Family Ties Domestic Violence and Children

1. Family TiesDomestic Violence and Children Mary Hargrave – River Oak Nilda Valmores – My Sister’s House Gina Roberson – Child Abuse Prevention Center

2. Domestic Violence is ongoing pattern of coercive control • Intimidating behaviors are those that instill fear in others • Psychological abuse is an attack on others self confidence/esteem • Inflated self-entitlement leads to demanding services from another • Physical abuse can vary by type, duration, severity

3. What we know • 20-25% of adult women report that they have been physically abused by a partner • 95% of reported perpetrators are male • Declines in middle and later life • Higher levels of economic dependency predict lower rates of escape from violent relationship • Much if our information comes from women who are in shelters • More recent evidence links dominance to violence

4. Domestic violence • Present in 1 of 5 cases referred to CPS • 47% of cases classified as high risk • Or 30-60% of children of women who were abused, were physically abused themselves • High risk for re-referrals after case reopening in moderate to high risk cases. • Associated with maternal depression • If also associated with drug or alcohol abuse, the there is a lack of supervision of the children and increased uses of the ER for injuries to the children

5. Issues for violent parent • Childhood victimization- • Inaccurate displacement of anger • Childhood is training ground for violence • Unmet developmental needs • Only safe feeling is anger • Anxious obsessive-ness – need for control • Power and control

6. Issues for violent parent • Rigid gender roles – male entitlement, poor self esteem, sexual jealousy, isolating • Encapsulated thinking – externalize issues and fail to see the link between these factors • Skills deficits – lack of empathy, nonassertive, communication deficit, poor problem-solving skills. • Substance abuse

7. Coercion • Using physical assaults against anyone including hitting or slapping • Making others afraid by looks, gestures, actions • Smashing things, destroying property • Making or carrying out threats to hurt others • Threatening to leave others, to commit suicide, to report others to authorities, displaying weapons • Making others drop charges

8. Coercion vs. negotiation • Seeking mutually satisfying solutions to conflict • Accepting change • Seeing other’s point of view • Being willing to compromise • Stilling the first reaction of anger

9. Effects on children • Distant and violent parent • Inconsistent and stressed parent • Disrupted relationships • 30-60% are also physically, sexually, and/or emotionally abused as well as witnessing abuse • Witness only has significantly poor coping , strained relationships

10. Effects of the children: Exposure to violence can take many forms • Prenatal injury • Witness • Intervene • Overheard • Family terror • Neglect, isolated family • Corruption • Denied emotional responsiveness

11. Life Lesson of Domestic Violence: • Victimization by the very people who are looked to for protection and safety • Violence works to get what you want

12. Children in Violent Families • Higher risk of experiencing multiple forms of abuse – probability of child abuse is 31% higher when partner abuse is present • Particularly physical abuse • “Double whammy” effect (see and experience) • Significant overall disruptions in children’s psychosocial functioning

13. Teaching that violence is a means of influence and conflict management in close relationships By adolescence. Violent behavior may look very much like adult violence Children with Conduct Disorder diagnosis may be learning a coercive way to deal with others Interference with non-abusive parent’s employment can have economic impact on child Impact on children

14. Younger children • More repeatedly exposed. • More vulnerable • Greater distress and regression • Poor school performance and behavior Look for the child with a conduct disorder diagnosis; interventions done early with these children have been demonstrated to work.

15. Longer term effects on children • Expect others to have hostile intentions • Difficulties with solving social problems • In adolescence, seek partners with the same view of the world • Girls run; boys condone alcohol and violence

16. Effects of being in a violent home • 56.4% impaired relationships with family and friends • 41.2% emotional and behavioral development is impaired • 20-25% unmet educational and health needs

17. To quote: • “ a history of aggressive coercive family process sets in motion developmental pathway for children that ensnares them in a cycle of interpersonal disadvantage as they transition to peer relationships and later to the task of romantic relationships… youth with aggressive family histories tend to gravitate toward one another.” Ehrensaft, 2008

18. Nilda Valmores • Programs for intervention in DV • Cultural factors present in DV families

19. Gina Roberson • Statewide trends in domestic violence response • Local adaptation of proposed protocol for law enforcement response to DV