1. Reducing violence using community-based advocacy for women with abusive partners.
- Author
-
Sullivan CM and Bybee DI
- Subjects
- Adolescent, Adult, Battered Women psychology, Consumer Advocacy, Depression psychology, Domestic Violence statistics & numerical data, Female, Health Services Accessibility organization & administration, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Michigan, Middle Aged, Quality of Life, Recurrence, Social Adjustment, Social Support, Volunteers education, Battered Women education, Community Networks organization & administration, Domestic Violence prevention & control, Social Work methods
- Abstract
An intensive community-based advocacy intervention was designed and evaluated by randomly assigning 278 battered women to an experimental or control condition. Participants were interviewed 6 times over a period of 2 years. Retention rate averaged 95% over the 2 years. The 10-week postshelter intervention involved providing trained advocates to work 1-on-1 with women, helping generate and access the community resources they needed to reduce their risk of future violence from their abusive partners. Women who worked with advocates experienced less violence over time, reported higher quality of life and social support, and had less difficulty obtaining community resources. More than twice as many women receiving advocacy services experienced no violence across the 2 years postintervention compared with women who did not receive such services.
- Published
- 1999
- Full Text
- View/download PDF