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Domestic violence forces many families to flee to emergency accommodations. This article focuses on children's experiences of schooling and life at confidential addresses, and to what extent their legal right to education in the face of domestic violence is safeguarded in practice. Data were collected from interviews with 20 children aged 6-16 with multiple relocations at Norwegian refuges for abused women. Interviews were coded using the constructive approach to grounded theory. Data were analyzed using Antonovsky's theory and interpreted within the context of Norwegian and international law, examining the rights of children to education versus the legal rights of abusers. The findings indicate that children's rights to education and a life without violence may be sacrificed in favor of due process for abusers. The article suggests concrete protective measures to help safeguard these rights, and calls on policymakers and support agencies worldwide to rethink their policies and practice., Author(s): Sabreen Selvik [sup.1] [sup.2] , Cathrine Thjømøe [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412414.6, 0000 0000 9151 4445, Faculty of Education, Oslo Metropolitan University, , Oslo, Norway (2) grid.446040.2, 0000 0001 [...]

Domestic/family violence (DFV) and child protection co-occurrence of risk is common, with related homicides remaining a grave public concern. Recognising and prioritising high-risk cases that pose a lethal risk remains a complex challenge for practitioners across a range of services and legal jurisdictions. There are significant gaps in practice knowledge about how to assess and respond to high-risk cases involving child protection and DFV concerns, while working safely and effectively. This paper reports on qualitative research conducted with practitioners from a range of justice and service delivery organisations in Queensland, Australia. A community of practice, supported by the U.S. based Safe & Together Institute, provided the forum for data to be collected on participants' reflections and observations. An action research framework was employed to connect practice learning into research data through an iterative cycle of reflection and review. Ethnographic note taking was used to document arising policy and practice issues. Discussions in the CoP were also recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was undertaken combining inductive and deductive techniques. Key findings include: learning from and partnering with women; applying a perpetrator pattern-based approach in high-risk cases; engaging with men as fathers; and improving the role of the judicial system. Practice needs to be informed by centring the victim/survivor perspective, which requires a collaborative approach while maintaining system integrity to hold the perpetrator within system responses to ensure accountability. There are important learnings for developing service sector responses and future research on high-risk cases., Author(s): Menka Tsantefski [sup.1] , Amy Young [sup.1] , Tracy Wilde [sup.1] , Patrick O'Leary [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1022.1, 0000 0004 0437 5432, School of Human Services and Social [...]

In an attempt to address the paucity of research examining the childhood experience of people living with albinism within family context, the present study explored family-based violence and prejudicial treatments against children born with albinism in Nigeria. In addition, issues that traumatized children with albinism (CWA) within their family setting, and the coping strategies they found effective were identified. The research was located within an interpretive qualitative paradigm and framed within the theories of 'othering,' self-esteem, and family system. Interviews were conducted with 62 adults living with albinism who were raised in family settings. The prejudicial treatments and family-based violent behaviors experienced by participants were explored, and a thematic analysis of the narratives was carried out. Findings confirm the existence of family violence and prejudice regarding albinism. Prejudices on albinism were found to result in parents denying CWA of educational and vocational sponsorship, cordial family relationship, social interactions and attendance of social events. Family members' perceptions of CWA were reportedly influenced by social and religious inclinations. Families were found not to be only violent with CWA but also facilitating institutional violence by religious organizations. Participants expressed developing emotional problems like paranoia, anger, depression, feelings of powerlessness, and low self-esteem, while they utilized varieties of emotion-oriented coping strategies during their childhood experiences. CWA are subjected to prejudice and violence within their families that are unique and deserving of research and policy interventions. Therefore, family-based orientations, screening for family violence, religious and social groups' support for people living with albinism (PWA) were suggested., Author(s): Richard A. Aborisade [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412320.6, 0000 0001 2291 4792, Department of Sociology, Olabisi Onabanjo University, , P.M.B. 2002, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria People living with [...]

Rigorous, comprehensive and timely research are the cornerstone of social and transformative change. For researchers responding to femicide, family and intimate partner homicide, there are substantial challenges around accessing robust data that is complete and fully representative of the experiences and social identities of those affected. This raises questions of how certain social identities are privileged and how the lens of intersectionality may be constrained or enabled through research. Further, there is limited insight into the emotional labour and safety for researchers, and how they experience and mitigate vicarious trauma. We examine these issues through a shared critical reflection and conclude with key recommendations to address the challenges and issues identified. Four researchers examining and responding to femicide, family and intimate partner homicide in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom shared and evaluated their critical reflection. We drew on our experiences and offer insights into processes, impacts and unintended consequences of fatality reviews and research initiatives. There are substantial limitations in accessibility and completeness of data, which has unintended consequences for the construction of social identities of those affected, including how multiple forms of exclusion and structural oppression are represented. Our experiences as researchers are complex and have driven us to implement strategies to mitigate vicarious trauma. We assert that these issues can be addressed by reconceptualizing the goals of data collection and fostering collaborative discussions among those involved in data collection and violence prevention to strengthen research, prevention efforts and safety for all involved., Author(s): Patricia Cullen [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] , Myrna Dawson [sup.4] , Jenna Price [sup.5] , James Rowlands [sup.6] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1005.4, 0000 0004 4902 0432, School of Population Health, [...]

Globally, over 60 million girls marry before the age of 18. The adverse health and socio-economic effects of child marriage are numerous; early marriage denies girls the right to enjoy their childhood and adolescence, creates gender inequality in education, negatively affects employment opportunities, and restricts the freedom to make important life choices. Recent research, mostly quantitative, shows child brides have increased risk of experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). Yet few studies explore the context, narratives and IPV experiences of child brides and almost none in sub-Saharan Africa. This study fills this important research gap. The study used 15 semi-structured, qualitative, in-depth interviews collected from Ghanaian women who married as children to examine their IPV experiences, and the factors which according to these women, contributed to these experiences. The women in this study came from the Bawku West district in the Upper East region of Ghana. Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis with QDA Miner-a computer-assisted qualitative research software. Most indicated they had experienced physical, emotional, sexual, and economic abuse from their intimate partners. Respondents also indicated they were economically dependent on their partners and/or had no or only little autonomy in their households. Some also identified polygyny and other cultural beliefs and practices as contributing factors to IPV in their relationships. This study demonstrates the need to raise awareness among Ghanaians on the detrimental effect of child marriage and to enact policies/law against the practice., Author(s): Harriet A. Amoah [sup.1] , Eric Y. Tenkorang [sup.2] , Patricia Dold [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.25055.37, 0000 0000 9130 6822, Department of Gender Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland, [...]

Intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) is a serious and prevalent form of violence against women. Yet, it has been neglected in research, policy and practice. In particular, the complex dynamics of IPSV are poorly understood, and qualitative research is lacking. This paper explores women's emotional responses and coping strategies in the context of IPSV, using the sociological concept of 'emotion work' to make sense of their experiences. Emotion work refers to the emotional labour undertaken by individuals to try and shape their own and others' emotional responses. It can take the form of 'deep acting' where the individual convinces themselves that an emotional response is authentic, or 'surface acting' which is more performative. In-depth, unstructured interviews with survivors were utilized to explore their lived experiences of IPSV. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to develop key themes. Three main themes were developed: 1) 'Trying to make things work in the bedroom', describes the deep acting women undertook to convince themselves that their own sexual deficiencies were to blame for the abuse. It also highlights the emotion work of protecting their partner's feelings; 2) 'Faking pleasure, minimizing worries' demonstrates how women began to acknowledge, but still minimized the abuse (deep acting) and faked pleasure as a safety strategy (surface acting); 3) 'Protecting myself from the worst of it' primarily explores the deep acting undertaken to emotionally detach themselves from the inevitable sexual abuse. These themes demonstrate shifts in women's emotion work over time, corresponding to their level of awareness of the abuse. Emotion work is undertaken largely as a protective or coping mechanism for women experiencing IPSV, however, it can also function as a barrier to awareness. This has important implications for practitioners working with victim/survivors., Author(s): Laura Tarzia [sup.1] [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1008.9, 0000 0001 2179 088X, Department of General Practice, The University of Melbourne, , Level 2, 780, 3010, Elizabeth St, Victoria, Australia [...]

Although many studies have shown that victims of child abuse have an increased vulnerability to revictimization in intimate relationships, the underlying mechanisms are not yet sufficiently well understood. Therefore, this study aimed at examining this relationship for both sexual and physical forms of violence as well as investigating the potential mediating role of attitudes toward sexual and physical intimate partner violence (IPV). Also, the potential moderating role of gender was explored. Sexual and physical child abuse and IPV victimization in adulthood as well as attitudes toward the respective form of IPV were assessed among 716 participants (448 female) in an online survey. The path analyses showed that child sexual abuse was positively linked to sexual IPV victimization among both women and men, whereas child physical abuse was positively associated with physical IPV victimization among women only. Furthermore, the relationship between both forms of child abuse and IPV victimization was mediated through more supportive attitudes toward the respective forms of IPV, but only among men. This study provides novel insights regarding the links between sexual and physical child abuse and revictimization in adulthood, suggesting that supporting attitudes toward IPV may be seen as vulnerability factor for revictimization. The moderating role of gender is especially discussed., Author(s): Isabell Schuster [sup.1] , Paulina Tomaszewska [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.14095.39, 0000 0000 9116 4836, Department of Education and Psychology, Free University of Berlin, , Berlin, Germany (2) grid.11348.3f, [...]

The experience of physicians and other health care providers in child abuse pediatrics in the last six decades includes successes and failures, which can offer critical insights to inform the growing field of health care providers focusing on elder abuse clinical practice and research. Methods: We compare and contrast child abuse pediatrics and elder abuse geriatrics and identify and describe in detail relevant lessons learned from child abuse. We focus on balancing an urgent call to action with a need for robust evidence to support clinical conclusions. We discuss solutions to research challenges, including the lack of a uniform gold standard for abuse diagnosis and how to ethically recruit subjects who may have cognitive impairment and also be crime victims. We offer recommendations on recruiting and training a specialized health care workforce. We make suggestions for health care providers about how to navigate the legal world including issues with expert testimony and also how to participate in policymaking and development of rational systems. We emphasize the importance of developing and supporting partnerships within the field, with allied fields inside and outside medicine, and internationally. We highlight the value of connecting researchers and clinicians focused on different types of family violence to learn from each other, given that, in many ways, they're treating the same disease., Author(s): Elizabeth M. Bloemen [sup.1] , Tony Rosen [sup.2] , Daniel M. Lindberg [sup.3] , Richard D. Krugman [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.430503.1, 0000 0001 0703 675X, Department of Medicine, [...]

Despite advances in practitioner-researcher partnerships, barriers to the uptake of research evidence in practice sectors that address intimate partner violence (IPV) persist. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine how practitioners across victim services, criminal justice, and law enforcement systems assess the usefulness and credibility of research evidence to their practice and policy-related decision making. Data were derived through qualitative interviews with 37 representatives of victim services, criminal justice, and law enforcement organizations in the state of Washington. Practitioners were asked to describe the criteria and processes used to determine the credibility and usefulness of research evidence they encounter. Practitioners across systems reported that the identity and credibility of the messenger conveying the research evidence, the relevance and applicability of the research to their own practice context, and the rigor of the methods used to derive the evidence are important criteria in assessing its utility and trustworthiness. A subset of respondents reported a suspicion of the research enterprise altogether, and/or a lack of resources available to engage with research evidence. Given the centrality of the messengers of research evidence in practitioners' assessment of its credibility, IPV systems may be well-served to more deeply invest in research to practice intermediaries who are adequately resourced to translate evidence across sectors. Additional practice and research implications are discussed., Author(s): Erin A. Casey [sup.1] , Taryn P. Lindhorst [sup.2] , Claire Willey-Sthapit [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.462984.5, 0000 0000 9494 3202, School of Social Work and Criminal Justice, University [...]

Introduction Few studies have investigated how intimate partner violence (IPV), and patterns of IPV experiences, may impact children's school attendance in low- and middle-income countries. Methods Using baseline data from a sub-sample of 659 women in Mexico City enrolled in a randomized controlled trial who reported having a child under age 18 and in school, multilevel latent class analysis (LCA) was used to classify women based on their reported IPV experiences. Multilevel risk regression analyses examined associations between latent class membership and IPV-related disruptions in children's schooling. Latent classes were identified in a prior study. Results Overall, 23.3% of women reported their child's school attendance was disrupted due to IPV. LCA identified four distinct classes of IPV experiences: Low Physical and Sexual Violence (39.1%); Low Physical and High Sexual Violence class (14.8%), High Physical and Low Sexual Violence and Injuries (36.5%); and High Physical and Sexual Violence and Injuries (9.6%). Compared with women in the Low Physical and Sexual Violence class, women in the High Physical and Sexual Violence and Injuries class and women in the High Physical and Low Sexual Violence and Injuries class were at greater risk of IPV disrupting children's school attendance (ARR 3.39, 95% CI 2.34, 4.92; ARR 2.22, 95% CI 1.54, 3.19, respectively). No other statistically significant associations emerged. Discussion High disruptions in children's school attendance due to IPV were reported and were differentially related to patterns of IPV experiences. Findings underscore the need to understand underlying mechanisms. Future work integrating both violence against women and violence against children is needed., Author(s): Anna Scolese [sup.1] , Tiara C. Willie [sup.2] [sup.3] , Kathryn L. Falb [sup.4] , Heather Sipsma [sup.5] , Paola Abril Campos [sup.6] , Claudia Diaz Olavarrieta [sup.7] , [...]

The co-occurrence of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and gambling disorder is an emerging area of research but no studies, as yet, have examined these within a gambling treatment-seeking population from the UK. In a sample of 204 patients, the study utilised routine clinical data and the Jellinek-Inventory for assessing Partner Violence (J-IPV) to determine the prevalence of IPV perpetration and victimisation. 20.1% of participants reported any IPV in the past year; 12.3% reported perpetration and 14.1% reported victimisation in the past year. Clinical scores were greater among patients disclosing IPV; higher anxiety and depression scores coupled with victimisation, alongside greater problem gambling severity; age, anxiety, depression and debt scores among those reporting IPV perpetration. There is need for enhanced vigilance and first-line responses to IPV in problem gambling treatment services. There is also a need for professional support for the clinicians working with these clients., Author(s): Amanda Roberts [sup.1] , Stephen Sharman [sup.2] , Jason Landon [sup.3] , Sean Cowlishaw [sup.4] [sup.5] , Raegan Murphy [sup.6] , Stephanie Meleck [sup.7] , Henrietta Bowden-Jones [sup.7] [sup.8] [...]

In conducting research with a vulnerable population, researchers must assure that benefits of research outweigh costs. The present study qualitatively examined intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors' experiences of participating in an 18-month, longitudinal study of IPV screening and intervention within a primary healthcare setting. A structured interview was administered to 24 participants who completed their 18-month study interview and assessment. The structured interview queried changes made, safety risks during study participation, and advice for researchers. Most participants reported making positive changes in their lives during study participation, often partially attributing the changes to study participation. In particular, participants spoke to the importance of talking about the abuse with trusted others, gaining increased awareness and information about IPV and resources, and recognizing that they were capable of change. Feedback about the study experience was largely neutral or positive, with only one hypothetical safety worry raised. We conclude that the potential benefits to study participation outweigh potential costs. These findings suggest that research with IPV survivors can be designed to address IRB concerns about risks to participants and cost-benefit analyses of research participation., Author(s): L. Kevin Hamberger [sup.1] [sup.2] , Sadie Larsen [sup.3] [sup.4] , Bruce Ambuel [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.30760.32, 0000 0001 2111 8460, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Medical [...]

One way for young people to reduce the risk of problems associated with having experienced family violence is to talk about their experiences with a counselor. However, little is known about how young people judge the quality of such relationships. The aim of this study was to analyze what young people describe as valuable in their relationship with the counselor with whom they talked about experiences of family violence. Fourteen semi-structured interviews with nine young people between the ages 12 and 19 years were analyzed using a thematic method. The participants were recruited within an evaluation of a treatment program in Sweden. The thematic analysis revealed four distinct themes about what the young people described as particularly valuable aspects of the counseling relationship: the opportunity to talk, a model for other relationships, and going 'in and out of' the topic of violence, which was valued by the younger teenagers; and being listened to 'almost like an adult,' which was valued by the older teenagers. The abstracted common thread was the importance for the young people of feeling equal to others somehow. The quality of the relationship between helper and helped is of central importance for young people and what specifically, from young people's point of view, constitutes such quality for younger and older teenagers respectively. The results indicate the benefit of counselors being especially flexible with young people exposed to violence and being able to establish trustful relationships with them., Author(s): Åsa Källström [sup.1] , Sara Thunberg [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0001 0738 8966, grid.15895.30, School of Law, Psychology and Social work, Örebro University, , 701 82, Örebro, Sweden [...]