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women
Battered Women’s Justice Project

The U.S. Department of Justice, Violence Against Women Office, provides funding for this project. The Minnesota Center for Crime Victim Services and the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women are administering funding.

County and Reservation Community Needs Assessment Results
Need for Policy and Protocol Development
Need for Specialized Cross-Training on the Dual Issues of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse
Need for Role Clarification
Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice System Needs
Need for Changes in the Law

County and Reservation Community Needs Assessment Results

During May and June, 2000, four community specialists working for the project via Minnesota Coalition of Battered Women met with representatives of child protection, battered women's, and abused children's agencies from 26 Minnesota counties and 10 reservation communities. Their goal was to assess strengths, weaknesses, and needs relative to the delivery of services to families where child abuse exists and the non-abusive parent has been or is being battered. Additionally, through this process, training needs were assessed for use in a collaborative cross-training curriculum that will be developed and implemented through this project.

The following is a list of the identified needs. Although this project focuses on abused children whose mothers are battered, some of the needs apply to other situations where domestic violence and child abuse intersect. This document is not intended to be comprehensive or suggest that all issues occur in every county or reservation. Rather, it is intended to prompt discussion among collaborators as they seek to develop protocols as participants in the Rural Violence Against Women/Child Victimization Collaboration Project.

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Need for Policy and Protocol Development

Interviewees identify a need for policy and protocol development to standardize individual agency and inter-agency practices. Interviewees raise the following concerns which could be addressed through the development of policy and/or protocols:

A majority of child protection agencies do not assess or screen for domestic violence or have specialized responses when it is identified.
In many places, case plans do not include options for safety or safety planning.
Most tribal programs have no written protocols with counties.
The threat or practice of removing children from a battered woman's care if she fails to get an Order for Protection (OFP) and/or attend support groups may have negative consequences on the battered woman, her children, and the battered woman's program.
When there is drug/alcohol abuse as well as battering and child abuse, there are concerns that some agencies develop case plans that focus primarily on drug/alcohol abuse, as if once that is taken care of the abuse will cease. Several interviewees felt case plans should include a greater emphasis on direct intervention on the batterer's violence.
Domestic violence, child protection, and abused children agencies are unclear about when referrals should be made to each other.
While Alternative Response is often considered an option that is less punitive for battered women than the traditional investigative response, there is concern that its use in domestic violence cases has the potential to incorporate harmful practices for battered women, including mediation and/or family counseling. Additional concerns were voiced that Alternative Response will fail to institutionalize procedures for identifying and considering the safety needs of battered women.
Most mandated reporters know the procedures in cases of suspected child abuse/neglect. In many counties, however, there appears to be a lack of formal or informal procedures in place for other meaningful information exchange, including follow up after a child abuse/neglect report.
There is uncertainty about the types of information exchange that is allowable under data privacy practices. Interviewees state that confidentiality concerns can erect barriers to communication among practitioners.
Domestic violence programs are not clear regarding the criteria which child protection agencies use to evaluate whether a battered woman is taking protective action.
There are concerns that assessments of whether children and the battered parent are safer as a result of an intervention are not routinely conducted.
Threats by child protection agencies to remove abused children from non-abusing battered women reduce the likelihood that battered women will turn to child protection for help, thus increasing their isolation and the batterers' control.
Battered women sometimes lose custody when they temporarily leave their home in an effort to attain safety for themselves and their children. Their absence is used against them and too often they lose custody to the batterer.
While accountability for child protection is institutionalized in the form of an appeals process, the concern was expressed that clients are not informed about, understand, or know how to access the appeals process. Additionally, the concern was raised whether/how a practitioner can be held accountable who fails to follow policy, misinterprets the law, etc.
Teens have trouble accessing services because of their status as minors.

Due to conflicting perceptions, there is a need for development of an underlying philosophical framework that guides the collaborative effort. Interviewees express opinions and perceptions about current practices and what is needed which suggest divergent attitudes, beliefs and philosophical assumptions about the issue. This indicates a need to reach agreement on an underlying philosophical framework to guide individual and collaborative practices. Specific misconceptions, attitudes, and practices which emerged, and are barriers to this collaborative effort, include:

A belief that battered women's programs care only about the mother and are opposed to any intervention that directs her to change while child protection agencies don't care about the mother and are only concerned about the children.
A belief that cross-parental reports of child abuse/neglect are frequently minimized because it is assumed they are retaliatory or manipulative maneuvers to gain leverage in custody disputes.
A perception that battered women's advocates are overly protective of battered women and act as if all victims are helpless, which contributes to the battered woman's failure to intervene constructively when her children are being abused.
A perception that battered women are helpless and fail to intervene constructively when their children are being abused.
A perception that child protection responses may vary depending on the class of the mother or the status of the mother as someone who already has a "reputation" in the social services community.
A perception that advocates fail to take into consideration that some battered women care more about their batterers than the welfare of their children.
A concern that the traditional practice of filing child protection cases under the mother's name, even when she is not the abuser, perpetuates a focus on the non-offending parent's culpability and fails to hold the perpetrator accountable.
A perception that if a battered woman challenges a case plan or otherwise stands up for herself, she is perceived as uncooperative or non-compliant by child protection.
An observation that there is little attention paid to controlling the batterer’s violence and his negative behavior towards the mother and children, while mothers may be subject to much closer scrutiny and held to standards that are difficult to meet.
A perception that child protection agencies blame/penalize battered women for the abuse, discount their efforts to attain safety, and don't understand that (in the absence of a strong criminal and social justice system) it may be dangerous to leave him.
A perception that the battered woman's fear and the extent to which she is controlled by the batterer will not be viewed by child protection as normal and situational, but rather as pathological and evidence that the battered woman is unfit or incapable of keeping her children safe.
A perception that sanctions are more stringent on the mother if the abuser is not the child’s biological or adoptive parent -- that child protection has a tendency to take action against the mother rather than address the behaviors of "non-parent" abusers.
A perception that child protection seems reluctant to offer services to women and children if they belong to transient populations.

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Need for Specialized Cross-Training on the Dual Issues of Domestic Violence and Child Abuse

A majority of interviewees from county and reservation child protection, abused children, and battered women's agencies, express interest and a need for specialized training on the overlap between child abuse and domestic violence. Suggested areas for training include:

Confidentiality and data privacy issues in domestic violence, child protection and abused children programs. Information about the child protection system -- designed for representatives of battered women's and abused children's programs -- including the rights of mothers and children within this system.
Training and licensing issues for county and reservation child protection, domestic violence and abused children's programs.
The dynamics of domestic violence: battered women's reality; alcohol/substance abuse and mental health issues for battered women; abuser profiles; separation violence; the effects of violence on children; and related issues.
Current and emerging model initiatives for responding to the dual issues of domestic violence and child maltreatment.
Permanency planning, alternative response, family preservation and other child protection initiatives -- their application to intervening on behalf of battered women and abused children.
Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)--overview, federal mandates, tribal codes, compliance issues, and the relationship between reservation and county child protection entities.
The use of domestic violence screening and assessment in child maltreatment cases.

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Need for Role Clarification

A majority of interviewees from county and reservation child protection, abused children, and battered women's programs express a need for collaboration to clarify and define their roles relative to the dual issues of child maltreatment and domestic violence. Specific actions to be taken for this purpose include:

Identifying the actions of each agency at differing points of entry, including the statutes, policies, procedures, and forms that guide each agency's activities.
Identifying systemic barriers and advocacy issues for child protection, abused children's and domestic violence programs at every step.
Outlining areas of overlap, potential conflicts of interest, and/or where agencies appear to be working at cross-purposes.
Identifying/appointing specific battered women's/child advocates to serve in an on-going capacity on county teams to increase advocate accountability, effectiveness and credibility; clarifying their role on county teams, particularly related to confidentiality and conflict of interest issues.
Clarifying/defining possible changes in response when an abused child's mother has been battered, is currently being battered, or has never been battered.

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Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice System Needs

To further assess needs for woman and child safety, interviewees were asked to identify barriers that exist within the law enforcement and criminal justice systems. Child protection, domestic violence and abused children's programs identify the following concerns:

A perception that there is a general failure to effectively prosecute offenders.
A perception that there is a lack of comprehensive case planning and follow-through by law enforcement, county attorneys and judges when non-compliance occurs.
A concern that in some places, judges still order family therapy in domestic violence cases.
A concern that men are ordered to batterer's groups, but not necessarily ordered to "complete". Court monitoring of attendance, participation or completion of sessions is inconsistent.
A perception that the criminal justice system is slow -- increasing the likelihood that batterer's plead guilty to lesser charges in domestic violence cases.
There is a statewide crisis in affordable legal assistance.
Too often, reports from Law Enforcement incomplete and inaccurate.
There are times when the Courts tend to let social services handle cases that might be better handled by the court. i.e. when supervised visitation is needed, courts may leave the decision to the discretion of social services.
Too often, juvenile court is not a top priority except in extreme cases.
A perception that Guardians Ad Litem lack cultural understanding, have too much influence on judges and lack training regarding the dynamics of domestic abuse.
OFP's are inconsistently enforced.
There is a perception that many law enforcement agencies minimize the seriousness of domestic violence and/or think it is caused by drug/alcohol abuse. As a result, law enforcement may respond to the immediate crisis without understanding the pattern of abuse or the power dynamics of the situation.
A perception that police and courts seem reluctant to offer services to women and children if they belong to transient populations.

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Need for Changes in the Law

Ideas which were raised for possible legislative initiatives that are needed in order to effectively intervene on behalf of the abused child include:

Legislation that allocates resources to develop new and expand existing supervised visitation (parenting time) centers because the potential and actual abuse against children and women which occurs during exchanges or unsupervised parenting time is a critical problem.
Legislation that provides resources to enable battered women to live free of violence and control and provide real safety and stability for their children. These resources include safe and affordable housing; employment, education and childcare opportunities; and treatment facilities (which incorporate children in the treatment modality). All the existing resources are insufficient to meet the demand in rural and reservation communities.
Legislation that provides more options for child protection without penalizing battered women. Several child protection interviewees expressed the opinion that the enhanced neglect statute passed in the 1999 legislative session gave them more tools with which to intervene on behalf of an abused child. However, some child protection agencies and most domestic violence programs felt that this legislation resulted in a reduction of calls from battered women.
Legislation that encourages the development and funding of research, model initiatives, practices, and collaborations for responding to the dual issues of battering and child abuse.
Legislation to enhance civil alternatives and custody and visitation laws that protect battered women and their children.
Other legislation targeted at holding abusers accountable and providing safety and justice for battered women.

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This is a cooperative project between: VAWO, the Violence Against Women Office, in the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice; Minnesota Center for Crime Victim Services in the Minnesota Department of Public Safety; Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women; Minnesota Department of Human Services; Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning; and MINCAVA - the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse at the University of Minnesota.