Domestic Violence Generalist Social Work
Domestic Violence
Generalist Social Work
Generalist social work practice is the knowledge, skills, and value ethics to enhance human well-being and promotes social and economic justice. Dealing with domestic violence as a social worker you much network, gathering up all the information you would need to help the victim or the perpetrators.
Social workers provide services to victims and perpetrators. Direct services to victims of domestic violence include counseling and support through shelter programs, individual counseling through private setting, and social justice community organizing effort to prevent domestic violence from occurring. Social workers provide services to victims of domestic violence through shelter; the services provided empowerment and advocacy.
Victim population
Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior which involves violence or abuse by the person against another in a domestic context such as marriage of cohabitation. Domestic violence is use to gain or maintain power or control over their partner. Domestic violence can happen to anyone regardless of age, education, race, religious, gender, or sexual orientation; the problems of domestic violence is often overlooked, excused, or denied. One of the earliest conceptualizations of domestic violence was based on a cyclical conflict model known as Cycle of Violence, Cycle of Violence is a pattern often experienced in abuse relationship.
Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women. Studies suggest that
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up to 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence according to (Social Work and Family Violence page 36). Boys who witnessed their parents’ domestic violence when they grow older are twice as likely to abuse their spouse or significant other as those that did not witness domestic violence. Most domestic violence incident are never reported. According to Albert R. Roberts more than 60% of domestic violence incident happen at home.
Types of Domestic Violence
The types of domestic violence are physical, emotional, financial, identity, and sexual abuse which can turn into martial rape. Domestic violence often occurs when the culprit believes that abuse is justified and acceptable. Physical abuse is an act of another party involving contact intended to cause feelings of physical pain, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm. Examples are hitting, chocking, and biting, shoveling, arm twisting, slapping, kicking, and burning. Physical abuse also consent of holding your partner down preventing them from leaving, also smashing, damage, stealing, or
selling their possession.
I think everyone at some point of their relationship has been emotional abuse. Emotional abuse can be verbal or nonverbal. Emotional abuse is undermining an individual sense of self-worth; any use of words, voice, action, or lack action use to control, hurt,or demean another person. Some examples of emotional abuse include name calling, humiliation, screaming, controlling where the victim goes and what they do, and harassing. Another type of abuse is financial abuse. Financial abuse is any type of behavior that maintains power and control over finances. Examples of financial abuse are
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controlling financial assets and effectively putting them on an allowance, damaging their partner credit score, preventing the victim from working, and taking credit cards, checks and money. Identity abuse is using personal characteristic to demean, manipulate, and control their partner. Examples are ridiculing partner’s physical challenges or exploring them, stating that their partner will never have another relationship because they are fat or ugly, and using stereotype and negativity.
The last type is sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is any type any forced or coerced sexual act or behavior motivated to acquire power and control but also demeans or embrace your victim. Some example of sexual abuse is unwanted touching, forcing sex or sexual actions on your partner withoutconsent using force or roughness that is not consensual, forced sex which is also rape. Rape with an object, refusing to comply with the partner’s request for safe sex, treating their partner as a sex object,
or withholding sex as a punishment.
Victim
The victim is a 29 year old black female with no job, her religion is Baptist, she has no handicap conditions, and she is a high school graduate. Her socioeconomic status is poor. The victim is married with four children. The victim stays in a 3 bedroom and 1 bathroom house. She describes her neighborhood as being okay. She is a homemaker and her husband is the financial provider. Her husband makes all final decision.
Growing up her father occupation was a preacher and the mother was forces to quit her job. Her father is in jail and her mother is dead. She has two sisters. As a child the victim’s family stayed in an apartment complex. Before the crisis the victim describe
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her family as being normal. She stated “We had the typical family my family was normal.” The victim revisited the time when they had a Halloween party. They did not go out for candy but her mom dressed up in a costume. They made popcorn balls and ate candy until their dad made it home. After that they watched a family movie then went to bed, that night they all slept in one room.
The victim’s family is considered close knit. Her two sisters stay in apartments in bad neighborhoods. One of her sister has 4 children, she does not work, and she is engaged. The other sister has 3 children and is expecting one; she works at a fast food restaurant, and is engaged. The victim and her sisters were raised by their mom. Later that year in 1996 they moved in with their grandparents.
All of the pain started when the victim’s father started using drugs. The victim father was on drugs very bad. She witnessed her father physical and verbal abusing her mother. He threw glass plates, slapped her in the face, threw her against the wall, and called her bitches and whores. At the age of 10 the victim started getting raped by her father. The first time he did it her mom was not a home they were there alone; she was watching TV. She stated “He grabbed me from the front room and said youare in big trouble.” She did not know what she did that was wrong. He took her into her mother’s bedroom pulled her pants off and her underwear off and raped her. She said“The only thing she remembers is screaming and hollering.” She did not tell her mom. She told her best friend and made her promise not to tell anyone. The victim got pregnant at the age of 11. After her mom gained knowledge about the rape, she left only to find out she was pregnant by her father. The victim’s mother moved out of the state of Mississippi for two weeks. While she was
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out of the state her mother took her to have an abortion. They moved back to Mississippi and moved in with her parents. Two weeks after movingback her husband was coming to his in laws house begging her to come back making promises that he was not going to do drugs, he was not going to physical abuse her, or ever touch his daughter again. Shortly after that they all moved back in with their father. After a week of moving back in the father came home in a rage. Her parents begin arguing and during the argument he grabbed his shot gun. He left the room they was arguing in and went to the daughter’s bedroom, grabbed his oldest daughter from the bed by her ponytail and begin dragging her to the back room of their apartment. The sister ran out of the apartment once he grabbed the sister and dragged her to the back. Her mother begged and pleaded, crying “Please let her go, I’ll do anything.” The mother gained access of the daughter and they headed for the window. When the first gunshot went off she was pushing the screen out of the window, the second gunshot went off she push her daughter out of the window, the third gunshot went off when her mom was out of the window. They fell from a two story building. Her mother’s last words were “Is my daughter okay. The victim was unconscious with a broken leg and a broke back. After the tragic accident her father fled the scene and went to his mom’s house. When the police arrested him he said, “The drugs made me do it.” The victim says “Not a day go by that she don’t think about her mom, she also stated that her mom birthdays and Mother’s Day is the hardest day of the year for her.” One of the victim sisters did not remember much from that night; she remembers her dad coming in the room with a gun screaming. After she took her sister
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out the room, her and the baby sister ran out the apartment andran down stairs and hid behind some bushes.
The victim was unable to make her mom’s funeral because the condition that was inflicted on her; they recorded the funeral for her. Her father got life for the crimes he committed.
The victim father committed plenty of the domestic violence crimes.
Ethical Issues
Ethical issue is a problem or situation that requires a person or organization to choose between alternatives that must evaluated as ethical or unethical. As a social worker many of the people we work with will be victims; most males will have battered their partners. Social workers find themselves being challenge by difficult ethical decision. Ethical perplexity comes about in situations when you have to choose between two or more relevant but contradictory ethical value. Personal ethics is ethics that a person identifies with respect so people and situations that they deal with in everyday life. Professional ethics refers to the ethics that a person must adhere to in respect of the interaction and business dealing in their professional life. Domestic violence perpetration would say if I can’t have you no one will; as a social worker that will be a threat. You will have to break confidentiality and protect a life. You can not influence your views of
clients and affect the willingness to take action on the profession’s value base. When you become a social worker your personal values should be put aside for professional ones. The degree of conflict we experience will vary with the degree of personal commitment
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and the deeper the commitment to personal value, the greater the possibility of conflict with professional value. (Grooch and Olsen, 1994 page 6) You have to remember that someone else may believe and something else. Social workers are expected to embrace a diversity of value and people.
Policies
The FVPSA (Family Violence Prevention and Service Act) is a bill is the only funding source dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence; they funds emergency shelter and related services and programs for domestic violence. The bill creates grant funding for states, tribes, and domestic violence coalitions. The bill support the needs of children exposed to violence it also addressprevention of children from victimization.
Laws in Mississippi
Mississippi have two domestic violence crimes simple domestic violence and aggravated domestic. A person is guilty of simple domestic violence if he or she commits a simple assault against a current or former spouse, child of a current or formal spouse, person with whom the offender lives or formerly lived as a spouse or as a child of that person, family member who lives or previously lived with the offender, person with whom the offender has a child. A person commies a simple assault if he or she attempts to physically injure another person, intentionally or recklessly cause physical injury to another, negligently causes bodily injury to another with a deadly weapon, or threatens another person, causing that person to feel afraid that he or she is about to suffer serious physical injury. (Mississippi Code 97-3-7) A reckless act is one that is committed, not
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necessarily with intent to harm another, but without regard for the outcome. Pushing someone out of the way in a crowd so that you can get through, without intending to injury the person, could be an assault if the person falls and is injuries. A negligent act is one which is not intentional but which occurs because the actor fails to excise reasonable care. An accidental shooting can be a negligent assault if it results from a person not being careful enough when handling or firing a gun.
Aggravated domestic violence is guilty of aggravated of domestic violence if he commits an aggravated assault against a spouse, family member, or romantic partner. A person commits aggravate assault if he or she attempt to cause serious bodily injury to another person. Intention or reckless cause’sserious bodily injury to another while acting with extreme indifferent to human life. Attempts or causes bodily injury to another person with a deadly weapon or by other means likely to cause death or seriously bodily injury, or causes injury to a child who is in the process of boarding or exiting a school bus if the offender has failed to stop for the bus according to traffic laws. (Mississippi Code 97-3-7) To act reckless is to act with extreme indifference to the value of human life, the actor does not need tointend to injure to the victim. He or she may attend to shot a person other than the victim but take no precautions to avoid hurting others. He or she may shoot a gun into a crowd appear menacing but without regard for whether he or she actually injuries someone in the crowd. To be reckless or to act with extreme indifference to human life is to act with extreme carelessness.
Micro, Mezzo, and Macro
Social work is divided into three practice micro, mezzo, and macro. Micro the smallest
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group; the individual the victim. Mezzo deals with the neighborhoods, institution. Macro is the large group, the whole group deals with the communities. Intervention that might alleviate domestic violence should be applied at all three levels micro, mezzo, and macro.
The micro level focuses on personal interaction with the victims on individual levels. Micro level could embrace a school social work counseling on an abuse student. As a social worker at the micro level you can help by empowering the person that you are helping with domestic violence. You should also build up their confidence find out what they are really good at. The mezzo level change people by ringing them together who are not as intimate as a couple, but can build and benefit from social network. The best thing to do as a social worker on the mezzo for domestic violence is group therapy. The macro level focuses on the general issues. Macro level is policy changing. Looking at domestic violence from the macro level is recognizing that the issue is recognizing that the issue of males control over women is throughout society. Macro deals with policy changes with law enforcement, protective order, prosecution, the churches, and the oppression of women.
Domestic violence may occur at the micro level, but it is also a macro problem. Social workers are involved with violent families, but also must be working at a community level and on policies that will be less tolerate to domestic violence.
Assessment is the evaluation or estimation of the nature, quality, or ability of someone or something.
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Assess the immediate safety needs of the victim
are you in danger
Assess the pattern and history of the abuse
How long has the violence been going on
Asses the connection between domestic violence and the patent’s health issue
What is the degree of the partner’s control
Asses the victim’s current access to advocacy and support groups
What resource you used or tried
Assess victim’s safety; Is the future risk or death or significant injury or harm due to domestic violence
Make sure the victim is safe Intervention
Inventions
Intervention is the action of process of intervening; interference by a country in another’s affair.
Goals for effectively responding to domestic violence victims
Increase victim safety
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Listen to the patient and provide validating messages
You don’t deserve this
Provide information about domestic violence to the patient
Listen and respond the safety issues
Show the patient a brochure about safety
Make referrals to local resources
Explain any advocacy and support systems
Follow up steps for health care practitioners
Keep contact with the patient
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Abstract
Domestic violence is one of the most unreported crimes due to fear of retaliation. Fear and promise for changes are what keep the victim in the relationship so long. Most victims think that if they leave their partner will harm them. This paper is about domestic violence and the social worker views of domestic violence.
References
Dr. Joan McClennan Social work and Family Violence 2010
Roberts R. Albert Handbook of Domestic Violence 2012
Rosenberg Jessica Working in Social Work 2009
Grooch and Olsen 1994
