There is limited research available on children’s involvement in incidents of adult domestic violence. This study collected direct reports on real-life events and went beyond earlier research by eliciting information on a larger array of family and contextual factors that may account for variation in children’s responses. Anonymous telephone interviews with 114 battered mothers in four metropolitan areas elicited detailed information from women on their children’s responses to the violence being committed against the mothers. One quarter of the mothers reported that their children were physically involved in the events. In addition, mothers with less stable financial, social, and living situations at the time of the interview reported their children to have intervened more during the past violent incidents. The article concludes with recommendations for a greater emphasis on careful assessment of children’s involvement in domestic violence incidents and on assisting mothers to achieve economic stability as well as safety.
The past three decades have witnessed a rapid expansion of programs for abused children and for battered women. Despite evidence that child maltreatment and woman battering often occur in the same families, these service sectors mostly operate independently of each other and are sometimes in conflict. There are scant data available on either the current practices of child protection workers and battered women's advocates in these cases or on the varying perspectives that bring them to conflict or collaboration. This article reports the results of an effort to systematically probe the practices and views of these two groups of workers in an effort to pinpoint ways in which current practices might evolve toward greater cooperation. Six focus group interviews involving 23 child protection workers and battered women's advocates were conducted. This article describes our methodology and results and concludes with a discussion of the future potential for resolving outstanding issues so that closer collaboration might develop.
Professional attention to families experiencing both child maltreatment and woman battering has increased in recent years. This study examined data for 172 families—95 families for which police had filed child abuse incident reports and adult domestic assault incident reports, and 77 other families for which police had filed child maltreatment reports but had no documentation of domestic assaults. Exploring differences between the two groups of families, the authors found that dual-violence families were more likely to include an unrelated male in the household, to involve a neglect allegation, and to include perpetrator substance abuse. Child protection workers assessed dual-violence families to be at higher risk and were more likely to open the case for child protection services. Among open cases, however, dual-violence families received fewer services but were more likely to be referred to the county attorney. These findings and their implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed.
There is growing recognition that children are negatively affected by exposure to adult domestic violence. Most studies focus on the emotional and behavioral consequences associated with being exposed to intimate violence. In these studies, researchers have found that child witnesses of adult domestic violence are more likely than children from nonviolent households to experience behavioral, emotional, and cognitive problems (see reviews in Edleson, 1999;and Holden, 1998). In addition, in retrospective research with adults who witnessed abuse as children, Silvern et al. (1995) found evidence for long-term effects of witnessing violence, such as adult depression, low self-esteem, and adult use of violent behavior. As recognition of these negative effects has grown, so has a search for factors that may lessen the short-and long-term effects on children of exposure to adult domestic violence.Recent child development research identifies resiliency factors that may reduce or buffer against the negative influence of a variety of negative childhood experiences, including poverty, neglect, poor parenting, and family conflict (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990;Rutter, 1987). Much of this research examines characteristics of the child, such as the specific coping strategies used by children when confronted with a negative life event (e.g., Laumakis, Margolin, & John, 1998;Peled, 1993). More recently, however, attention has been paid to the environmental or social factors that are characteristic of resilient children. One environmental factor that has been increasingly identified as a critical protective factor is the child's relationships with others, in other words, social support (Cicchetti & Rizley, 1981;Werner & Smith, 1992).
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