Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: There is growing awareness that the potential consequences for children in violent homes are severe and long-term. However, existing research is inadequate to inform policy and practice because there is a lack of understanding about who these exposed children are, and exactly what they are being exposed to. The present study involved collaboration with law enforcement to collect substantiated data on children exposed to domestic violence whenever officers responded to a domestic violence scene. As front line public health sentinels, law enforcement officials are in a unique position to provide direct assessment of domestic violence events. In the current study, all domestic violence events across an entire municipality were examined to determine the prevalence and nature of children's exposure to domestic violence. Methods: This paper will report findings from data collected by police officers responding to all domestic violence events across an entire municipality for one year. The Domestic Violence Event Protocol – Child Enhanced (DVEP-C) was created to collect information about the domestic violence event as well as children's gender, age, ethnicity, relationship to victim, and direct sensory exposure (i.e., whether children heard, saw, and/or were injured). Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between seven domestic violence event characteristics and children's direct sensory exposure. Results: Almost 1,600 substantiated domestic violence cases were reported during the year under investigation. Findings showed that the youngest and most vulnerable children are being exposed to the most high-risk forms of violence and other known risk factors to child development. Children were not only disproportionately present in domestic violence households, but more than half of the exposed children were younger than age six. Six of the variables in the model had significant independent relationships with children's direct exposure to domestic violence events. Directly exposed children were more likely to experience cooccurring victim injuries, weapon use, arrest, and bidirectional violence. If the perpetrator was the biological father, the child was three times as likely to be directly exposed to the domestic violence event. Exposed children were also more likely to be ethnic minorities. Substance use was the only nonsignificant variable in the model. Implications for practice: The present research demonstrates a partnership between social work researchers and police officers to collect reliable and valid data on the prevalence and nature of children's exposure to domestic violence. Findings from these direct investigations of substantiated domestic violence crimes extend our understanding of this social problem beyond victim retrospective self-reports and a gross ‘children present/not present' dichotomy. They provide a better understanding of the multifaceted nature of domestic violence in a population and account for the individual child characteristics and variability in direct exposure which may mediate the adverse effects for children. Multiple and severe risks experienced during the formative stages of development significantly threaten the physical and psychological well-being of these children. Empirically accounting for the variability of the violent events and exposure will provide child welfare professionals with essential data to inform the selection of appropriate services.