Working together to protect women and children from domestic violence: Factors influencing willingness to collaborate between organizations

Abstract

The high prevalence of co-occurring domestic violence (DV) and child maltreatment requires collaboration between domestic violence organizations (DVO) and child protection services (CPS) to meet family needs. Little is known about how individual worker characteristics and agency level factors interact to influence staff’s willingness to collaborate between these two services. Data from a US statewide survey of 846 DVO and CPS workers was used to examine how worker characteristics (experience, training, education, professional efficacy) and organizational collaboration factors (supervisory support, appropriate workloads, etc.) impact workers’ willingness to collaborate. The results indicate that while agency collaboration factors increase workers’ willingness to collaborate, this relationship is mediated and moderated by workers’ professional efficacy. Other factors that influenced willingness to collaborate included workers’ attitudes, experience, salary, and personally knowing someone who has experienced DV. The findings indicate that while agency support for collaboration is important, worker factors must also be addressed for collaboration to occur.