Preventing Domestic Violence By Mobilizing Communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Background and Purpose: Aotearoa/New Zealand has a significant problem with family violence. More than half of all violent crime in New Zealand is related to domestic violence violence (Ministry of Women's Affairs, 2013), and approximately 33 percent of women experience at least one act of physical or sexual violence in their lifetime by a male partner (Fanslow & Robinson, 2004). Despite increased efforts to address the issue, there is no evidence of rates of family violence reducing. The vast majority of efforts respond to family violence after it has happened. There is growing realization that prevention is essential for social change.

This presentation gives an overview of domestic violence prevention work in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Then an example will be shared of a diverse urban community that experiences high rates of domestic violence and decided to address this by developing a long-term community mobilization (CM) initiative. Finally, the research assessing the impact of this domestic violence prevention initiative using case study design will be presented. The research aims were to measure community mobilization and community readiness to prevent family violence and promote healthy relationships, and to investigate the impact of the community context.

Methods: A mixed methods two-case case study design with two embedded units of analysis (a community readiness assessment and a community mobilization assessment) was completed in 2014 and 2016. The Community Readiness Model (Plested et al, 2006) was used to assess community readiness to prevent domestic violence and promote healthy relationships. In each assessment key community informants were interviewed. Interviews were scored using anchored rating scales, and qualitative data was used to provide meaning to the scores and describe community contextual factors. A new tool, the Community Mobilisation Questionnaire (CMQ), was used to assess community mobilization in 2014 and 2016. Approximately 100 community members completed the CMQ in each community at each assessment. Data was analyzed using SPSS.

Results: The results of the Community Readiness assessments showed that community readiness to prevent domestic violence and promote healthy relationships was higher in the intervention community than the comparison community in both the 2014 and 2016 assessments. Scores on the Leadership and Resources dimensions showed the biggest differences between the two communities.

The results of the Community Mobilisation Questionnaire assessments showed that the comparison community had higher scores for community mobilization than the intervention community despite having no formal activity to prevent domestic violence. The most significant difference in scores was on the Social Cohesion domain. Results suggest that social cohesion and residential mobility are key community contextual factors that affect mobilization.

Implications: How communities mobilize to address domestic violence and how to measure this approach remains understudied. This research creates a new quantitative tool to assess change in community mobilization and highlights the future potential of qualitative methods that can be used alongside this instrument. The measure of community readiness and social cohesion is essential to developing effective community mobilization strategies.