Social workers, including social work researchers, are called on to challenge social injustices and pursue social change. Research has shown a strong association between trauma and adversity and marginalized populations, exposing the unequal distribution of trauma and its effects throughout society. Given the focus on marginalized populations in social work, the social justice orientation of the field, and the intersection of trauma with marginalized populations, a framework to guide social work researchers in conducting trauma-informed, socially just research with marginalized populations is warranted. Therefore, this article provides a framework integrating trauma theory, trauma-informed principles, and intersectionality as a guide for social work research. The proposed framework is illustrated using a case study of low-income, predominantly African American men recruited from a criminal justice setting, acknowledging facilitators and barriers to implementation. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for researchers and doctoral student training.
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and trauma symptoms have been linked with intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration and victimization among men, yet the field lacks depth in several key areas hampering progress toward violence intervention. Specifically, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) dominates the field's scope of trauma symptoms under study, limiting understanding of other manifestations of trauma especially among men. Furthermore, most research focuses exclusively on men's physical IPV perpetration and rarely focuses on other types of IPV, severity of violence, or men's victimization. Also, few studies examine potential protective factors grounded in the ACE framework, such as mindfulness, among clinical populations. Finally, most research has not focused on men of color, despite some racial/ethnic minority groups disproportionate rates of IPV exposure. Therefore, the relationships between IPV frequency and severity (psychological, physical, injury) and ACEs, PTSD, trauma symptomology (separate from PTSD), and mindfulness self-efficacy were examined in a sample of 67 predominantly low-income men of color in a batterer intervention program. More than half of the sample (51.5%) reported exposure to four or more ACEs, and 31.1% met the clinical cutoff for a probable PTSD diagnosis. Higher ACE scores predicted increased rates for nearly all types of self-reported IPV perpetration and victimization. PTSD symptoms and complex trauma symptom severity together explained between 13% and 40% of IPV outcomes, and each was uniquely associated with certain types of self-reported IPV victimization and perpetration frequency and severity. Mindfulness self-efficacy was associated with decreased self-report psychological IPV perpetration and victimization frequency and severity. Clinical implications relevant to marginalized men are reviewed, including screening, training, and potential therapeutic interventions.
Introduction: Adolescent dating violence (ADV), including psychological, physical, threatening, and/or sexual abuse between adolescent romantic partners, is an epidemic in the United States, with youth report rates ranging from 15 to 77% for perpetration and 14-73% for victimization. ADV victimization is associated with multiple adverse outcomes in both adolescence and adulthood (e.g., suicidal ideation, substance use, bullying), as is ADV perpetration (e.g., sexually transmitted infections, intimate partner violence in adulthood). Given the high prevalence and profound impact of ADV on youth in the US, many prevention efforts have emerged in the past 20 years. Previous reviews of these efforts have focused primarily on school-based interventions or have broadly reviewed programs including all research design types and outcomes. This review is the irst to provide a comprehensive, quantitative synthesis of all existing ADV prevention programs tested using randomized controlled trial designs with a control group, speciically measuring ADV perpetration and/or victimization as outcomes. Methods: Employing a systematic literature search and screening protocol, nine studies were identiied for meta-analysis. Results: Results indicate that ADV prevention programs may decrease the risk of emotional, physical, and sexual perpetration, as well as emotional and physical victimization. Conclusions: This is the irst review to uncover signiicant intervention effects on the actual occurrence of ADV, with previous reviews only inding effects on outcomes such as ADV knowledge and attitude. Findings suggest that ADV prevention programs are promising and may warrant implementation more broadly with youth, and this review provides methodological suggestions for future research evaluating new ADV prevention programs.
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