سیاست رفاه کودکان و عمل مواجهه کودکان با خشونت خانگی

Objectives This article reviews research, policy and programming in Australia, Canada and the US on the child welfare response to EDV. Method The review draws on searches of standard research databases, interviews with researchers and practitioners, and the authors’ own research. Results Although EDV is underreported, across studies 7% to 23% of youths in general population surveys experienced EDV, 36–39% of youth in DV cases have witnessed the violence, and 45–46% of primary caregivers in child maltreatment investigations have experienced DV. Mandatory reporting can increase the number of cases that come to the attention of child welfare, but without resources for training and programming can lead to inappropriate reports, lack of referral for further assessment, and strains on the child welfare system. Improving the child welfare response to EDV can include collaboration between child welfare workers and DV advocates; increased training on screening for DV; new protocols on DV; and dedicated DV staffing within child welfare agencies. In recent years, policy and program attention to EDV has also been embedded within broader national efforts to protect children from violence and maltreatment. Differential response models that eschew investigation in favor of assessment and service delivery hold promise for families with DV. Conclusions Empirical data are limited, but current research and practice experience suggest that child welfare agencies seeking to improve the response to EDV should collaborate with other disciplines involved with preventing and responding to DV, seek resources to support training and programming, consider methods that avoid stigmatizing parents, and build in a program evaluation component to increase knowledge about effective practice.

Over the past 25 years, children's exposure to domestic violence (EDV) has increasingly been considered as a form of child maltreatment (Edleson, 2004). EDV can be defined as a child directly witnessing physical or psychological violence between adults, overhearing the violence, or seeing its aftermath (e.g., resulting injuries or emotional harm). We have chosen to use the broader term EDV instead of exposure to intimate partner violence to also capture children witnessing violence between a caregiver and another adult taking place in the home. The association of EDV with impaired child development and with both immediate and later negative health outcomes has been well documented (e.g., Bair-Merritt et al., 2006, Dauvergne and Johnson, 2001, Jaffe et al., 2011, Kitzmann et al., 2003 and Moss, 2003). Like other forms of maltreatment, EDV seldom occurs in isolation and is associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing other forms of victimization (Hamby et al., 2010, Holt et al., 2008 and Renner and Slack, 2006) as well as caregiver substance abuse and mental health problems (Kohl et al., 2005a and Kohl et al., 2005b). There are emerging movements in several countries to improve policy and practice to protect children from EDV. These movements have resulted in the collection of new data on EDV and the design and implementation of new child welfare policies and practices. To assist with the development of child welfare practice, this article briefly summarizes current knowledge on the prevalence of EDV, and on child welfare services policies and practices that may hold promise for reducing the frequency and impact of EDV on children. We focus on Australia, Canada, and the United States (US) since these countries share: (1) a similar socio-legal context; (2) a long history of enacting and expanding legislation about reporting of maltreatment; (3) debates regarding the application of reporting laws to EDV; and (4) new child welfare practices that show promise for responding more effectively to EDV (Mathews & Kenny, 2008).

DV is prevalent in Australia, Canada and the US and common in child welfare cases, and statistics on EDV are likely to underestimate the problem because victims often underreport. A variety of policies, programs, and practices have developed in child welfare to address EDV. Mandatory reporting of EDV has been implemented in some jurisdictions in all three countries, usually limited to situations in which the child has been or is likely to have been harmed. Mandatory reporting can increase the number of cases that come to the attention of child welfare, but has had unintended consequences in terms of apparently inappropriate referrals, lack of referral for further assessment, and strains on the capacity of the child welfare system. Mandatory reporting may be a viable option if accompanied by adequate training of reporters and staffing and programming to respond to the increase in cases, but further evaluation is needed. Research on current child welfare practice suggests that both identification of and service response to DV may fall short in many child welfare cases. Initiatives to improve the child welfare response to EDV involve collaboration between child welfare workers and DV advocates, and the development of a child welfare infrastructure including such elements as increased training on screening for DV; new protocols, guidelines and procedures on DV; and dedicated DV staffing within child welfare agencies. More research is needed to assess how widespread these initiatives are and what their impact has been. In recent years, attention to EDV has been embedded within broader national efforts to protect children from violence and maltreatment. Studies are needed to understand specifically how these efforts address EDV, and what effect they have on preventing EDV or improving the service response to it. Differential response holds promise for responding to EDV, but the methods through which DR addresses EDV need to be articulated, and the prevalence of EDV in DR cases and the effects of DR on EDV need to be studied. An effective child welfare system response to EDV is inherently challenging, both because of resource limitations and because child welfare is designed to respond to reports of maltreatment, making it less likely to intervene with EDV of low to moderate severity. Ideally, an effective child welfare response should supplement a public health model that can intervene to prevent EDV or address it before it becomes acute. Research on the Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) program is instructive. NFP is a preventive intervention in which nurses provide regular home visits to at-risk prospective mothers during pregnancy and the first two years of children's lives, and support and instruct mothers on appropriate pre-natal and child care and mothers’ personal development (see e.g., Olds, Henderson, Chamberlain & Tatelbaum, 1986). NFP has been successful in reducing child maltreatment (see e.g., MacMillan et al., 2009). It was not specifically designed to address EDV, but in one out of three NFP trials, EDV was reduced (Eckenrode et al., 2000). NFP's effectiveness overall was found to be limited when mothers experience significant domestic violence. The significance of DV for NFP has led to program improvements to address DV more explicitly (Eckenrode et al., 2000), and a randomized control trial has just started to evaluate the effectiveness of DV-related enhancements to NFP (Jack et al., 2012). A common thread running through many of the programs, initiatives and research findings discussed here is the need for child welfare to collaborate with other agencies and professionals in the criminal justice, health care, mental health and other systems. Clearly, considering EDV as a form of child maltreatment should not lead to child welfare dealing with EDV in isolation, but instead connect child welfare to a range of efforts across different disciplines to deal with EDV more systemically and ultimately more effectively. More research is needed to establish empirically based practice. Nevertheless, the research that has been conducted and practice experience suggest that child welfare agencies seeking to improve the response to EDV should (a) reach out to other disciplines working with families experiencing or at risk of DV and develop collaborative methods; (b) seek resources to support training and programming; (c) consider methods like differential response that reduce the likelihood of stigmatizing parents, who may themselves be victims; and (d) build in a strong program evaluation component to increase the knowledge base about effective practice