engleski

Private history of family violence and professional responses to child and wife abuse

The study examined relationship of private history of family violence with professional judgments of child and wife abuse. Social workers (N=99) were given 4 vignettes depicting situations of physical child abuse and mother abuse (PCA&WDV), witnessing mother abuse (WDV), long-term (LDV) and shorter-term mother abuse (SDV). They assessed the risk to the child, attributed responsibilty for endangering the child and provided ratings of potential interventions: couple counseling, parents' counseling, strengthening mother's personal and parental competence, safety planning, shelter, child protection measures and reporting to the police. Finally, they reported frequency of being exposed to corporal punishment (CP), father’ s abuse of mother (WDV) and partner violence (DV). CP was experienced by 76%, WDV by 39% and DV by 19% of the sample. Correlational analysis revealed that more corporal punisment in childhood was related to attributing less responsibility for risk to the child to both parents and, in PCA&WDV situation, attributing more responsibility to the father. Victims of corporal punishment were more likely to recommend safety planning in WDV and SDV situations Witnessing violence against mother was related to attributing more responsibility for risk to the child to both parents in LDV situation and to recommending shelter for battered women in PCA&WDV situation. Victims of partner violence perceived lower risk to the child in PCA&WDV and WDV situations. They attributed less responsibility for risk to the child to the mother and to both parents across all situations. They were less likely to recommend couple and parents’ counseling. The findings suggest that professionals’ history of family violence may affect their assessments and interventions. However, the effects of abuse histories and their direction depend on the type of experienced violence and case characteristics. Implications for social workers’ supervision and training are discussed.

professionals’ history of abuse; professional interventions; professional assessments; domestic violence; witnessing domestic violence; physical child abuse

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