Prevalent Behavioral Issues in Children Exposed to Domestic Violence - Research Paper Example

? Prevalent Behavioral Issues in Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Paper I: Prevalent behavioral issues in childrenexposed to domestic violence Introduction Domestic violence refers to patterns of forced and assaultive actions that result to abuse such as physical, sexual, psychological attacks in relationships, used by one partner to gain or maintain power never another partner (Martin and Ripley, 2010). For a long time now, domestic violence has largely been understood as social problem-affecting women exclusively, but recently, attention has shifted towards its multifaceted impacts on children exposed to it. Domestic violence has become a devastating social problem today because of its vast impacts on social relationships and on the victims themselves, especially children who witness instances of domestic violence. Recent studies have revealed that about 133 to 275 million children are at a risk of exposure to domestic violence in the world every day (Spillsbury et al, 2008), and in addition, children from families where domestic violence takes place are at a risk of abuse and/or neglect. The prevalent behavioral issues seen in children exposed to domestic violence in their families include higher levels of aggression, hostility among others; in addition to, depression among others (Unicef, 2006). This is very devastating considering that approximately 3 to 10 million children are witness to battering against a parent by a close companion each year (Straus, 1992). In response to domestic violence, many social agencies aim to provide alternative solutions to the victims, in terms of securing shelter and support for the victims and children, raising awareness of the problem; in addition, social agencies also play a role in improving legal and criminal justice responses. For instance, the Battered Women’s Movement in the US is committed to ensuring safety for victims and their children, establishing a systemic change to fight social harassment of targets and upholding their rights; in addition, the movement pursues justice for victims through societal and criminal sanctions. Overall, social work services include but are not limited to provision of accommodation and safe houses, emergency hotlines, crisis counseling and intervention, support groups, medical and mental health recommendations, authorized activism, children’s services and housing relocation services. Problem Overview Many researches on domestic violence defines the problem as a design of intimidating and attacking conducts, including but not limited to physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological attacks, and economic coercion (Brown and Hampson, 2009), which perpetrators employ to gain control over their partners. Domestic violence is a recurrent theme in society today and current research estimates that about 3.3 million children are at risk of exposure to domestic violence in America alone (Edelson, 1999); this finding is accurate according to earlier studies that revealed that about 3 million American households experience at least one incident of serious violence annually. Traditionally, many societies have understood and conceptualized domestic violence as a social problem that affects women exclusively, however, domestic violence affects other populations and societal institutions as well. For instance, men and children may also suffer the devastating consequences of domestic violence in different measures, whereas societal institutions such as families and the church risk enormous challenges due to dysfunctional relationships. Domestic violence is a socio-economic and health concern that cuts across every section of the society without discrimination –affects all irrespective of demographics such as age, race, socio-economic statuses, religion, and sexual orientation. Domestic violence yields a number of devastating consequences for individuals, families, communities, and the society in general; these consequences are more typically recognized for the victims, but perpetrators are also impacted by their own abusive behavior. Children who are exposed to domestic violence suffer consequences in form of behavioral, social, and emotional problems, in addition to cognitive and attitudinal problems and other long-term problems. For instance, children are more likely to exhibit aggressive and anti-social behavior, depression and anxiety, hostility, withdrawal, low self-esteem and disobedience, among negative outcomes. Moreover, in the long-term especially concerning boys, according to surveys it has been revealed that those who experience domestic violence are twice likely to abuse their partners upon getting into relationships. Furthermore, children exposed to domestic violence are likely to engage in violent crimes, considering that domestic violence is attributed to 14% of the violent crimes committed (NSPCC, 2013). Perhaps the most devastating consequence to children is that they stand a risk of being assaulted both physically and sexually in the event of domestic violence, considering that 30-60% of the perpetrators of this vice also abuse and neglect their children (Safe Horizon, n.d.). Women on the other hand make up the largest percentage of victims of domestic violence and are vulnerable to all sorts of abuse such as physical and sexual abuse, in addition to psychological and verbal attacks, and economic pressure. Majority of domestic violence female victims, especially those between the ages of 16-24 years are estimated to represent about 85-90 % of the victim population; for instance, as many as 324, 000 females experience intimate partner violence during pregnancy in particular and domestic violence constitutes about 22% of violent crimes against females in general. Men who largely make up the perpetrator group are more likely to suffer consequences of their abusive behavior in form of loss of children, damaged relationships, and legal consequences. Institutions such as families risk disintegration due to domestic violence because family relationships and positive interactions between family members are ruined completely. Constant misunderstandings and violence within the family undermines positive family values, which are essential for proper functioning of the family, and may eventually weaken family links between family members leading to disintegrations in the family. Apart from the family, domestic violence also affects communities in general, as it presents a challenge that constrains the normal functioning of communities due to the constant bouts of violence. Consequences of domestic violence in communities are both in terms of monetary and non-monetary losses; for instance, employers lose a lot of money catering for healthcare costs for their employees who become victims of domestic violence. Besides the rising healthcare costs for employers at the workplace, domestic violence also impacts on both victims’ and perpetrators’ performance at the workplace; several surveys have revealed that a majority of women who experienced domestic violence had low job performance due to lateness, absenteeism and in ability to advance their careers through promotions. The entire society may experience the impacts of domestic violence in terms of broken or dysfunctional institutions, and in terms of the cost of societal interventions to address this issue. Societal institutions such as religious bodies, the legal system, families, and schools, among others, are faced with the daunting task of addressing the social challenge of domestic violence because it leads to destabilization of society. Etiology There are several theories that have been established to explain the causes of domestic violence, but most of them have been disqualified on grounds of inadequacies inherent in them; for instance, theories such as the psychological perspectives. Such theories that attempt to link domestic violence to personality issues such as addiction to alcohol and substance abuse, out-of-control behavior, stress and relationship problems have been found inadequate. Competing theories have proved that domestic violence is not caused by any of the afore-mentioned factors because of a number of inconsistencies that constrain any logical justifiable conclusions. For instance, one of the many theories that attempt to explain the causes of domestic violence is the family conflict theory; this theory proposes that both partners in domestic violence contribute to the violence, thus, assuming that the victims’ actions justify the perpetrators’ abusive response. This is not entirely true because in instances of domestic violence in intimate relationships between men and women, women are more likely to use violence only as counteractive measures to protect themselves from the battering of abusive men. The family conflict theory is closely related to a second fairly but not entirely convincing theory, the “cycle of violence” description of domestic abuse; according to this theory, batterers follow a cycle of violence with recurrent violent and repentant episodes. However, advocates in the US have disqualified this theory because the cyclic description of violence is not necessarily consistent with the experiences of women, who reported that their partners hardly repented in their violent relationships and violence was constant as opposed to the cyclical description. Concerning the question of etiology in domestic violence is concerned; perhaps the most satisfactorily convincing theory that offers a reasonable explanation is the behavioral perspective, social learning theory that emphasizes learning and reinforcement as key causes of abusive behaviors (Fife and Schrager, 2011). According to this model, abusive behavior originates from learning and reinforcement exclusively, and not through genetics; the perpetrators, through observational learning and experience, acquire most of these abusive behaviors. Studies in this area have revealed that most abusive men have a childhood experiences of abuse due to an earlier exposure to domestic violence in abusive relationships in their families or homes. Related studies have also shown that perpetrators learn domestic violence or abusive behaviors because families as well as in the major institutions within societies such as legal, social, religious, educational, and health, among others reinforce them. For instance, societal values regarding appropriate gender roles in many societies and for many decades have been biased against women thus entrenching the inappropriate social values that promote gender inequalities especially in as far as gender power relations are concerned. Peers and institutions such as the legal justice systems on the other hand perpetrate domestic violence or abusive behaviors when they fail in their obligation to try all the perpetrators of domestic violence in society. Throughout current research and knowledge, there is a common universal understanding that domestic violence is a learned behavior that perpetrators learn to engage in to establish and maintain power and control over other parties (Fife and Schrager, 2011). For instance, boys who witness domestic violence in the form of their fathers’ beating up their mothers also learn to batter their own spouses in their later lives, and the cycle of violence and abuse is carried on through generations. In intimate sexual relationships, the need for power and control due to low self-esteem, extreme jealousy, emotional instability, among other personality disorders always motivates partners to engage in abusive behaviors such as battering. Some men may feel naturally inferior to their spouses due to education and socio-economic statuses, and this fear coupled with traditional social believes about gender inequalities is a probable trigger of abusive behaviors. Overall, etiology of domestic violence or abusive behaviors is a function of the interaction between situational and individual factors because abusers learn abusive behavior from family, the community, in addition to other socio-cultural influences on behavior as they grow up. In this regard, children who witness domestic violence or are victims of abuse are more likely to grow up with the mindsets that violence is an acceptable way of settling conflicts between people. Boys in particular, may grow up with the perceptions that women are mere objects of sexual pleasure that should not be valued or respected, and are more likely to abuse women accordingly. Paper II: Intervention Intervention description Social workers are often involved in the enormous task of direct treatment or intervention to address problems or facilitate improvements in the lives of their clients; as far as domestic violence is concerned, there are more than one intervention or approaches to intervention that are at the disposal of social workers. One of the interventions that can be implemented by social workers in addressing domestic violence and its impacts in society is counseling and advocacy support service for victims of domestic violence; women domestic violence services have a responsibility to represent and advocate for women (Seelay and Plunkett, 2002). Domestic service, with its damaging consequences, is often associated with extremely traumatizing experiences and emotional scars that outlive even the physical impacts of abuse. In this regard, domestic violence victims are the most at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorders (Warshaw and Sullivan, 2013), substance and/or alcohol abuse or other stress allied mental complications. In the event of exposure to domestic violence, survivors are vulnerable to upsetting memories, extreme fear, or anxiety and coping with and moving past this emotional pain and fears is crucial for effective healing of the victims. Counseling and advocacy support services are essential interventions that social service workers can implement to tackle the post-traumatic experiences associated with domestic violence, to initiate a healing process for domestic violence victims. Counseling services provide the domestic violence survivors a safe and secure environment that guarantees confidentiality thus encouraging them to break their isolation, express their feelings, thoughts, and fears from experiences of domestic violence. Group counseling also connects domestic violence survivors to other survivors who have undergone through the same experiences; besides offering advice on how to get through abusive relationships, group counseling can reduce the feelings of isolation often created by abusers. Overcoming traumatic experiences can be so scary that survivors will often require very specialized counseling professionals to get over their experiences through intensive counseling sessions; besides counseling services, social workers also offer advocacy services to domestic violence survivors. Advocacy refers to the processes and activities carried out by social workers to help domestic abuse survivors access their rights and entitlements more easily, especially through inter-agency linkages on behalf of the survivors (Parmar, Sampson and Diamond, 2005). Through advocacy, social workers are able to engage relevant authorities and institutions on behalf of the domestic violence victims, thereby raising awareness of the predicament of the survivors and pressing for justice on behalf of the victims. Advocacy mainly aims to provide information, support, and/or referral and secure environments for domestic violence victims to tell their story without fear of re-victimization or criminalization. Essential information concerning basic rights, freedoms, and entitlements helps the survivors to make informed decisions; for instance, advocacy offers support to survivors vulnerable to intimidation to access safety or other rights through the courts. Many domestic violence victims often suffer in silence in fear of re-victimization, but advocacy raises awareness among survivors that no one has a right to subject them to any forms of abusive behavior. In addition to that, advocacy sensitizes the survivors that they have a right to live in safety and free from any fear whatsoever, and that they are not to be blamed for the abusive behaviors of their batterers. Theory of Change Counseling and advocacy intervention approach is guided by the behaviorists’ theoretic perspective; as noted earlier on, domestic violence is because of observational learning, which takes place in society as perpetrators of abusive behavior have been found to have suffered or experienced abuse in their childhoods too. Socially constructed perspectives concerning gender roles that place women at a disadvantage to their male counterparts seem to be entrenched in many societies and this further aggravates the problem of domestic violence. For instance, the belief that men are superior to and should control women while women must submit to men’s subjugation is motivation for men to want to gain power and control over women through abusive behaviors. Institutions such as family, legal, church, health, and schools, among others also propagate these unfounded perspectives about power relations between the two genders and further aggravate the problem of domestic violence by re-victimization of the victims and failure to account for the perpetrators. Victims of domestic violence suffer double victimization because the society is not willing to accept the seriousness of their problems, and partly blames them for the problem; a combination of these factors heightens the anxiety and pain of the traumatic experiences. Counseling and advocacy intervention approach, by use of the behaviorists’ theoretic perspective, is able to exonerate the survivors of domestic violence from social re-victimization that is pervasive in this area, thus helping them cope with, and move beyond the intense post-traumatic stress and anxiety. Through counseling, survivors are made to understand that they are not responsible for anyone’s abusive behaviors and that no one has a right to abuse them, as societal perspectives have made them believe. Besides that, counseling aims to empower the survivors of domestic violence by making them aware that they have a right to live in secure environments without any fear or anxiety those abusers instill in them to make sure they remain subdued forever. This knowledge is very essential to the survivors of domestic violence because it gives them a voice through which they can freely express their feelings, fears, and concerns about abusive relationships without fear of intimidation from the abusers. Advocacy on the other hand overturns the rigid socio-cultural perspectives by first highlighting the reality concerning the existence and prevalence of abusive behaviors in society, and of suffering of the victims. Through advocacy, the problem is not only brought to the attention of individuals and institutions, but the individuals and institutions are also called upon to rethink their socially constructed perspectives concerning the problem in general. For instance, survivors of domestic violence often, in fear of re-victimization, are un able to access health and safety services through the courts, but through advocacy, social workers provide support to survivors to acquire these and other rights through the justice system (Hester and Westmarland 2005). Overall, survivors of domestic violence often find it difficult to be believed by individuals, agencies, and institutions that may be in a position to provide them with the necessary support and assistance they need. This makes it almost impossible and often prevents these survivors from seeking their rights such as protection from violence, housing and financial support, and this is where advocacy comes in to speak on their behalf. In this regard, counseling and advocacy approach directly derives from the behaviorists’ perspective, and is essential in influencing behavior because it deforms both the survivor’s and societal perspectives on domestic violence thus leading to proper adjustment that enables survivors to overcome abuse. Analysis of the Empirical Literature on Intervention A few studies have endeavored to evaluate the effectiveness of counseling and advocacy for survivors of domestic violence, especially women for that matter; these studies have largely dwelt on the areas namely supportive, psycho-educational shelter and community based individual and group counseling. For instance, Bennett et al reviewed the effectiveness of hotline, advocacy, counseling, and shelter services for victims of domestic violence in previous studies and revealed that indeed psycho-educational, supportive counseling for battered women may be an effective intervention (Bennet et al, 2004). Findings in this area have an agreed upon consistency that psycho-educational, supportive counseling has a very positive influence on self-esteem, depression, assertiveness and social-support of survivors of abuse; in addition to that, psycho-educational supportive counseling largely influences survivors coping abilities and self-efficacy. Timmer et al in another study addressed the effectiveness of parent-child interaction therapy for victims of inter-parental violence in reducing behavioral problems such as aggression, defiance, and anxiety in children of 62 clinic-referred, maltreated 2-7 year olds (Timmer et al, 2010). The study compares the effectiveness of parent-child interaction therapy in one group of children exposed to inter-parental violence with a control group that is not exposed to inter-parental violence. Results of repeated measures showed a considerable reduction in child behavioral problems and a drop in caregivers’ psychological distress from pre-treatment to post-treatment for inter-parental violence exposed and non-exposed groups. Kubany et al in his research study describes the second treatment outcome from a cognitive trauma therapy for battered women with post-traumatic stress disorder; cognitive trauma therapy for battered women includes trauma history exploration, post-trauma stress disorder education, stress management, exposure to abuse and abuser reminders (Kubany et al, 2004). Apart from that, this study also entails self-monitoring of negative self-talk, cognitive therapy for guilt; relating to modules on self-advocacy, assertiveness and means of how to identify perpetrators. A mixed sample of both white and ethnic minority women who presented with post-traumatic stress disorder recorded remarkable reductions in depression and guilt with substantial increases in self-esteem. In addition Weisz examines the power of an informative relationship by looking at legal advocacy for domestic violence survivors (Weisz, 1999); and uses data from interviews with domestic violence survivors to demonstrate how legal advocacy for survivors can be successful in addressing women’s relational needs through offering emotional support, information and moral support. This study concludes that advocacy enables the survivors to take further legal actions against batterers because advocates lend a supportive, empathetic presence to survivors, in addition to providing valuable information. Each of these studies were carried out using different methodological approaches whose strengths and weaknesses also vary considerably, and this leads to varying levels of both internal and external validity in the studies. Firstly, the study by Bennet et al used the cluster evaluation methodology, an approach to evaluating multiple programs with similar goals but different activities that allowed for a combined goal-based evaluation, standard outcomes, and participatory methods in one evaluation approach. This method to evaluation is effective because it is more likely to achieve the best mixture of data on survivor safety, staff cooperation and any other useful information concerning domestic violence programs. However, limitations of this methodology were manifest in the form of self-reported data, untested measures, absence of control groups; in addition to these, neither random selection nor random sampling was used, and outcomes identified individual rather than community effects. Nevertheless, these limitations are accounted for in part by the consistency of participant ratings across programs as well as by a perspective that values personal perception of change as an important addition to objective indicators. The second study by Timmer et al studied the effectiveness of parental-child interaction therapy by first determining whether the mother-child dyads exposed to inter-parental violence were as likely to complete treatment as the unexposed dyads. This method of analysis is significant for this study because it enables comparison to be drawn between pre-treatment and post-treatment measures of treatment participants as a way of estimating treatment effectiveness. Another measure that was performed was the repeated measures analyses of variance with assessment point as the ‘within-subjects’ factor, and inter-parental violence group as the ‘between-subjects’ factors, covering significant demographic differences between groups. The study shows remarkable change- reductions in caregiver reported child behavior problems and mothers’ self-reported stress; however, there may be alternative explanations to these changes. For instance, the changes may be because of the shift in the parents’ attitudes towards their children’s behavior and not in the behavior of their children, a positive shift in parental perspectives about their children may benefit mothers who have survived abuse. The study by Kubany et al used the clinician-administered Post-traumatic Stress disorder scale that was found to exhibit a very good diagnostic efficiency when judged against the structured clinical interview. The distressing event questionnaire on the other hand exhibited excellent discriminative validity in four separate samples of abused women when judged against structured interview assessment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Finally, Weisz study used open-ended interviews and focus groups to understand advocates and survivors’ views of advocacy and women needs within legal situations. The interviews were effective to indicate how survivors were often confused and full of self-doubt when deciding the best options such as whether to call the police get protective orders or participate in prosecution. Having examined the various literatures on the evidence of the effectiveness of counseling and advocacy support services to victims of domestic violence, it is emerging that whereas there seems to be a considerable evidence of consensus in the findings, the research is not yet conclusive. There is need to carry out further research in this area to help make these findings satisfactorily conclusive in support of the effectiveness of counseling and advocacy; the existing literature does not provide enough strong evidence to justify the effectiveness of this approach in addressing domestic violence. Furthermore, existing literature on this matter is constrained by a number of limitations that upset the evidence of efficacy in this approach, in addition to suggesting several questions for further research in the area. Summary Ultimately, the first part of this paper has managed to define domestic violence as a pattern of abusive and/or assaultive behavior used by an abusive partner to gain power and control over the other partners. Domestic violence is a complex, social-cultural problem that is largely gender endeared due to the traditional gender power relationships, and it affects everybody regardless of demographics. Victim populations for domestic violence comprise of individuals such as women, men, and children, and social institutions as well and the most satisfactory etiology of domestic violence is that abusive behavior is learnt through observation and reinforcement. The second part of this paper addresses counseling and advocacy social services as interventions that seek to solve the domestic violence dilemma in society, in addition to evaluating evidences of the efficacy of this intervention through a thorough literature reviews. The state of empirical knowledge on domestic violence is sufficient to draw conclusions of its prevalence in society; however, knowledge gaps exist in the area of effective interventions that can be used to address this issue. Given that this review of literature asserts the possible effectiveness of counseling and advocacy social work interventions, future research may build on these hypotheses to establish empirical evidences of the effectiveness of these approaches. References Bennet et.al. (2004), Effectiveness of Hotline, Advocacy, Counseling, and Shelter Services for Victims of Domestic Violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Vol. 19 No. 7, 815-829. Brown T., and Hampson H., (2009), An Evaluation of Interventions with Domestic Violence Perpetrators. LifeWorks Relationship Counselling and Education Services. Retrieved from http://www.lifeworks.com.au/files/ResearchReport_FV.pdf Edelson, J.L., (1999), Children’s witnessing of adult domestic violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Vol. 14; No. 8. Fife, R. and Schrager, S. (2011) Family Violence: What Health Care Providers Need to Know. Massachusetts: Jones & Bartlett Publishers Hester M., and Westmarland, N. (2005).Tackling Domestic Violence: Effective interventions and approaches. Retrieved from http://dro.dur.ac.uk/2556/1/2556.pdf Kubany, E. S., et.al. (2004). Cognitive Trauma Therapy for Battered Women With PTSD (CTT-BW). Journal Of Consulting And Clinical Psychology, 72(1), 3-18. Martin L. and Ripley B., (2010). Counseling Domestic Violence Victims and Offenders Who Abuse Substances. Retrieved from http://www.heiselandassoc.com/Mydocs/Martin%20&%20Ripley%20DV%20Victims%20home%20study.pdf NSPCC (2013). Statistics: Domestic abuse. Retrieved from http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/resourcesforprofessionals/domesticabuse/domestic-abuse-statistics_wda87794.html Parmar A., S., Sampson A., and Diamond A., (2005), Tackling Domestic Violence: providing advocacy and support to survivors from Black and other minority ethnic communities. Research, Development and Statistics Directorate. Retrieved from http://www.aqvx59.dsl.pipex.com/Advocacy%20Domestic%20Violence.pdf Safe Horizon. (n.d.). Domestic Violence: Statistics & Facts. Retrieved from http://www.safehorizon.org/index/what-we-do-2/domestic-violence--abuse-53/domestic-violence-the-facts-195.html Seelay J., and Plunkett C., (2002), Women and domestic Violence: Standards of counseling practice. The Salvation Army Crisis Service Retrieved from http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/Global/Find%20help/domestic%20violence/domestic-violence-counselling.pdf Spillsbury et.al. (2008), Profiles of Behavioral Problems in Children Who Witness Domestic Violence. Violence and Victims, Volume 23, Number 1. Straus, M. (1992). Children as witnesses to marital violence: a risk factor. Columbus, OH: Ross Laboratories. Timmer, S., Ware, L., Urquiza, A., & Zebell, N. (2010). The effectiveness of parent-child interaction therapy for victims of interparental violence. Violence And Victims, 25(4), 486-503. Unicef, (2006). Behind closed doors: Impact of Domestic violence on Children. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/protection/files/BehindClosedDoors.pdf Warshaw C., and Sullivan C.M., (2013). A Systematic Review of Trauma-Focused Interventions for Domestic Violence Survivors. Retrieved from http://www.nationalcenterdvtraumamh.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/NCDVTMH_EBPLitReview2013.pdf Weisz, A. N. (1999). Legal advocacy for domestic violence survivors: The power of an informative relationship. Families in Society, 80(2), 138-147. Read More