Addressing the Safety and Trauma Issues of Abused Women: A Cross-Canada Study of YWCA Shelters

Shelters for women are often seen as the major resource for intimate partner violence, yet few evaluations have been published. This study describes the needs, trauma symptoms and safety issues of 368 women as they enter and leave emergency shelters in ten Canadian violence against women emergency shelters; nine operated by the YWCA and a private shelter in Nova Scotia. The results capture the nature of the abuse, what the women wanted from shelter residence, the services they received, and their plans for afterwards. On shelter entry, on the Danger Assessment over 75% of women residents fell in the range of Extreme or Severe Danger. Although still in the clinical range, total and subscales on the Impact of Event Scale-Revised significantly reduced from shelter entry to exit. The women strongly endorsed the shelter in assisting them with safety, support and access to essential basic needs

An investigation of the ability of elementary school-aged children to learn child sexual abuse prevention concepts

The current research was designed to investigate a wide range of variables which could affect the ability of elementary school children to learn and to remember child sexual abuse prevention concepts. The major questions posed for the study were: how much do the children know about child sexual abuse before participating in a prevention program, do children learn the prevention concepts after participating in the program and do they remember the concepts over time (five months). Age was considered a critical variable, so three age groups were delineated: Grades 1, 3 and 6. A smaller sample of kindergarten children were also tested, but the results with this age-group are considered exploratory. No research has yet investigated the influence of parental variables on a child learning and remembering prevention concepts. The current study looked at how parents’ participation or nonparticipation in the prevention program may affect the scores of the children and the long term retention of material. Whether parents attended prevention previews and therefore were able to reinforce prevention concepts at home was hypothesized as important in the long term integration of such information. Finally, the accuracy of a parent\u27s perception of their child\u27s understanding of prevention concepts was thought to be an important variable in whether parents would reinforce the learning of these concepts by discussion or by providing supplementary materials. In total, 400 children from the different age groups were included in the final data set. These children were assessed with the Children\u27s Abuse Questionnaire (C.A.Q.) an instrument developed by the author consisting of 40 items addressing the broad range of prevention concepts discussed in the literature. A subset of 23 items from the C.A.Q., the PlayQ, consists of items directly addressed by the play, ‘Touching’. Some children were tested before the program and afterward. some were not given a pretest but were tested only after the play. Other children were tested within the same time frame as those previously mentioned. but without having seen the play. All available children were tested again five months after the last assessment to investigate whether they remembered the prevention concepts overtime. The statistical analysis indicated that children who participated in the prevention program scored significantly higher on both the PlayQ and the C.A.Q. than children who did not see Touching\u27. There were significant differences between all age groups with kindergarten children scoring at about 57%, Grade 1 in the 65% range, Grade 3 in the 80% range and Grade 6 in the 90% range after having seen the play. After five months, the children who participated in the program did not forget the concepts, and, if anything, scored somewhat better than on the posttest analysis. However, one of the control groups also made unexpectedly significant increases in their scores over five months. Teachers (N-32) reported few negative reactions on the part of their students in the classrooms. They commented that students were initiating appropriate discussion about the play and its concepts, and that they had observed children being more assertive with peers who were trying to bully them. Parent reports (N-r284) indicated few negative responses on the part of the children who participated in the prevention program. Overwhelmingly, the majority of parents reported changes in their children which they saw as positive, including talking about the play and appearing more confident. Parents scored an average of 71% on the short knowledge questionnaire. They tended to underestimate the incidence and seriousness of sexual abuse. Parents of young children were likely to overestimate their child\u27s knowledge of core prevention concepts. In terms of parental perception of their child\u27s responses, the more knowledgeable parents more accurately predicted their child\u27s response to key questions when age was taken into consideration. There was a significant relationship between the child\u27s level of knowledge of prevention concepts and their parent\u27s ability to predict how they would answer key questions, whether the parents knowledge about abuse was high or not. Sensitivity and understanding of one’s child\u27s beliefs and responses appears, then, to be a more important relationship to a child\u27s level of knowledge than the parent\u27s knowledge level. In summary, the research results support the effectiveness of the play in teaching abuse prevention concepts to children, however, they also highlight the tact that some concepts are difficult for younger children to learn. The necessity for repetition of the concepts both in discussion of the materials and in the opportunity to view the presentation more than once is discussed. The importance of inviting parents to participate in prevention programs with their children is underscored

Factors influencing identification of and response to intimate partner violence: a survey of physicians and nurses

BACKGROUND: Intimate partner violence against women (IPV) has been identified as a serious public health problem. Although the health care system is an important site for identification and intervention, there have been challenges in determining how health care professionals can best address this issue in practice. We surveyed nurses and physicians in 2004 regarding their attitudes and behaviours with respect to IPV, including whether they routinely inquire about IPV, as well as potentially relevant barriers, facilitators, experiential, and practice-related factors. METHODS: A modified Dillman Tailored Design approach was used to survey 1000 nurses and 1000 physicians by mail in Ontario, Canada. Respondents were randomly selected from professional directories and represented practice areas pre-identified from the literature as those most likely to care for women at the point of initial IPV disclosure: family practice, obstetrics and gynecology, emergency care, maternal/newborn care, and public health. The survey instrument had a case-based scenario followed by 43 questions asking about behaviours and resources specific to woman abuse. RESULTS: In total, 931 questionnaires were returned; 597 by nurses (59.7% response rate) and 328 by physicians (32.8% response rate). Overall, 32% of nurses and 42% of physicians reported routinely initiating the topic of IPV in practice. Principal components analysis identified eight constructs related to whether routine inquiry was conducted: preparedness, self-confidence, professional supports, abuse inquiry, practitioner consequences of asking, comfort following disclosure, practitioner lack of control, and practice pressures. Each construct was analyzed according to a number of related issues, including clinician training and experience with woman abuse, area of practice, and type of health care provider. Preparedness emerged as a key construct related to whether respondents routinely initiated the topic of IPV. CONCLUSION: The present study provides new insight into the factors that facilitate and impede clinicians' decisions to address the issue of IPV with their female patients. Inadequate preparation, both educational and experiential, emerged as a key barrier to routine inquiry, as did the importance of the "real world" pressures associated with the daily context of primary care practice

The Enigma of Sexual and Domestic Violence: Introduction to Special Edition

This special edition of Currents focuses on issues of domestic and sexual violence. The journal articles are all original research projects first presented at the one-day RESOLVE Alberta conference held in Calgary, Alberta in November of 2007. On that occasion, the RESOLVE Alberta conference was offered in partnership with Calgary’s Domestic Violence Committee, which hosted a “Best Practices Forum: Sharing Experiences, Approaches, & Conversations” on November 5th, with the RESOLVE Alberta Research Day offered on November 6th. A number of the programs showcased in the Best Practices Forum had parallel research presentations on the RESOLVE Alberta Research Day, an indication of the partnerships that have developed between the community and academics

HOW MUCH DO CANADIAN SOCIAL WORKERS KNOW ABOUT PREMENSTRUAL SYNDROME AND PREMENSTRUAL DYSPHORIC DISORDER, AND DOES THIS AFFECT THEIR ASSESSMENT OF MOTHERS?

PMS and PMDD symptoms interfere in some women’s daily coping abilities, including their mothering. Social workers assess mothering ability but may not understand the negative effects of PMS/PMDD. This study examines social workers’ knowledge about PMS/PMDD and whether this influences their assessments with mothers, surveying 521 Canadian social workers. The Premenstrual Experience Knowledge Questionnaire (PEKQ) assesses the biopsychosocial aspects of premenstrual knowledge. Social workers scored an average of 60.5%. They were least knowledgeable about SSRI treatments, suicide rates, and symptoms. Higher scores were associated with having one’s own premenstrual symptoms and PMS symptoms that interfered more in one’s life. Only 5.1% of social workers addressed PMS/PMDD in their mothering assessments, with significant relationships between PMS/PMDD inquiry and worker age, knowledge scores, training, and personal premenstrual symptoms. These results can educate social workers, raising awareness of the possible negative impacts of PMS/PMDD on mothering, which could lead to changing their assessment practices and identifying these treatable conditions. This awareness-raising is especially critical when PMDD/PMS affects mothering to the degree that children’s safety might be compromised.Les symptômes du syndrome prémenstruel et du trouble dysphorique prémenstruel interfèrent avec les capacités d’adaptation quotidiennes de certaines femmes, y compris leur rôle de mère. Les travailleuses sociales et travailleurs sociaux évaluent la capacité parentale des mères, mais peuvent ne pas comprendre les effets négatifs du syndrome prémenstruel et du trouble dysphorique prémenstruel. Cette étude examine les connaissances des travailleuses sociales et travailleurs sociaux sur le syndrome prémenstruel et le trouble dysphorique prémenstruel et détermine si ces connaissances influencent leurs évaluations auprès des mères, en interrogeant 521 travailleuses sociales et travailleurs sociaux canadien(ne)s. Le Questionnaire sur les connaissances relatives à l’expérience prémenstruelle (PEKQ) évalue les aspects biopsychosociaux des connaissances relatives à l’expérience prémenstruelle. Les travailleuses sociales et les travailleurs sociaux ont obtenu un score moyen de 60,5 %. Elles-ils étaient les moins bien informé(e)s sur les traitements par ISRS, les taux de suicide et les symptômes. Les scores les plus élevés étaient associés au fait d’avoir ses propres symptômes prémenstruels et aux symptômes du SPM qui interféraient davantage dans la vie de la personne. Seuls 5,1 % des travailleuses sociales et des travailleurs sociaux ont abordé le syndrome prémenstruel ou le trouble dysphorique prémenstruel dans leurs évaluations du des capacités parentales des mères, avec des relations significatives entre l’enquête sur le syndrome prémenstruel ou le trouble dysphorique prémenstruel et l’âge du de la travailleuse sociale ou du travailleur social, les scores de connaissances, la formation et les symptômes prémenstruels personnels. Ces résultats peuvent sensibiliser les travailleuses sociales et les travailleurs sociaux aux effets négatifs possibles du syndrome prémenstruel et du trouble dysphorique prémenstruel sur le rôle de mère, ce qui pourrait les amener à modifier leurs pratiques d’évaluation et à identifier ces affections qui peuvent être traitées. Cette sensibilisation est particulièrement importante lorsque le TDP/SPM affecte la capacité parentale de la mère au point de compromettre la sécurité des enfants

"Where Have All the Women Gone?" Woman Abuse and Canadian Social Policy

Being abused by an intimate partner is a disturbing reality for many Canadian women. While woman abuse was once deemed a serious social problem, policymakers are increasingly conceptualizing the problem from a degendered perspective, with men seen as equally likely to be victims and the family targeted as the major focus for intervention. Policymakers have also recently turned their attention to children exposed to woman abuse, often with detrimental effects to abused mothers. This discussion paper h~ghlights three characteristics of adopting a degendered and family/child-centred approach in government policymaking with respect to intimate partner violence agalnst women: 1. The portrayal of tnen as equally victimized by intimate partner violence is, in part, a consequence of research that fails to take into account the context of the abuse and ignores the asymmetrical power imbalance between women and men in families. 2. Utilizing degendered terms (e.g., family violence and domestic abuse) for policies and programs, obscures the fact that women tend to be overwhelmingly the primary victims. 3. Recent attention to children's exposure to violence in the home has overshadowed women's victimization. We argue that policymakers should adopt a gendered analysis when developing solutions to address intimate partner violence, and that the focus on the potential impacts on children witness~ng the abuse of their mothers not be used to the detriment of women's interests and well-being. Social policy must protect children as well as their mothers. Le fait d'&tre abusee par un partenaire intime est une rCalitC perturbante pour beaucoup de femmes canadiennes. Alors que la violence contre les femmes etait autrefois perpe comme un problkme social grave, les responsables des orientations politiques c~nce~tual i sednet plus en plus le probleme dans une perspective qui fait abstraction des genres; les hommes sont perqus comme Cgalement 5 risque d'&tre victimes et la famille est ciblCe comme l'essentiel de l'intervention. Les responsables de l'orientation des politiques se sont aussi prCoccupCs r6cemment des enfants exposCs la violence des femmes souvent au dCtriment des mPres abuskes. Ce document de travail met en relief trois caractCristiques de Padoption d'une mCthode qui fait abstraction des genres et qui est centree sur les enfants pour l'klaboration des politiques du gouvernement ii 1'Cgard de la violence des partenaires intimes contre les femrnes : 1. La description des hommes, comme Ctant Cgalement victimes de la violence des partenaires intimes, est en partie la consequence d'une recherche qui ne tient pas compte du contexte de la violence et ignore le dCsCquilibre du pouvoir asymktrique dans les familles entre les femmes et les hommes. 2. L'utilisation de terrnes qui font abstraction des genres (par ex. : la violence familiale et au foyer) pour les politiques et les programmes a obscurci le fait que les femmes tendent ii Etre les victinles principales 5 une majorit6 Ccrasante. 3. L'attention rCcente portCe B l'exposition des enfants B la violence chez eux a CclipsC la victimisation des femmes. Nous soutenons que les responsables de l'orientation des politiques devraient adopter une analyse qui tient compte des genres quand ils Claborent des solutions traitant de la violence contre un partenaire intime. Nous soutenons aussi que les rCpercussions potentielles sur les enfants qui ont 6tC tCmoins de violence contre leur mPre ne devraient pas Etre utilisCes au dCtriment des femmes et de leur bien- Etre. La politique sociale doit tout aussi bien protCger les m6res que les enfants

The Best Thresholds for Rapid Identification of Episodic and Chronic Homeless Shelter Use

This paper explores how to best identify clients for housing services based on their homeless shelter access patterns. We utilize the number of shelter stays and episodes of shelter use for a client within a specified time window. Thresholds are then applied to these values to determine if that individual is a good candidate for housing support. Using new housing referral impact metrics, we explore a range of threshold and time window values to determine which combination both maximizes impact and identifies good candidates for housing as soon as possible. New insights are also provided regarding the characteristics of the “under-the-radar” client group who are typically not identified for housing support

Research in social work : an introduction

xv, 350 p. : ill. ; 24 cm