Concerted Practice-Based Actions in Intimate Partner and Family Violence: When the Children’s Well-Being Is the Central Concern

Abstract

Abstract:In Canada, the exposure of children to intimate partner violence is, along with negligence, one of the most frequent forms of maltreatment. Intimate partner violence raises important issues with regard to child custody and to the exercising of parental roles. The aid provided for children exposed to intimate partner violence covers a range of programs, in particular community services specializing in intimate partner violence, frontline social and health services, and child protection. However, these resource services do not share the same missions, or the same understanding of the problems and possible solutions, since they often operate in parallel networks. The complex situations of families confronted with intimate partner violence present considerable challenges in terms of collaboration between the different organizations. Action research was employed to develop an innovative concertation strategy that fostered collaboration between practitioners from different family resource services. The strategy, which was implemented in the Québec City region between 2011 and 2013, was then evaluated. This article presents the results of this evaluation as OPEN ACCESSSoc. Sci. 2014, 3 651 well as the positive outcomes that the concertation strategy had for the practitioners' practice and for the improvement of family services.

Défis et conditions de réussite d’une pratique concertée en violence conjugale et maltraitance envers les enfants

“…Comme la concertation peut être bénéfique pour les intervenants et les utilisateurs de services (Dubé et Boisvert, 2009a ;Lessard et al, 2014), il importe de mieux connaître les défis et les conditions de réussite associés afin d'optimiser son utilisation auprès des familles qui vivent la violence conjugale et la maltraitance des enfants. La présente recherche permet de répondre à cette préoccupation.…”

“…Malgré les défis que cela peut amener, l'implication systématique des intervenants qui travaillent auprès des mères violentées, des enfants exposés et des pères qui ont des comportements violents représente une avancée pour la pratique. En effet, des intervenants soulignent que ce modèle de concertation tripartite contribue à améliorer les services offerts aux familles en plus de les soutenir dans leur pratique (Lessard et al, 2014). Pour favoriser de telles retombées positives, il importe de démystifier les incompréhensions vécues entre les intervenants.…”

“…Ce modèle a été implanté et évalué entre 2011 et 2013 dans la région de Québec. Les résultats de l'expérimentation ont montré que la stratégie de concertation apporte un soutien clinique important à la pratique des intervenants et permet de mieux répondre aux enjeux de sécurité des personnes victimes de violence conjugale (Lessard et al, 2014).…”

Intimate Partner Violence and Other Associated Problems: Sectoral Cooperation to Optimize the Safety of Women and Children

“…Since the different expertise is developed in parallel networks, it is complicated to offer integrated and coherent services to families (Stewart, 2020). Furthermore, there may exist issues of control between institutional and community organizations, the latter sometimes deploring that their expertise is not fully recognized (Lessard et al, 2014). It may thus be simpler for practitioners to work alone in their own field of expertise and forego cooperation with other sectors, since the diversity of concerned organizations rarely provide concrete and systematic mechanisms that would support this cooperation.…”

Intimate Partner Violence and Child Custody Evaluation: A Model for Preliminary Clinical Intervention

“…(Rutter, 2005 ) and for children who are exposed to a double stress (Bernet et al, 2016 ): parental separation and violent behaviors. Furthermore, the presence of violence in couples during the separation process could lead to more negative post-divorce outcome both in terms of general agreements between partners and the co-parenting relationship, raising important issues about child custody (Lessard et al, 2014 ). The exercise of parental roles also depends on the specific type of violent behaviors (Davidson and Beck, 2017 ; Hardesty et al, 2017 ).…”