The battered women's movement response to children of battered women. A critical analysis

Children in domestic violence shelters: Does the feminist perspective collapse?

SUMMARY

Even though an extensive body of literature on children has swept the field of domestic violence in the last 30 years, little is known about how domestic violence shelter workers understand children's situations and how they intervene with them. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature, and presents the results of a study conducted with 48 advocates in the province of Québec (Canada).

FINDINGS

The data suggest that most of the participants adopt a child-centred perspective and consider the children in their own right during their stay. The accounts of the participants' practices also reveal that they perceive children as being vulnerable and at-risk. With a moderate emphasis on vulnerability and risk, the participants tend to support the children alongside their mothers, while associating potential risks with the behaviour of the perpetrator of domestic violence. However, with a strong focus on vulnerability and risk, participants tend to cast aside the perpetrators' behaviour and monitor the women-as-mothers during their stay while associating potential risk with their [in]actions under the circumstances. This can lead to mother-blaming, surveillance and more authoritarian interactions.

APPLICATIONS

The understanding of children living with domestic violence needs to remain rooted in a feminist analysis of violence against women in order to avoid some of the issues highlighted in the article. Furthermore, studies that seek to shed light on best social work practices when working with children in alliance with their mothers from a feminist perspective are crucially needed.

Protecting the Child and the Family

This article presents preliminary data gathered from the pilot study of a domestic violence'screening tool conducted at a child advocacy center. Female caretakers of children who were being evaluated for sexual or physical abuse were screened. Of the caretakers, 67% reported a history of emotional abuse, 64% physical abuse, and 47% sexual abuse. Also, 20% of the women reported physical abuse during pregnancy, 8% reported sexual abuse, and 40% reported emotional abuse. Given the high incidence of the coexistence of child abuse and domestic violence in these families, child abuse evaluations need to assess for family safety.

Family and Community Factors that Predict Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in Low-Income, African-American Children

To learn more about the roots of internalizing and externalizing problems in low-income, African-American children, aged 8-12 years, particularly for family and community factors, we aimed to determine which variables (mother's psychological functioning, mother's intimate partner violence status [IPV], family cohesion and adaptability, neighborhood disorder) uniquely predicted a child's internalizing distress and externalizing distress, and the amount of variance explained by the model. Results from the regression model predicting internalizing distress indicates that the five predictor variables accounted for 38% of the variance. Two of the five predictors were significantly related to child's internalizing distress scores: mother's intimate partner violence status and maternal psychological distress. Results from the regression model predicting externalizing distress indicates that the five predictor variables accounted for 8% of the variance. The two predictors significantly related to child's externalizing distress scores were levels of family cohesion and maternal psychological distress. Directions for future research and clinical implications are provided.