Accessibility of Civil Legal Service Provision for Survivors of Sexual Assault in Illinois

Informed by Kennedy and colleagues (2012) help-seeking framework, this two-part study assessed sexual assault survivors’ experiences seeking services in the Illinois civil legal system. Extant research on survivors’ experiences with formal helping systems has largely focused on help-seeking from medical or criminal legal systems. To-date, no studies have done an in-depth examination of civil legal system and civil legal service provider accessibility for survivors of sexual assault. To examine civil legal accessibility for sexual assault survivors in Illinois, data from focus groups conducted with legal advocates, and archival spatial data were analyzed. This community-based research study was conceptualized and informed by input from researchers, civil legal service providers, and legal advocates in Illinois. The study was designed to better understand how the five dimensions of accessibility (approachability, acceptability, availability and accommodation, affordability, and appropriateness) impact sexual assault survivors’ civil legal help-seeking. There were two primary research questions: (1)What are the ways in which legal advocates believe survivors experience each dimension of accessibility (approachability, acceptability, availability and accommodation, affordability, and appropriateness) when attempting to engage in civil legal help seeking (study one); and (2) How geographically accessible are Illinois counties on the basis of civil legal services for sexual assault survivors (study two)? The first study utilized focus group data from legal advocates across Illinois. Advocates discussed accessibility facilitators and barriers survivors encounter when engaging in civil legal help-seeking across all five dimensions of accessibility. Nine focus groups were conducted with a total of 44 participants from December 2021-April 2022. Data were open coded in NVivo software. Following open coding, an accessibility theory-based codebook was created and deductively applied to the data by two coders. Results indicated sexual assault survivors struggle with barriers related to accessing the civil legal system such as: misinformation and lack of awareness of civil legal options; fear, mistrust or past negative help-seeking experiences; issues with lack of legal aid service providers and requirements; costs of civil legal help-seeking; and issues with the civil legal help-seeking process. Conversely, facilitators of survivor civil legal engagement include: advocates and Rape Crisis Centers (RCCs); survivor mental/emotional support; low-cost legal aid options; and flexible service providers. The second study focused on exploring the availability and accommodation dimension of accessibility. Using archival publicly available spatial data Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analyses were conducted in R to assess the geographic accessibility of civil legal service providers in Illinois by county. Location of civil legal service providers and public transportation were plotted, and two composite accessibility indices (statewide and urban) for the counties in Illinois were created reflecting their accessibility in relation to one another. GIS analyses of civil legal system accessibility revealed a limited number of service providers and limited legal aid options severely impact civil legal system geographic accessibility, especially in southeast and southern counties of the state. Further, findings indicate robust public transportation and living in an urban area (i.e., Cook and surrounding counties) increase geographic accessibility of the civil legal system. Results from these studies together indicate sexual assault survivors encounter a variety of barriers and facilitators when they attempt to engage with the civil legal system. Together, these two studies suggest that use of mixed methods, particularly incorporating GIS, allows for in-depth contextual analyses of access in relation to formal helping systems. Further, results are intended to be used to both to inform rape crisis center service activities and distribution in Illinois (i.e., practice) and state allocation of funding for survivor civil services (i.e., policy)

Contextualizing Teacher-Directed Violence in Special Education

Violence in school settings is a global phenomenon. Research tends to focus on peer-to-peer student aggression, however teacher-directed violence in school settings by various aggressors is also being explored to better understand the scope of school violence (Bounds & Jenkins, 2016; McMahon et al., 2014; Ozdemir, 2012; Sundaram, 2016; Werthein, 2003; Zeira et al., 2004). Few studies have focused on special education teacher experiences with violence, and their differing experiences from their general education counterparts. This mixed-methods study examines the extent to which general and special education teachers experience teacher-directed violence, as well as incorporates an ecological lens to contextualize special education teachers’ most upsetting types of violent experiences. Data were collected via a national survey distributed across pre-K-12th grade teachers in the United States. Quantitatively, binomial logistic regression was utilized to assess victimization of 2,363 special and general education teachers. Qualitatively, this study used directed content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) informed by ecological systems theory to explore the most upsetting victimization experiences of 430 special education teachers. The unique experiences of special education teachers in relation to their ecological context and intersectional identities were examined. Results reveal that special education teachers have a higher likelihood of experiencing victimization across multiple aggressors and student aggressors than their general education counterparts, with general education teachers more likely to experience parent-perpetrated aggression. Further, special education teachers often attributed their most upsetting experiences to issues at the organizational (school), community, and macro levels- indicating that violence was often a byproduct of larger systems issues. When examining experiences at the interpersonal level, special education teachers in the sample rarely discussed identity-facets in relation to their experiences with violence, but those that did often cited gender and ability status. Results indicate that policy changes be made at the federal, state, district, and school levels around student placement, resource allocation, and teacher training. Findings also suggest that intervention strategies at the community level aimed to increase equity, and at the school and community levels to promote family involvement in schools may reduce teacher-directed violence in special education. Next steps for research, measurement, and future directions are identified and discussed

Assessing Instrumental Weapons Violence against Teachers

Violence against teachers is a critical issue for learning communities. Among the most serious forms of harm include weapon violence. While there has been extensive research on weapon carrying and traditional weapon use within schools, there has been little investigation into instrumental weapon violence against teachers. The current study utilizes qualitative survey data to investigate contributing conditions related to teacher’s experiences of instrumental weapon’s violence through direct content analysis. Results from this study aim to expand our understanding of the nature and nuance of teacher-directed instrumental weapon violence

My Office, My Clutter: Assessing Job Satisfaction with Employment Length

Little research has been done on the subject of Psychological Home. From the research that has been done on psych home and home clutter this has led us to look at office clutter and its’ effect on work outcomes. There has never been any research done on the topic before. As an emerging topic that has remained relatively untouched, there are a variety of aspects to explore. The outcomes that we were most concerned with were: employment length and job level and if they played a role in overall clutter scores, and job satisfaction scores. Data was collected by Dr. Catherine Roster using Prolific Academic in February 2018. The data collected contained demographic information as well as information on job satisfaction and office clutter impact. This research found significant results among job level and the office clutter impact scale.https://via.library.depaul.edu/psychologynight/1127/thumbnail.jp