Services for Battered Women: The Public Policy Response

Domestic violence has long been acknowledged as an issue in intimate relationships but treated as a private, rather than a public, problem. As fewer federal funds are made available and more fiscal responsibility is shifted to state governments, the states' policies will become more and more critical. This article assesses New York State's domestic violence policy and presents a framework of a three-tier continuum of services: shelter and short-term assistance, transitional services, and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse and mental health problems.

Section: Responses To Domestic Violence In New Yorkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Battered Women and Their Children: A Public Policy Response

Owens-Manley

1999

“…The increased reliance on governmental funding has inevitably affected the organizational structure and the types of services that shelters deliver (see Davis & Hagen, 1988, for a discussion of these issues). Yet, even while shelters have become increasingly bureaucratic and professionalized, most continue to identify the empowerment of women as their underlying philosophy (Davis, 1987).…”

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confidence: 99%

A Shelter: An Organization Like Any Other?

Srinivasan¹,

Davis²

1991

Self Cite

Shelters for battered women have been idealized as collectivist organizations that empower residents and staff alike. Qualitative research at a battered women's shelter indicates that despite an implicit philosophy of empowerment , a shelter is indeed an organization like any other. Two separable organizational structures were identified: an egalitarian , collectivist structure for the relationships among staff members and a hierarchical structure for the relationships between staff members and residents . To prevent an inadvertent return to traditional patriarchal structures that oppress women , feminist social workers must continuously assess how ideology affects the organizational environment in which services are delivered .Shelters, as organizations that provide refuge to battered women and their children, were strongly influenced by the feminist ideology and activism of the 1970s. Wife battering was seen as deeply rooted in the patriarchal system that sustained the imbalances in power between individual men and women and allowed hierarchical structures to oppress the powerless (see Dobash & Dobash, 1979;Schecter, 1982). Therefore, as they embarked on developing services, feminists sought not only to Authors' Note: The authors wish to thank James Taylor for his helpful comments on this article, and thank the residents and staff of the shelter for their contributions.

“…Although the orientations articulated in the articles (such as person-in-environment and ecological approaches) are useful social work orientations for addressing many social problems, there is a grave danger that domestic violence will no longer be understood as a women's issue. If social work loses its clarity that this is a women's issue, there is a risk that the issue will be construed as a generic family problem and not a gendered problem (Davis & Hagen, 1988b). If the roots or origin of the problem are not identified, then the interventions, which would presumably exist as a direct response to the origins of the problem, will be misguided and forever fall short.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing the Problem of Domestic Violence: How Far Have We Come?

Pyles

Postmus

2004

The social work profession has a complex and arguably problematic history in relation to the problem of domestic violence. Through a review of abstracts of social work articles published from 1985 to 2000, the authors sought to determine whether anything has changed since Davis’s (1987) seminal study regarding the way in which the profession addresses the problem of domestic violence. The findings indicate that although researchers have done a good job of listening to the voices of battered women, there has been scant theorizing in the literature about the sexist origins of the problem.