پر کردن شکاف بین رفاه کودکان و خدمات خشونت خانگی: ساختار شکنی فرآیند تغییر

In spite of the long and well-documented history of tension between the domestic violence and child welfare systems in the United States, a number of communities have developed effective collaborations between the two in order to better meet the needs of families involved with both. After setting the historical context for the tensions between providers of child welfare and domestic violence services, the changing relationship between the two systems is examined from the perspective of professionals in both fields in one large urban community, New York City. Recommendations are made for continued progress. Communities seeking to improve their own response to the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment may be able to gain from developing a broader understanding of the challenges and successes of the change process in a community which has struggled to improve collaboration.

From the time that the first organized services for battered women appeared in the United States in the 1970s, domestic violence services operated separately from child welfare services, with little collaboration and often a great deal of tension and distrust between the two (Fleck-Henderson, 2000, Findlater and Kelly, 1999, Magen et al., 2000, Mills, 1998a, Peled, 1996, Schechter, 1996, Schechter and Edleson, 1999 and Stark, 2007). Until recently, child welfare agencies have largely ignored the presence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in families when there was no indication that a child was being directly abused (Findlater and Kelly, 1999, Gordon, 1988 and Stark, 2007; A. Williams-Isom, personal communication, April 21, 2006). At the same time domestic violence service providers have often avoided collaboration with child welfare agencies because of their distrust in that system's willingness or ability to be sensitive to the needs of abused mothers (Beeman et al., 1999 and Findlater and Kelly, 1999; E. Roberts, personal communication, September 20, 2007; Stark, 2007). Practitioners in both the child welfare and domestic violence service systems may agree on broader common goals, including the well-being of families, the empowerment of non-abusive parents to protect their children, accountability for the abusive partner, and the interruption of the intergenerational transmission of family violence. Improved communication and collaboration between the systems is necessary to achieve these goals (Conroy, 2000, Findlater and Kelly, 1999, Fleck-Henderson, 2000 and Schechter and Edleson, 1999). Collaboration, or the act of working jointly toward common goals, in this case entails two distinct social service systems working together to address the overlapping issues of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment in a population which is served by both. This collaboration may be served if members of both communities develop a better understanding of the history, values and missions of both systems, as well the current struggles to reconcile the conflicts between them. This paper examines the progress in the collaboration of the two systems, using New York City as an example to deconstruct the change process. While it is acknowledged that IPV occurs with similar frequency among same-sex couples as heterosexual couples, and that women perpetrate IPV against men, this discussion generally refers to abused mothers whose perpetrators are men, as these are the vast majority of cases that come into contact with the child welfare system.

Studying the development of social service systems allows us to better understand some of the key mechanisms by which society evolves. If we are able to identify the ‘critical junctures’ of the systems' evolution, then we may be able to improve upon the efficiency of the change process in parallel or similar systems, or future change within the same system. In studying the change process, some of the questions to be asked include: What are the goals of the system; what are the characteristics and events impacting the system which have moved it closer to or further away from achieving its goals; to what extent are services guided by false assumptions; how does the system acquire new knowledge, and adjust based on that knowledge; what forces internal and external to the system have propelled change; what have been the factors resisting change; what have been the positive and negative, intended and unintended consequences of the efforts at change; and how might the negative results have been avoided and the positive results achieved more expeditiously? In order to build on our progress in the collaboration between domestic violence and child welfare service providers, New York and other communities will need to consider how both systems continue to evolve their missions and their practice. If child welfare has truly evolved in its response to domestic violence, it is not out of a series of knee-jerk reactions to tragic child deaths and lawsuits. Rather, it is because the system has committed to broadening its mission from child protection to child well-being. It will be compelled, then, to refocus some of its resources to understand and respond to much more complex issues within families and communities that impact children. The domestic violence service system is also compelled to make a shift. More than a decade ago, Heise (1996) wrote of the need for this system's evolution. Feminist groups, especially those emerging from the Left, have traditionally been reluctant to engage with the State, preferring to provide parallel services and criticize from afar, rather than make demands for government accountability. This strategy has come with costs, in both terms of coverage and energy available for prevention. In my opinion, women's groups in the next decade will have to concentrate more on working with State actors to enact gender-sensitive programs if lasting change is going to occur. Feminist NGOs can and should strive to develop model services and interventions, but eventually they must shift from being sole providers to helping adapt model services for mainstream systems. (p.19) This shift is evident in the case of the collaboration between domestic violence service providers and Children's Services in New York. Within domestic violence agencies, advocates are paying more attention to the needs, wants and complex situations of the individual survivor of abuse. Tending to these needs requires accepting the knowledge and expertise of service providers in other realms, such as child welfare, mental health and substance abuse, and also being willing to share their own expertise to assist other systems in better responding to survivors of domestic violence. It also includes broadening the scope of both research and practice to address the needs of parents who choose to remain with abusive partners or to remain in the community rather than go into shelter, of parents in same-sex relationships, and relationships in which mothers are mutually or primarily abusive partners.