Re: Defining the co-occurrence of domestic violence and childmaltreatment

["Rob Newell" <rmnewell@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

FYI,

Many states now (legally) consider domestic violence committed in the 
presence of a child a form of child abuse.  As a child/adolescent clinical 
psychologist, I certainly do.

Robert M. Newell, Ph.D.
Seattle, Washington


From: brianmorgan@btinternet.com
Reply-To: brianmorgan@btinternet.com
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers   
<CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Subject: Re: Defining the co-occurrence of domestic violence and  
childmaltreatment
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 22:38:59 00100

My two cents might be worth even less, as I am not a researcher
in this field, but I'm wondering what this is _for_.

Are you intending to provide predictors for child abuse based on
domestic violence, and if so, do you not need to study the
population of households with domestic violence to see how many
are associated with child abuse, rather than the other way
around?

Even if you found that all child abuse cases are associated with
domestic violence, this does not mean that all domestic violence
leads to child abuse. You could end up wrongly removing children
from any family where there was adult violence - much though the
latter is to be deplored - when the appropriate intevention might
be to work on the violence.

And how about a prospective study, which in  biomedical circles
usually carries more weight - or am I wrong?

Brian Morgan


 >I'll give you my two cents, for what it is worth.
 >
 >carolyn hartley wrote:
 >
 >> Dear List Members,
 >>
 >> I am working on a study of the co-occurrence of domestic violence and
 >> child maltreatment.  I have a cross-sectional sample of all confirmed
 >> child abuse cases involving a parental perpetrator for a city in Iowa
 >> (population 130,000) for a 20-month period.  I am comparing the
 >> characteristics of families defined as ‘child maltreatment only’ wi>th
 >> ‘co-occurrence’ families (both child maltreatment and domestic
 >> violence present).
 >>
 >> I have three sources of data to verify the presence of domestic
 >> violence:  1) the assessment narratives completed by child protection
 >> workers investigating the child abuse allegation; 2) the service
 >> authorization forms completed by child protection service workers on
 >> families referred for services after the investigation; and 3) a data
 >> base created by the city police department on all domestic violence
 >> arrests occurring in the city.
 >>
 >> My question has to do with defining 'co-occurrence' and 'child
 >> maltreatment only.'
 >>
 >> Regarding the co-occurrence group, should I restrict co-occurrence to
 >> only male batterer/female victim?
 >
 >My opinion would be yes for both research and political reasons.  The
 >political reasons are fairly obvious, although I would add that men
 >battering their wives is a different phenomenon, socio-culturally, than
 >women battering their husbands.  The roots of the problem are different,
 >the cultural support and history of woman abuse is much different.  Of
 >course there are social psychologists who would disagree with me and
 >argue that violence is violence.
 >
 >For purposes of research I would question whether the N of the woman to
 >husband violence would be large enough to do any analysis.  Furthermore,
 >do you want to invest your resources into that small N.  I guess these
 >are rather pragmatic reasons.
 >
 >>  I have a small percentage of cases involving a female batterer.  The
 >> majority of studies on co-occurrence involve a female victim/male
 >> batterer.
 >>
 >> Also regarding this group, should the domestic violence precede the
 >> child maltreatment to be considered a ‘co-occurrence’?  Again, the
 >> majority of studies of families with known child abuse (from Edleson’>s
 >> excellent review) started with a report of child abuse and looked
 >> retrospectively at reports of domestic violence.
 >> All the child protection data on domestic violence I have involves
 >> domestic violence preceding child maltreatment.  However, I have
 >> police report data on domestic violence occurring after the child
 >> maltreatment.  Can I still consider this co-occurrence?   What would
 >> be an appropriate time frame for assuming co-occurrence (a police
 >> incident within two months, six months, a year)?
 >>
 >
 >This is an interesting question.  If you use the term "co-occurrence"
 >then temporal order isn't important.  I think it would be useful to have
 >a window, as you suggest, for the occurrence of either form of abuse.
 >It might be interesting to study the subgroups and see how the order of
 >the abuse correlates with any differences in the sub-groups.  One
 >justification for ignoring temporal order is that there might be
 >differences in the "opportunity" to be abused by a partner depending on
 >whether a woman is in a relationship or not.  How long you open the
 >window is an arbitrary decision, I would personally choose a one year
 >period.
 >
 >
 >>
 >> Regarding the child maltreatment only group, how “pure” should this
 >> group be?  Should I restrict the sample to no known history of
 >> domestic violence by a past or current partner?  I have some
 >> assessment narratives and police data that indicate domestic violence
 >> by a past partner, but no evidence of battering by a current partner.
 >>
 >
 >Another difficult decision.  I would try to make the groups as "pure" as
 >possible in order to have the highest confidence that any differences I
 >found were in fact attributable to their group membership (child
 >maltreatment only vs. co-occurrence group).
 >
 >
 >>
 >> I would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions of literature that
 >> might assist me in making these decisions.
 >
 >This is an area of research I'm very interested in and would appreciate
 >hearing what you decide as well as any papers which you write out of the
 >data.
 >
 >Good luck.
 >
 >
 >
 >> ************************************
 >
 >Randy H. Magen, Ph.D.
 >Associate Professor
 >School of Social Work
 >University of Alaska Anchorage
 >3211 Providence Drive
 >Anchorage, Alaska 99508
 >phone: (907) 786-6901
 >email: afrhm1@uaa.alaska.edu
 >Web site: http://cwolf.uaa.alaska.edu/~afrhm1/index.html
 >
 >
 >
 >


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