Session: Overcoming Challenges in Implementing Survivor-Centered Services (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

While victim services have expanded and our knowledge base has grown, social attitudes that reflect victim blaming persist. Unfortunately these social attitudes often influence service design, delivery, and access in ways that can hinder recovery or re-victimize survivors. For example, service providers across professions hold stigmatizing attitudes toward victims that impede the therapeutic relationship. Further, service providers may mislabel victims’ behaviors and coping strategies as non-compliance or lack of cooperation. Trauma research documents that women with victimization histories are at higher risk for a myriad of physical and behavioral health issues and are subsequently more likely to struggle with  substance abuse, parenting challenges, and criminal behaviors.  Social attitudes, such as stigma, are a barrier to the implementation of trauma-informed services that are individualized and maximize opportunities for empowerment.  These attitudes are often unintentionally codified in the development of rules and policies that are unduly restrictive, often replicating previous abusive environments.

Both service providers and researchers are beginning to disrupt this norm through trauma-informed interventions. This symposium will highlight research that documents the need for and potential of trauma-informed services for women who have experienced victimization.

The first presentation by Kennedy & Prock synthesizes research from 122 peer-reviewed articles on aspects of stigma related to female survivors of childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence. They found that stigmatizing reactions from formal service providers are common, leading to barriers to service provision and future revictimization, and that self-stigma is linked to negative mental health outcomes. The second presentation by Fusco explores child welfare service engagement among a random sample of 337 mothers with young children, 32% of whom also reported being victims of IPV. Abused mothers reported lower trust and more negative working relationships with child welfare services compared to mothers not reporting IPV, even though their service “buy-in” and receptivity was higher. The third presentation by Kulkarni and colleagues is based on a qualitative study which analyzes in-depth interviews with seven national experts who have implemented rules reduction strategies and trauma-informed IPV shelter services. They found that while individual strategies differed, survivor-centered services could be fostered through shifting philosophies, supporting new practices, and overcoming organizational resistance to change. The fourth presentation by Mennicke and colleagues pilot tested the feasibility of implementing a randomized control trial to explore the effectiveness of trauma-informed intervention among 40 incarcerated women. Women in the intervention group (receiving Seeking Safety) reported lower levels of PTSD and depression at follow-up as compared to women receiving treatment as usual.

Taken together, these works demonstrate that service providers do hold stigmatizing attitudes toward victims (Kennedy), which in turn influence the ways that abused women engage in services (Fusco). Kulkarni’s research suggests that it is possible to shift service delivery environments to be trauma-informed, which Mennicke finds can yield positive outcomes for women who have been victimized. Many challenges remain to recentralize the needs of victims, however doing so can return power and voice to a particularly vulnerable segment of the population.