Friday, 14 January 2005 - 8:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Child Welfare Practice

Child Welfare Practice with Families Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

This presentation describes child welfare workers practice with Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Data are reported from a study that had as its goals to improve our understanding of IPV among a child protective service (CPS) population, and to identify ways in which IPV affects child welfare outcomes. The study was a retrospective descriptive case record analysis of a protective service population in a large urban county. The sample consisted of 445 children chosen at random from all children who had a substantiated case of abuse between January 1st and June 30, 1995. The data was collected on these children, their parents, and families through June 30, 2003. The files of sample children were reviewed before and after service receipt to derive study data. Data collected described child and caretaker demographic and psychosocial characteristics, ecological features (description of the home and neighborhood) the circumstances and history of IPV, and history of CPS involvement. These data describe client problems and potential protective factors before and during service delivery. IPV is considered to be a risk factor that negatively affects outcomes. Data were also gathered on the type of IPV services provided. These data showed agency effort on behalf of the client, and are used to describe CPS practice with IPV. Forty-three percent of the children came from families with at least one IPV indication of IPV recorded in their file. Seventy-six percent of the IPV incidents were severe as defined in this research. Severe IPV cases involved homicide, hospitalization, medical attention, use of weapons, or punching. Thirty-eight percent of the IPV mothers experienced violence with more than one partner, or had 3 violent incidents recorded with the same partner. The mothers who were victims of IPV were significantly more likely than non-IPV mothers to have been a perpetrator of child abuse, have substance abuse problems, have a charged criminal history, to be unemployed, rely on public assistance, and have been a victim of child abuse. The most common form of intervention was for the social worker to discuss with the parent the dangers of children viewing IPV. At least one safety intervention was used with 68.5% of the victims (safety planning, lethality assessment, safety planning, removing the victim or perpetrator from the home). Families experiencing IPV received more services and social work contacts than did the families without IPV. The IPV victims were also significantly more likely to have new referrals for abuse than non-IPV cases (63.7% vs. 40%, p<.0001), which suggests the heightened risk that IPV has for family. Children of the IPV mothers were removed at twice the rate of non-IPV mothers (47% vs. 23%, p<.01), but about one-half of children in both groups were returned to their families. These findings suggest that either the chronic nature of domestic violence makes new referrals for child maltreatment more likely because mandated reporters such as police intervene with domestic violence, or that interventions with by social workers with IPV cases are ineffective.

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