Summary

This paper reports on findings from a scoping literature review on the impacts of coercive control reforms on women victim-survivors. Since the introduction of coercive control laws in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2015, Australia is following suit, with New South Wales (NSW) being the first state to pass a standalone offence of coercive control in 2022, with more states and territories soon to follow. These reforms are argued to contribute toward a paradigm shift that will improve justice and practice responses to male-pattern sexual, domestic and family violence (SDFV) against women. Against this backdrop, it is timely to examine these claims through a scoping literature review in order to identify implications for Australian policy makers and frontline social work and human services professionals working toward systemic change. The search strategy focused on peer-reviewed literature between 2017-2023, within Australia and the UK. Screening produced twenty-six articles for descriptive and thematic analysis. Three themes emerged from thematic analysis of the finding’s sections of the sources related to systemic change, holistic resourcing, and unintended impacts of coercive control reform. The findings reveal coercive control as one of the most common antecendents to domestic homicide pointing to a feminist standpoint of systemic change as being essential for how we view, understand and respond to male-patterned violence. Furthermore, the findings elucidate the unintended impacts of law reform indicating social work practitioners may have a larger part to play than what is currently understood. Further understanding of the paradigm shift required for systemic change is essential, in particular how social work practice driven by intersectional analysis and responses may embrace and implement a more effective systemic response to male violence against women from diverse cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.  

Keywords (separate with commas)

Domestic violence, family violence, male violence against women and girls, coercive control, law reform, systemic change, paradigm shift.

Summary

Domestic violence shelter policies commonly exclude women if they use substances or arrive intoxicated. This can place them at further risk of violence. A harm reduction approach to policies, programs, and practices can mitigate the risk of harms associated with substance use and other risky behaviours. Some domestic violence shelters in Ontario, Ireland, and other places have begun to implement harm reduction strategies and consider this to be a viable approach. Our community-based research studies completed in collaboration with the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH), consisting of a survey of Ontario shelters, six Ontario shelter case studies involving interviews with 25 staff and 52 residents, and discussion groups at a conference we held for shelter staff, have also determined that implementing harm reduction approaches in domestic violence shelters can be a safe way to support women fleeing violence, who also use substances. In addition, we found that not all domestic violence shelters can implement harm reduction approaches in the same way. In partnership with OAITH, we co-constructed the Harm Reduction Framework and Continuum of Harm Reduction Practices. The continuum is a comprehensive, flexible tool that provides shelters with a means to assess their substance use and harm reduction practices, identify potential areas for change, and create and implement a harm reduction plan that will meet their unique geographical and population context. We present a sample of the continuum tool and discuss key elements of the tool development, including an overview of the contributing research, explanation of categories and levels, use of the tool, and other considerations.

Keywords (separate with commas)

domestic violence shelters, harm reduction, substance use, intimate partner violence survivors

Summary

Women fleeing violent relationships who use substances often face barriers to accessing safe shelters because of domestic violence shelter abstinence policies. The Ontario government recognized these barriers and issued new standards in 2015 that require Ontario-funded domestic violence shelters to support all women in need of safe shelter, including those who use substances. This became an impetus for change with many shelters implementing harm reduction strategies and approaches to varying degrees to try to address the standard. To understand how shelter staff were addressing the issue of substance use and how they were implementing harm reduction approaches, we conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with staff at five domestic violence shelters across Ontario. Our findings suggested that staff largely supported harm reduction approaches and philosophy, yet were resistant to implementation. They identified concerns about the safety and well-being of all staff and residents, particularly child residents, and identified a lack of experience with substance use and need for additional training. Resources to provide additional training and have sufficient staffing to integrate harm reduction practices more effectively were also specified. Although each shelter had varied contexts and needs, domestic violence shelters need to ensure staff are better positioned and well equipped to support successful implementation of harm reduction approaches. 

Keywords (separate with commas)

domestic violence shelters, harm reduction, substance use, staff perspectives, qualitative interviews

Summary

South African adolescents are exposed to all forms domestic violence (DV). The effects of DV exposure on adolescents are reported to be adverse and possibly have lasting, life-long negative implications, such as behavioural issues, gender attitudes and poor psychosocial outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between adolescent exposure to domestic violence and psychosocial functioning and gender attitudes. Data was collected through a self-administered survey with 848 grade 8 adolescent learners from four high schools in the Ekurhuleni region in Johannesburg, South Africa. The findings of the study confirmed the hypothesis that exposure to DV is associated with negative gender attitudes and poor psychosocial functioning. Most of the adolescents exposed to domestic violence held negative gender attitudes and displayed poor psychosocial functioning, which predisposes them to possible victimization or perpetration of domestic violence. The psychosocial effects of exposure to DV and the consequent negative gender attitudes need to be addressed, in order to \ prevent\ DV being perpetration and victimisation. This presentation argues that it is necessary to have suitable programmes at schools to address negative attitudes and poor psychosocial outcomes among affected adolescents.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Domestic Violence, Gender Attitudes, Psychosocial Functioning, Exposure to Domestic Violence