Domestic Violence Coalitions Research Articles

Lessons Learned From the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States by Domestic Violence Coalition Leaders.

This U.S. study explores lessons learned about domestic violence service delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic identified by state, territory, and tribal coalition leadership to advance preparedness and guide structural improvements for future disasters. Semi-structured interviews with 25 Coalition leaders identified public health control measures and victim-centered strategies used to mitigate the pandemic's impacts on services and advocacy. Three main themes emerged: workforce innovations, system empowerment, and the simultaneous pandemic of racial injustice. The COVID-19 pandemic inspired Coalitions to respond creatively and highlighted resources needed to support survivors and the domestic violence (DV) workforce going forward, including reassessing the current state of the DV movement.

Impacts of the COVID-19 Response on the Domestic Violence Workforce.

Many frontline and essential workers faced increased levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and even suicide ideation during the pandemic response. These and other factors led to burnout, shifts into non-patient or client-facing roles, or leaving an occupation altogether. Domestic violence advocates experienced increases in many types of stressors as they continued to provide essential services to victims and survivors during the pandemic. However, in most cases they did so without protections offered to essential workers, like priority access to personal protective equipment (PPE) or vaccines. Executive directors of U.S. State and Territorial Domestic Violence Coalitions were identified using the National Network to End Domestic Violence website and contacted via email to schedule key informant interviews. Interviews were conducted, recorded, and transcribed using Zoom. Themes were identified using both inductive and deductive coding. Twenty-five of 56 (45%) coalition executive directors completed an interview. Three main themes related to workforce were identified, including an accelerated rate of job turnover among both leadership and staff; a lack of essential worker status for domestic violence advocates; and unsustainable levels of stress, fear, and exhaustion. While familiar challenges drove these outcomes for this predominantly female, low-wage workforce, such as a lack of access to childcare, other factors, including the lack of access to PPE, training, and hazard pay for those working in person, highlighted inequities facing the domestic violence workforce. The factors identified as impacting the domestic violence workforce-turnover, low status, and high levels of stress, fear, and exhaustion-made the already challenging provision of advocacy and services more difficult. Domestic violence advocates are essential first responders and must be supported in ways that increase the resilience of empowerment-based services for victims and survivors.

Characterizing the impacts of public health control measures on domestic violence services: qualitative interviews with domestic violence coalition leaders

BackgroundPrior to the availability of pharmaceutical control measures, non-pharmaceutical control measures, including travel restrictions, physical distancing, isolation and quarantine, closure of schools and workplaces, and the use of personal protective equipment were the only tools available to public health authorities to control the spread of COVID-19. The implementation of these non-pharmaceutical control measures had unintended impacts on the ability of state and territorial domestic violence coalitions to provide services to victims.MethodsA semi-structured interview guide to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted service provision and advocacy generally, and how COVID-19 control measures specifically, created barriers to services and advocacy, was developed, pilot tested, and revised based on feedback. Interviews with state and territorial domestic violence coalition executive directors were conducted between November 2021 and March 2022. Transcripts were inductively and deductively coded using both hand-coding and qualitative software.ResultsForty-five percent (25 of 56) of state and territorial domestic violence coalition executive directors representing all 8 National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) regions were interviewed. Five themes related to the use of non-pharmaceutical pandemic control measures with impacts on the provision of services and advocacy were identified.ConclusionsThe use of non-pharmaceutical control measures early in the COVID-19 pandemic had negative impacts on the health and safety of some vulnerable groups, including domestic violence victims. Organizations that provide services and advocacy to victims faced many unique challenges in carrying out their missions while adhering to required public health control measures. Policy and preparedness plan changes are needed to prevent unintended consequences of control measure implementation among vulnerable groups as well as to identify lessons learned that should be applied in future disasters and emergencies.

Cross-sector collaboration in Project Catalyst: Creating state partnerships to address the health impact of intimate partner violence

Intimate Partner Violence and Human Trafficking are major public health problems with myriad health and social consequences. This paper describes a federal initiative in the United States to formalize cross-sector collaborations at the state-level and encourage practice and policy changes intended to promote prevention and improve health and safety outcomes for Intimate Partner Violence/Human Trafficking (IPV/HT) survivors.Project Catalyst Phases I and II (2017–2019) engaged six state leadership teams, consisting of leaders from each state’s Primary Care Association, Department of Health, and Domestic Violence Coalition. Leadership teams received training and funding to disseminate information on trauma-informed practices to health centers and integrate IPV/HT considerations into state-level initiatives. At the beginning and end of Project Catalyst, participants completed surveys assessing the status of their collaboration and project goals (e.g., number of state initiatives involving IPV/HT, number of people trained).All domains of collaboration increased from baseline to project end. Largest improvements were seen in ‘Communication’ and ‘Process & Structure,’ both of which increased by more than 20% over the course of the project. ‘Purpose’ and ‘Membership Characteristics’ increased by 10% and 13%, respectively. Total collaboration scores increased 17% overall. Each state made substantial efforts to integrate and improve responses to IPV/HT in community health centers and domestic violence programs, and integrated IPV/HT response into state-level initiatives.Project Catalyst was successful in facilitating formalized collaborations within state leadership teams, contributing to practice and policy changes intended to improve health and safety for IPV/HT survivors.

Diffusion of Complex Governance Arrangements: State Approaches to Addressing Intimate Partner Violence

AbstractIn the 1970s, many viewed domestic violence as a private concern. Since then, every state has adopted a domestic violence coalition to address intimate partner violence (IPV) through government intervention. States vary, however, in the structure of the coalitions, participation in federal programs, and the comprehensiveness of IPV services offered. Using the theoretical lenses of policy diffusion and policy drift, this study assesses the development of IPV coalitions from 1976 to 2018, paying particular attention to institutional structures, intergovernmental resources, and strategic service priorities. We find evidence of policy drift and multidirectional policy diffusion in state IPV institutional structures, service delivery, federal program participation, and strategic priorities of these activities. Federal grant programs increase the likelihood of program emulation among states and may encourage innovation within existing institutional and policy structures for the development of comprehensive services and a preventive approach to IPV that best serve vulnerable groups.

The Role of Women's Movements in the Implementation of Gender-Based Violence Laws

AbstractThe question of whether social movements can catalyze change has preoccupied researchers but an understanding ofhowsuch change can be created is equally important. Specifically, there has been little investigation of how women's movements engage in the process ofimplementationof women's rights laws. We use a case study of Ghana's Domestic Violence Coalition to examine the challenges that movements face in the policy implementation process. The Domestic Violence Coalition, a collective of women's rights organizations, was instrumental to the passage of Ghana's Domestic Violence Act in 2007. Our study investigates the coalition's subsequent attempts to influence the act's implementation. Drawing from the social movement literature, we apply an analytical framework consisting of three internal factors (strategies, movement infrastructure, and framing) and two external factors (political context and support of allies) that have mediated the coalition's impact on implementation. We find that changes in movement infrastructure are most significant in explaining the coalition's relative ineffectiveness, as these changes adversely affect its ability to employ effective strategies and take advantage of a conducive political context and the presence of allies. This article advances the literature on rights advocacy by women's movements by analyzing the challenge of translating success in policy adoption to implementation and explaining why women's movements may have less impact on implementation processes.

Enhancing the National Dialogue on the Prevention of Intimate Partner Violence

Little systematic information exists about how community-based prevention efforts at the state and local levels contribute to our knowledge of intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) DELTA FOCUS program funds ten state domestic violence coalitions to engage in IPV primary prevention through approaches addressing the outer layers of the social ecology. This paper explored the ways in which DELTA FOCUS recipients have contributed to a national-level dialogue on IPV prevention. Previously undefined, the authors define national-level dialogue and retrospectively apply the CDC Science Impact Framework (SIF) to describe contributions DELTA FOCUS recipients made to it. Authors conducted document review and qualitative content analysis of recipient semi-annual progress reports from 2014 to 2016 (N=40) using NVivo. A semi-structured coding scheme was applied across the five SIF domains: Creating Awareness, Catalyzing Action, Effecting Change, Disseminating Science, and Shaping the Future. All recipients sought to promote IPV prevention by communicating and sharing with non-CDC-funded state coalitions, national partners, and other IPV stakeholders information and resources accumulated through practice-based prevention efforts. Through implementing and disseminating their prevention work in myriad ways, DELTA FOCUS recipients are building practice-based evidence on community-based IPV prevention.

The Use of the Data-to-Action Framework in the Evaluation of CDC's DELTA FOCUS Program.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancements and Leadership Through Alliances, Focusing on Outcomes for Communities United with States (DELTA FOCUS) program is a 5-year cooperative agreement (2013-2018) funding 10 state domestic violence coalitions and local coordinated community response teams to engage in primary prevention of intimate partner violence. Grantees' prevention strategies were often developmental and emergent; therefore, CDC's approach to program oversight, administration, and support to grantees required a flexible approach. CDC staff adopted a Data-to-Action Framework for the DELTA FOCUS program evaluation that supported a culture of learning to meet dynamic and unexpected information needs. Briefly, a Data-to-Action Framework involves the collection and use of information in real time for program improvement. Utilizing this framework, the DELTA FOCUS data-to-action process yielded important insights into CDC's ongoing technical assistance, improved program accountability by providing useful materials, and information for internal agency leadership, and helped build a learning community among grantees. CDC and other funders, as decision makers, can promote program improvements that are data-informed by incorporating internal processes supportive of ongoing data collection and review.

CDC's DELTA FOCUS Program: Identifying Promising Primary Prevention Strategies for Intimate Partner Violence.

According to 2011 data, nearly one in four women and one in seven men in the United States experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner, creating a public health burden requiring population-level solutions. To prevent intimate partner violence (IPV) before it occurs, the CDC developed Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancements and Leadership Through Alliances, Focusing on Outcomes for Communities United with States to identify promising community- and societal-level prevention strategies to prevent IPV. The program funds 10 state domestic violence coalitions for 5 years to implement and evaluate programs and policies to prevent IPV by influencing the environments and conditions in which people live, work, and play. The program evaluation goals are to promote IPV prevention by identifying promising prevention strategies and describing those strategies using case studies, thereby creating a foundation for building practice-based evidence with a health equity approach.

Evaluation of DELTA PREP: A Project Aimed at Integrating Primary Prevention of Intimate Partner Violence Within State Domestic Violence Coalitions.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been recognized as a public health problem since the late 20th century. To spur IPV prevention efforts nationwide, the DELTA PREP Project selected 19 state domestic violence coalitions to build organizational prevention capacity and catalyze IPV primary prevention strategies within their states. DELTA PREP's summative evaluation addressed four major questions: (1) Did coalitions improve their prevention capacity during the project period? (2) Did coalitions serve as catalysts for prevention activities within their states during the project period? (3) Was initial prevention capacity associated with the number of prevention activity types initiated by coalitions by the end of the project? (4) Did coalitions sustain their prevention activities 6 months after the end of the project period? DELTA PREP achieved its capacity-building goal, with all 19 participant coalitions integrating prevention within their organizations and serving as catalysts for prevention activities in their states. At 6 months follow up, coalitions had sustained almost all prevention activities they initiated during the project. Baseline prevention capacity (Beginner vs. Intermediate) was not associated with the number of prevention activity types coalitions implemented by the end of the project. Service and treatment organizations are increasingly asked to integrate a full spectrum of prevention strategies. Selecting organizations that have high levels of general capacity and readiness for an innovation like integrating a public health approach to IPV prevention will likely increase success in building an innovation-specific capacity, and in turn implementing an innovation.

The DELTA PREP Initiative: Accelerating Coalition Capacity for Intimate Partner Violence Prevention.

The DELTA PREP Project aimed to build the prevention capacity of 19 state domestic violence coalitions by offering eight supports designed to promote prevention integration over a 3-year period: modest grant awards, training events, technical assistance, action planning, coaching hubs, the Coalition Prevention Capacity Assessment, an online workstation, and the online documentation support system. Using quantitative and qualitative data, we sought to explain how coalitions integrated prevention within their structures and functions and document how DELTA PREP supports contributed to coalitions' integration process. We found that coalitions followed a common pathway to integrate prevention. First, coalitions exhibited precursors of organizational readiness, especially having prevention champions. Second, coalitions engaged in five critical actions: engaging in dialogue, learning about prevention, forming teams, soliciting input from the coalition, and action planning. Last, by engaging in these critical actions, coalitions enhanced two key organizational readiness factors-developing a common understanding of prevention and an organizational commitment to prevention. We also found that DELTA PREP supports contributed to coalitions' abilities to integrate prevention by supporting learning about prevention, fostering a prevention team, and engaging in action planning by leveraging existing opportunities. Two DELTA PREP supports-coaching hubs and the workstation-did not work as initially intended. From the DELTA PREP experience, we offer several lessons to consider when designing future prevention capacity-building initiatives.

The Data-to-Action Framework: A Rapid Program Improvement Process.

Although health education programs may benefit from quality improvement methods, scant resources exist to help practitioners apply these methods for program improvement. The purpose of this article is to describe the Data-to-Action framework, a process that guides practitioners through rapid-feedback cycles in order to generate actionable data to improve implementation of ongoing programs. The framework was designed while implementing DELTA PREP, a 3-year project aimed at building the primary prevention capacities of statewide domestic violence coalitions. The authors describe the framework's main steps and provide a case example of a rapid-feedback cycle and several examples of rapid-feedback memos produced during the project period. The authors also discuss implications for health education evaluation and practice.

Using Action Planning to Build Organizational Capacity for the Prevention of Intimate Partner Violence.

The DELTA PREP Project aims to reduce risk for intimate partner violence (IPV). It engaged leadership and staff from 19 statewide domestic violence coalitions in building capacity to prevent IPV before it occurs (rather than solely responding to IPV). This article describes the process and outcomes associated with action planning to create coalition organizational change related to preventing IPV. Coalition staff and leadership planned for organizational changes in six goal areas: leadership, structures and processes, staffing, resource development, partnership development, and member agency development. Action planning was conducted during 2-day, in-person sessions that involved (a) review and refinement of coalition vision and mission statements, (b) interpretation of coalition assessments (for prevention capacity), (c) identification of specific organizational changes to be sought, and (d) specification of action steps for each proposed organizational change to be sought. The results show overall increases in the amounts, and variations in the kinds, of organizational changes that were facilitated by coalitions. Challenges related to action planning and future directions for capacity building among statewide IPV prevention coalitions are discussed.

Feminism Within Domestic Violence Coalitions

This article investigated the frequency with which feminist identity and constructs are evident in the missions of state domestic violence coalitions in the United States. Findings from the analysis yielded low frequencies of feminist constructs present in the documents analyzed. Less than 10% of coalitions explicitly self-identified as feminist organizations in their materials, while fewer than 10% of coalitions acknowledged the relationship between patriarchy (9.8%) and gender inequality (7.8%) with violence against women. Coalitions more frequently employed the de-gendered language of empowerment and anti-oppressive frameworks rather than explicitly feminist perspectives. Implications of these findings for feminist informed advocacy are provided.

ANTI–DOMESTIC VIOLENCE COALITION PRACTICE: THEORIZING COLLABORATION AND PARTICIPATION

The persistence of domestic violence continues to be a significant social problem throughout the world. In the United States, approximately one in four women will experience at least one form of violence during the course of her lifetime. In response to this epidemic, community‐based coalitions have emerged to provide emergency shelter and advocacy services to victims and their families. This article focuses on one anti–domestic violence coalition to examine two areas of coalition practice. First, coalition collaboration occurs as a means for responding to the scarcity of resources within a community, thereby linking coalition practice to larger political‐economic structures. Secondly, coalition members are motivated to participate in coalitions as a way of expressing their commitment to and identification with a larger feminist social movement. With a deeper appreciation of the political‐economic constraints that necessitate collaboration and a greater understanding of coalition members’ motivations for participation in an underfunded coalition, this article considers the theoretical expansion of coalition research and offers considerations for coalition practice.

Mini-Symposium: Intersectionality Research

Since legal theorist Kimberle Crenshaw first spoke of intersectionality in the late 1980s, scholars in the social sciences and humanities have debated its relative strengths and weaknesses in theoretical, methodological, and policy terms. research is defined principally by its focus on the simultaneous and interactive effects of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and national origin as categories of difference in the United States and beyond. This symposium is a conscious attempt to draw on our expertise in intersectionality and our identities as political scientists to spotlight different approaches to intersectionality. Part of our goal is thus to facilitate the development of innovative theoretical arguments and new empirical research designs in this area of scholarship by featuring examples of intersectionality research from distinct subfields. The essays that follow this introduction speak to a broad audience, as they represent four distinct subfields: political theory, American politics, comparative politics, and public policy. Each essay addresses the growing body of research focusing on what Dara Strolovitch (2007) calls intersectionally stigmatized populations at different levels of analysis. Each article also brings the tools of political science to bear on topics ripe for intersectional analysis, again reinforcing the notion that intersectionality theory and political science have much to offer each other. Much of the early scholarship on intersectionality has focused almost entirely on the United States and is often critiqued as having utility solely in the American context. Later scholarship, in attempting to address this critique, opened another avenue of questions, such as, what happens to a concept when it goes global and is applied to contexts outside of the United States? Comparative politics scholar Erica Townsend-Bell provides one answer to this question. Her essay, What is Relevance? Defining Intersectional Praxis in Uruguay, is less focused on intersectionality as a theoretical construct and more concerned with its development as political praxis. Using the 2005 International Women's Day March and the 2003 domestic violence coalition as illustrative examples, she identifies the conditions under which a normative philosophical commitment to intersectionality does not square with its adaption and translation on the ground. Through analysis of field interviews with activists Townsend-Bell attends to the ideological disputes over which identity categories are most relevant to single-issue and multiissue women's organizations in Uruguay. Linking her interests in intersectionality with traditional questions of social movements and group formation, Townsend-Bell exposes real-life circumstances that arise when social movement actors attempt to find the most productive and usable ways of provoking social change collaboratively. Through her critical analysis of intersectionality's applicability in the Uruguayan context, she provides further evidence of the need for intersectional consciousness (Greenwood 2008) prior to movement building, and her essay reminds us that intersectionality as a term travels across time and geographic regions. Like Townsend-Bell, Nancy Wadsworth's essay, Intersectionality in California's Same-Sex Marriage Battles: A Complex Proposition, also focuses on a longstanding area of interest shared by intersectionality scholars and political scientists: the tensions and limitations of majoritarian efforts to protect the rights of minorities. From a very different political context Wadsworth examines the coalitional and rhetorical strategies used to mobilize support in favor of a ballot initiative in the United States, Proposition 8, which eliminated the right to samesex marriage in California. Wadsworth makes the case for a broader, more inclusive conceptualization of intersectionality, insisting that religion qualifies as yet another identity category of difference. …

Solutions to the Research-Practice Gap in Domestic Violence: A Modified Delphi Study With Domestic Violence Coalition Leaders

The gap between research and practice in domestic violence (DV) has the potential to hinder advancements in both areas. This study used modified Delphi methodology to seek potential solutions for integrating DV research and practice. Expert panel members were representatives of DV coalitions who hold primary responsibility for determining the content of the training program and materials provided by coalitions to service providers. Through three rounds of questionnaires, potential solutions were identified in six areas: access to research, the practical application of research, DV coalitions' needs and usage of research, perceptions of research and researchers, researcher-practitioner collaborations, and the goals of DV. The findings of the study are integrated into recommendations for researchers and DV organizations.

Going Underground: Conflicting Perspectives on Domestic Violence Shelter Practices

Feminism and the battered women's movement led to the creation of spaces of refuge for women experiencing domestic violence. The current practice of concealing the location of shelters has been questioned by many women of color, however, and some groups have created open shelters in their own communities. Beginning with a historical analysis of women's refuge, this article presents a study of practices of shelters in the United States based on interviews of directors or staff of state domestic violence coalitions. The multiple meanings of confidential location are explored, including tensions that emerge in mapping the boundary between shelter and the broader community. The concept of border tensions is introduced to identify key areas of conflict and the multiple meanings of shelter as social symbolic space. The article concludes that the concealing of shelters, while vital in some respects, has also been costly for the movement, and particularly for women of color.

Psychiatrists Urged to Ask About Domestic Violence

Psychiatrists Urged to Ask About Domestic Violence

Violence-inflicted injuries: Reporting laws in the fifty states

Study Objective: Physicians have an important role in the diagnosis, treatment, and documentation of violence-inflicted injuries. Physicians may also be legally mandated to report these assault-related injuries to law enforcement. Previous studies have shown that physicians may not be aware of the reporting laws in their state. The objective of this study was to review the reporting laws for violence-inflicted injuries in adults in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with particular emphasis on domestic violence. Methods: Members of a domestic violence research interest group contacted individual state legislatures regarding mandated reporting by health providers of violence-inflicted injuries in adults. This information was then verified by each state’s domestic violence coalition. Statutes regarding child abuse or sexual assault and statutes concerning injuries in incapacitated adults were not included in this study. Results: Five states (Alabama, New Mexico, South Carolina, Washington, and Wyoming) have no specific reporting requirements for health providers treating patients with assault-related injuries. Forty-two states have reporting requirements for injuries resulting from firearms, knives, or other weapons. Twenty-three states have reporting requirements for injuries resulting from crimes. Seven states have statutes that specifically require health providers to report injuries resulting from domestic violence. Conclusion: Forty-five states have laws that mandate physician reports of injuries caused by weapons, crimes, or domestic violence. Physicians need to be aware of the existence of these laws and of their state’s specific requirements. [Houry D, Sachs CJ, Feldhaus KM, Linden J. Violence-inflicted injuries: reporting laws in the fifty states. Ann Emerg Med. January 2002;39:56-60.]