W.A. Lutz Domestic Violence Screening
Fall 2002
Domestic Violence Screening in Child Welfare
Domestic/partner violence can be a sensitive issue for most women. There are many barriers to disclosure including:
· Fear -- It is the fear of retaliation from the partner; fear of involving “the system”; fear of losing what little control she feels she has; and in the case of child welfare, fear of losing her children.
· Cultural Differences -- can be a barrier to disclosure. Women may feel that someone from another culture will not understand or the woman may have different cultural beliefs from the interviewer.
· Dependence -- a woman may be economically, socially or psychologically dependent on the abuse and fear that if she discloses she will have no place to live, no money, or even that she will be unlovable to others.
· Feelings of failure are common for victims of abuse who may feel responsible for the abuse. As “authorities” we sometimes feed into that blaming of the victim by asking questions like “What did you do to provoke the attack?”
· Promise of change or hope -- Part of the cycle of violence includes feelings of remorse and promises to change from the abuser (Griffin & Koss, 2002).
Ways of overcoming these barriers include listening in a non-judgmental way, “normalizing” the situation by letting the woman know that she is not alone, asking the client what resources she has available to her and being prepared to assist the client with resources within the community.
Additionally, it is important to ask specific close-ended questions, like the ones in the brief screens that follow, avoid blaming questions such as “Why do you stay with him?” or “What did you do to provoke him?” Contextually orienting questions such as “Since partner violence is so common, I’ve begun to ask these questions routinely” can also help to overcome the fear and let the woman know that she is not alone (Miller & Downs, 2000).
An assessment for domestic violence in a child welfare setting has to consider: “the indicators of danger, the impact of the domestic violence on children, the mother’s response to domestic violence, the mother’s history of seeking help and the community’s (formal and informal) response” (Whitney & Davis, 1999). Since the brief screens that follow all came from a medical setting it is important to add questions about the safety of the children in the home. These, too, should be direct, specific, and close-ended.
Screening Criteria
There are innumerable questionnaires and screens for violence in the home. Perhaps the best known and most often used in research, is the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) (Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996). This is a interviewer administered scale that includes both close-ended and open-ended questions. It can take up to 45 minutes to administer. Although the CTS gathers a great deal of information, is precise and can be scored, it is too long and requires too much time for scoring for use in a child welfare setting.
In 1992, the American Medical Association released it’s guidelines for domestic violence screening and strongly encouraged physicians to routinely screen for domestic violence (American Medical Association, 1992). Since that time, the medical profession has developed and research many short screens for domestic violence. Four of those are included in this section; the briefest is three questions long. Even in a child welfare setting, that is all that is required to know if the woman (or man) is safe.
Other Considerations and Guidelines
As mentioned earlier, it is important to also ask if the children are safe. To effectively deal with domestic violence, knowledge of the community’s resources for battered women is imperative. Better yet, developing a relationship with staff at those agencies can be beneficial for families, and in the long run, save the worker time. Finally, the more a worker knows the more likely they will be to recognize domestic violence and be able to assist a family in finding safety. Formal training or simply talking with domestic violence experts can make a difference.
The following screening instruments can be useful guides in developing a protocol for a routine screening for domestic violence.
References
American Medical Association (1992). Diagnosis and treatment guidelines on domestic violence. Archives of Family Medicine, 1, 39-47.
Griffin, M. P. & Koss, M. P. (2002). Clinical screening and intervention in cases of partner violence. Online Journal of Issues in Nursing [On-line]. Available: www.nursingworld.org/ojin/topic17/tpc17_2.htm
Miller, B. A. & Downs, W. R. (2000). Violence Against Women. In (pp. 529-540).
Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. H., Boney-McCoy, S., & Sugarman, D. B. (1996). The revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2): Development and preliminary psychometric data. Journal of family issues, 17, 283-316.
Whitney, P. & Davis, L. (1999). Child abuse and domestic violence in Massachusetts: Can practice be integrated in a public child welfare setting? Child Maltreatment, 4, 158-166.
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