Session 4 Battered women. Policy context of work with battered women. The role of the Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS). Direct practice with battered women. The battered woman syndrome and its critics; PTSD. Advocacy and group work with battered women. Crisis intervention in domestic violence. Safety plans. Criticism of family therapy and couples counseling with battered women. Special issues with African American, Latina, Native, and lesbian battered women. Poverty, homelessness, and battered women. Role of religion in preventing and exacerbating family violence.

Discuss from readings:

Interventions with BW include:

•case-focused and systems focused advocacy (Pence)
•shelter & emergency services (Sullivan)
•short term crisis cnslg (Brekke)
•criminal & civil orders of protection

2. Why does Ellen Pence criticize social work?

3. What are/is you/your agency doing to screen & intervene with battered women? What can you do in terms of systems advocacy at your agency?

What are the best practices with battered women? What works?

Discussion issues

•Do battered women learn to be helpless?
•Is PTSD (or clinical approach) the best approach? Do they have disorders?
•How should we treat women arrested for domestic violence?
•Should we ignore battered women's wishes in favor of mandatory policies on arrest, prosecution, incarceration?

What are good questions to ask in an interview

•How long have you been doing this?
•Is there an organization for people doing (this work)
•Is there an approach, model, or philosophy you use to guide your work?
•What are the most important issues in (this area) today?
•What are the things that help you do (this work)
•What are the barriers to doing (this work)

Policy context of work with battered women

Illinois Domestic Violence Act of 1986, rev. 1995

act covers (sec. 201, p.5):

any person abused by a family member
any minor child or dependent adult in the care of an adult
any person with MI/DD cared for in a household
any person residing in a shelter or private home

privileged communication (sec. 227, p. 21)

DV counselor, by law, must work or volunteer in a BWS program and have 40 hour training program
it is a class A misdemeanor for a DV counselor to disclose information in any civil or criminal case

Federal regulation of DV is non-existant; federal funding is via

Department of Justice

Violence Against Women Office (created by VAWA in 1994)

3 Illinois government agencies

DHS. Domestic violence intervention in Illinois is funded and regulated by the Bureau of Domestic Violence Prevention and Intervention, Illinois Department of Human Services, the federally recognized single state agency

approx. 55 funded DV programs for victims
IL DV funding is from taxes, savings from TANF, and sparse federal dollars

CJIA. Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority also funds some services for victims

Primarily a research organization

IVPA. Illinois Violence Prevention Authority is a relatively new agency, on the same level as the CJIA which targets all forms of violence and is funded by the PV license plates;

Mayors (Chicago) Office on Domestic Violence

Member associations in Illinois are:

Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence

40-hour training programs

Illinois Coalition for the Prevention of Violence

Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network

runs the 40-hour training program in Chicago
Help Line: 1-877-TO END DV or 1-877-863-6338

toll free, confidential, multilingual, I & R

Services offered by battered womens agencies:

crisis: 24-hour telephone counseling and referral

Chicago hotline #: 1-877-863-6338 (877-863-6339 for TTY)
VAWO hotline #: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) (800-787-3224 for TTY)

emergency housing

shelters
safe homes

counseling, support groups

individual and group

brief (legal) advocacy

emergency (civil) orders of protection

extended system advocacy

services for children

Battered women, learned helplessness, and the Battered Woman's Syndrome

BWS learned helplessness; BWS cycle of violence (these are theoretical explanations for woman abuse, not for the syndrome of BWS)

Learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975) explains how organisms learn that they cannot predict that their behavior will result in a certain outcome

Laboratory animal experiments found that if an animal cannot control whether she will get fed or shocked, i.e. reward and punishment are independent of her behavior, she will "give up"

"give up" looks like depression, and is analogous (to some) of the resigned, depressed, states seen in battered women

Learned helplessness as an explanation battered women's behavior, particularly her staying with her abuser, is not supported by research

battered women are found to be better problem-solvers than non-battered women (Campbell)

battered women can predict abuse and usually take action to increase safety (Weisz, et al)

WRONG: battered women remain with their abuser
RIGHT: battered women leave their abuse when it is safe to leave, which for some is never

Bowker (1993) believes battered women are not as passive and helpless as portrayed in literature

they are active agents in making their environment safer, and their "problems" are a reflection of their abuser rather than their personality

there are worse things than battering:

worse battering
harm to children
retaliation against parents or other close relatives
starvation and homelessness
shame, failure, and public sin
loss of social identity and one's way of life

syndrome => dynamics of problem etiology not known

Battered Woman Syndrome (BWS) is one of a subset of PTSD syndromes including:

BWS
Rape Trauma Syndrome
combat veterans syndrome
child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome
battered child syndrome

Hallmark of PTSD is flight or fight sx, including:

cognitive and memory changes: e.g. probs in concentration, confusion, memory distortions, dissociation, flashbacks

avoidance sx, e.g. depression, procrastination

arousal sx, e.g. sleep & eating problems, hypervigilence, irritability

DSM requires PTSD threshold level must be met:

stressor identified
> one month sx
In DSM-IV, may diagnose acute stress disorder if sx onset between 2 days and 30 days of trauma

Responding to charges that BWS/PTSD pathologized women, Lenore Walker, who invented the BWS, argues PTSD/BWS is feminist because it doesn't blame the victim, and is the only dx in DSM-III to do so

DSM-IV offered new category of dx called Problems Related to Abuse or Neglect which has v-code dx's

Physical Abuse of Adult (v61.1) for perp
995.81 for victim

implications for intervention based on BWS/feminism:

safety

Safety Plan

safe environment
route to safe environment
car keys
money set aside
signal to children
marriage, birth certificates kept in safe place

support system

advocacy

counseling

cognitive rx of PTSD [HANDOUT]

(1) teach coping skills

(2) work on guilt, shame responsibility issues

(3) identify PTSD images, memories

(4) break memories, images into small segments

(5) restructure memory/image segments (verbal & sensory)

(6) combine segments into restrucured whole

(7) practice restructuring imagery as coping

(8) simultaneously: continue 1 & 2 throughout, assertion & other skill development to reduce victimization in current life, physical & psychosocial strengthening, support positive sense of self--anger as an important developmental

feminist therapy also used for PTSD-BWS

make the personal political

Bowker argues that not all women develop BWS because batterers are different in their technical competence at intimidation (p. 161)

Recommends research on how battered women have ended victimization and reconstructed their lives

Assessment of battered women in non-DV settings [Handouts]

SARA
Cambell Danger Assessment

Crisis intervention with DV [HANDOUT] {Source: Brekke, J. (1990). Crisis intervention with victims and perpetrators of spouse abuse. In H.J. Parad & L.G. Parad (Eds.) Crisis intervention: Book 2. Milwaukee: Family Service Association, p. 161-178}

SESSION TASKS	WORKER QUALITIES
Session 1
allow client self disclosure	validation
assess safety & suicide	Non judgmental, empowering, non-pathologizing
provide information on legal options and social services	up to date information
reinforce motivation behind coming for help	able to balance expressive and instrumental tasks
Session 2
allow ventilation and provide support	non-judgmental, empowering, supporting
Re-assess safety and adequacy of safety plan	Able to make biases explicit
Provide information and understanding of context and effects of violence
Assess extent and frequency of violence
Discuss options and consequences
Sessions 3-5
Allow emergence of direction with support of partner's motivation	Empowering
Make appropriate referrals	Able to provide referral facilitate accurate perception information
Make client feel welcome to return for treatment

Safety Plan (M. Luft)

The will (she has to provide this)

The skill

The $ bill