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Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work 26(2) 201-212 2011 SAGE Publications Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0886109911405494 http://affilia.sagepub.com
Abstract In light of recent threats to funding for essential services, this qualitative study asked women survivors of domestic violence what they would do if their current services were no longer available. The themes seemed to span a continuum of resilience, from continuing to look for a way to escape the abuse, to uncertainty, to hopelessness and fear, and to resignation by staying in the abusive relationship. The majority of women reported that if domestic violence services were not available, they would remain with their abusers with dramatically negative consequences. Keywords domestic violence, help-seeking, survivors Since the 1970s, when domestic violence was first identified (Martin, 1976; Walker, 1984), intimate partner violence has continued to be a significant social issue. Nearly 25% of women will be victims of intimate partner violence at least once in their lifetimes, and 1.5 million women a year in the United States will be victimized by their partners (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). Although the incidence and prevalence of intimate partner violence remains a significant social issue, recent threats to funding in federal programs through the Violence Against Women Act and the Victim of Crime Act have jeopardized services that women need to survive domestic violence and eventually to seek lives of safety for themselves and their children. Indeed, research has shown that women who receive intensive advocacy services are more likely to access community supports, experience less violence, and are less likely to be reabused over time than are women who do not receive advocacy services (Bell & Goodman, 2001; Sullivan, 1991; Sullivan & Bybee, 1999). Reductions in the level of services for survivors of domestic violence will likely make their efforts to seek safety more challenging and perhaps overwhelming. In light of recent threats to funding for essential services, the qualitative study presented here asked women survivors of domestic violence what they would do if their current services were no longer available.
Corresponding Author: Diane Zosky, School of Social Work, Illinois State University, Campus Box 4650, Normal, IL 61790-4650, USA Email: dlzosky@ilstu.edu
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This three-part process often seems to progress from the use of informal to the use of formal resources. Many survivors use interpersonal coping strategies, such as placating or resisting, as initial responses to violence. When these strategies are not effective, help-seeking may expand to include informal supports, such as family members and friends, and then progress to using formal public supports, such as law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and the social service system (Brown, 1997; Goodman, Dutton, Weinfurt, & Cook, 2003; Haggerty & Goodman, 2003). The timing of when survivors of domestic violence move from recognizing the problem to making a decision to seek help may be influenced by the severity of their abuse. That is, there seems to be a correlation between the increased severity of the abuse and an increase in help-seeking activity (Coker, Derrick, Lumpkin, Aldrich, & Oldendick, 2000; Goodman et al., 2003; Goodman, Dutton, Weinfurt, & Vankos, 2005). Leone et al. (2007) found that women who were victims of intimate terrorism, which is characterized by a sustained pattern of violence based on power and control tactics, were more likely to use formal supports, such as the police, medical professionals, and mental health counselors, than were victims of less-severe situational couple conflict. Women who experienced less-severe situational couple conflict, which is defined as lacking the sustained pattern of power and control characterized by intimate terrorism, were more likely to use informal supports, such as friends. The availability of resources may influence whether survivors progress to using active helpseeking strategies to cope with violence. Survivors of violence who could identify a range of available resources they could access for help were more likely to use active means of engagement than passive means of disengagement, such as avoidance or attempts to reduce tension to cope with violence (Taft, Resick, Panuzio, Vogt, & Mechanic, 2007). Urban women reported using more resources than rural women overall, and urban women reported that their experiences with the criminal justice and law enforcement systems were more helpful than rural women did (Shannon, Logan, Cole, & Medley, 2006). Race may influence how survivors of domestic violence seek supports. Hollenshead, Dai, Ragsdale, Massey, and Scott (2006) found that African American women were more likely to seek help from the law enforcement system than from counselors, and when seeking help from family violence service agencies, they were more likely to use legal advocacy services than counseling. The opposite was true for Euro-American women, who were more likely to use counseling services than legal advocacy services. African American women are more likely to use prayer than were Caucasian women, who were more likely to use formal mental health counseling services to seek help for violence (El-Khoury et al., 2004). In addition to studying how abused women have been successful in seeking help, it may be equally instructive to learn why some women do not seek help. Fugate, Landis, Riordan, Naureckas, and Engel (2005) identified barriers to accessing help, such as wanting to avoid the loss of confidentiality, being afraid to tell others, experiencing tangible losses, wanting to avoid the hassle of reporting, feeling that their situation did not reach a threshold for intervention, and being concerned that accessing resources would mean they would have to terminate their relationships. Fugate et al.s study reminds us that we can learn a great deal from negative case studies as well as from the successful ones. Outcome studies on help-seeking have indicated that the availability and accessibility of a range of services for survivors of intimate partner violence can have positive impact on womens ability to achieve safety. Shelter services are critical for many women to find immediate safety to begin longer term planning for violence-free living. These services have been found to reduce the incidence and severity of new violence (Berk, Newton, & Berk, 1986), and women who received shelter services manifest less depression and are more hopeful (Sedlak, 1988). There is considerable outcome data to support the efficacy of advocacy services having a positive impact on survivors of abuse achieving safety. Sullivan (1991) found that women survivors who
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worked with advocates were more effective in achieving their goals than were a control group of abused women who did not receive advocacy services. Sullivan and Bybee (1999) reported that women who worked intensively with an advocate during the postshelter phase experienced less violence over time, reported a higher quality of life and social support, and had greater success in obtaining community resources than did women who had not received advocacy services. Their study compared reabuse rates over a 2-year postintervention phase and found that twice as many women who had received advocacy services were free from violence as women who did not receive advocacy services. Allen, Bybee, and Sullivan (2004) found that advocacy services increased abused womens effectiveness in acquiring community resources that helped them achieve their goal of living violence-free lives. In addition, women who received advocacy services were more likely to access and follow through with seeking legal remedies (Weisz, 1999; Weisz, Tolman, & Bennett, 1998). Supportive counseling from both professionals and peer support groups is effective in helping women survive abuse. Counseling has been shown to be effective for survivors, with improvements in self-esteem, affect, assertiveness, social supports, locus of control, coping abilities, and selfefficacy (Bennett, Riger, Schewe, Howard, & Wasco, 2004; Cox & Stoltenberg, 1991; Mancoske, Standifer, & Cauley, 1994; Tutty, 1996). Participation in peer support groups provides stability for women while they are making changes in their lives (Gordon, 1996). Tutty, Bidgood, and Rothery (1993) found that women who participated in a support group had greater self-esteem, less perceived stress, less depression, and less anxiety than did women who did not. Feminist empowerment theory supports a collaborative model of partnership between the domestic violence community and survivors. Survivors must be active help seekers, but the domestic violence community must do its part to provide avenues and services to support survivors quest for safety and peace in their lives. Abundant research has supported the fact that women survivors of domestic violence are active help seekers to improve their situations. When women access a variety of services, they make better progress with positive changes than do women who do not receive services. Indeed, unsuccessful attempts to receive services may actually increase a womens likelihood of staying in the abusive situation (Koepsell, Kernic, & Holt, 2006). During periods of contraction in federal and state fiscal supports, services for battered women are threatened, and survivors may struggle with their attempts to leave their abusers or cope with their situations until they can safely make changes in their lives. An important question is this: What impact will less funding have on the lives of women who are trying to survive abusive partnerships? The qualitative study presented here examined what violence survivors said they would do if the domestic violence services they were using were no longer available.
Method
The qualitative data were gathered in summer 2007 as part of a larger strategic planning process for the state coalition of domestic violence service providers in a midwestern state. The strategic planning committee agreed to undertake a needs assessment to determine what ongoing needs survivors continued to experience. The coalition has 52 member organizations, each of which was invited to participate in the data-collection phase. Member organizations are both shelter-based programs and community-based programs. For approximately 1 month in summer 2007, each member agency interviewed one to three recipients of service using four open-ended questions: What would you have done if the domestic violence program did not exist? What barriers do you experience in meeting your goals? What type of assistance from your community and other service agencies would be helpful to you?
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If the governor of the state was sitting here, what would you tell him, in 25 words or less, about what you need as a survivor of domestic violence? Domestic violence caseworkers in each agency asked for volunteers to participate in the interviews. A total of 161 women agreed to participate. To ensure anonymity for safety purposes, no identifying information or demographic data were collected, and no electronic recording was made of the interviews. The caseworkers took written notes of the discussions. Members of the data-gathering committee transcribed all the individual written responses into one aggregate file. The data were analyzed using the constant-comparative method with NVivo qualitative software. Open coding of the transcripts was first conducted to find the major categories and themes. Axial coding was then conducted in the same manner as the open coding and further refined the open-coded categories and themes into subthemes. This article discusses only the results for the first of the four questions.
Results
The responses from the open-ended question that asked women what they would do if the domestic violence services they used were not available revealed three general themes. These themes seemed to span a continuum of resilience by continuing to look for a way to escape the abuse, to uncertainty, and to hopelessness and fear and resignation by staying in the abusive relationship. On the most positive end of the continuum, some women would have been undaunted by barriers and would have continued to try to find help somewhere in any way they could. Other women responded to this question with the theme of confusion or uncertainty. They simply did not know what they would have done or what would have become of them and their children. The largest group of responses, however, clustered on the negative end of the continuum with the theme that the women would have had to stay in their abusive relationships. Several subthemes or categories also emerged within these three major themes. Although there were 161 women in the sample, the womens qualitative narratives may have included more than one theme, so the total responses in all three themes are greater than 161.
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The second subtheme within the overall theme of resilience was that some women would have attempted to leave their abusive relationships by going to a family members home to stay. Of the 54 women, 13 indicated that they would seek help from family members. One woman said that the relative who was most likely to take her in was a brother in another state, which would have required her to move with no money and no transportation. Another woman remarked that she did not want to be a burden to her family or appear as though she could not provide for her children. A few women said that their abusive partners would likely find them if they lived with family members. The following are representative comments:
[I would have] moved in with [my] parents until a place could be found to keep us safe from what was going on or try to stay home and hope that [my] husband wouldnt show up and cause more trouble. [I would live with my in-laws [her abusers parents]. I could have stayed with my family. However, I did not want to burden them or for them to see that I could not care for my four children.
The third subtheme included the responses of women who speculated that they would be homeless without the shelter. Of the 54 women in the overall theme of resilience, 18 reported that they would likely be homeless. In a positive show of resilience, these women said that they thought that homelessness was a better alternative than abuse, but some women realistically remarked that becoming homeless might also compel them to return to their abusers. Several women said they would be living on the street. The following comments indicate their desperation:
I would have been homeless with nowhere to go. I was living in a storage unit. I would have looked for a cave or a vacant barn and stayed there. More than likely, my children and I would have tried to find another shelter or stayed in my vehicle. I could not begin to tell you. Id probably be on the streets cause I wasnt going to stay with my abuser any longer.
Life would be very different. I would have been lost without this program.
[Id be] extremely confused. The program lifted [my] state of confusion and judgment for the future. [I would have] blundered my way for years trying to find a way out. The program expedites ones ability to understand options. Fall apart! Not surethis program has been everything to me. I would not have had the strength to carry on for myself and my children. I wouldnt know how or where to start to go for safety or protection. I would probably develop some nervous breakdown or panics.
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Within the theme of staying with the abusive partner, several prominent subthemes emerged. One subtheme was that because of the constant emotional abuse and having grown-up in abusive families, many women did not realize that their relationships were abusive until they sought services from domestic violence service agencies. Several women said that without the domestic violence prevention agencies, they would have stayed with their abusers and would have assumed that they had normal relationships. These comments were typical:
I would have stayed. I thought I was in a normal relationship. As a child witness of DV, abuse was the only thing I knew. I didnt like what was going on. However, I wasnt aware that I was being abused. Marital problemsthat was what I was told I was experiencing. Counselors, psychiatrists, preachers, and my family told me that my husband was sick and that I was responsible to help him. Safe Harbor helped me see that my home was not normal. They offered support, so I did not feel alone. They, and only they, treated me with respect. I, too, was a child witness of DV. Without Safe Harbor, I would have stayed in an abusive relationship that I defined as normal. I would have stayed in the relationship. I fell in love. I thought my relationship was how it was supposed to be. The abuse was OK because I loved him.
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I didnt know it was DV. I wouldnt know ways to defend myself until I participated in this program.
The second subtheme that is that the women predicted that they would have become violent out of self-defense. Seven women reported feeling so desperate that they stated they might have become violent perhaps even to the point of killing their partners. As three women noted:
I would have continued where I was; things would probably get worse. I would have needed to find DV help somewhere else. I would have ended up back with my abuser or in a similar relationship. I would feel depressed and alone. I might have been in jail for retaliating. I might be dead. I might be in that same relationship. I might be in prisonI was ready to hurt that man. I would still be experiencing sexual, physical, and emotional abuse from my husband. I have felt suicidal and have pointed a gun at my husband (in the pastnot since Ive been coming here). I think I would have ended up killing my spouse. I would have gotten drunk. Thank goodness for the staff here. Theyve been real supportive.
The most chilling subtheme is that some women predicted they would be dead, either at the hands of their abusive partners or through suicide. Of the 99 women who would have stayed with their abusers, 18 described the critical situation in which many women find themselves. These women literally feared for their lives, as these comments indicate:
I would be dead. Honestly, I wouldnt have survived that last incident. I might be dead. I would have killed myself or myself and him. Because of my faith, I would have sought pastoral counseling. I would have prayed. I would have trusted God. Because of my faith, I would have persevered with my marriage the way millions of women before me had done. It might have cost me my life. He may have killed me or caused me to have a miscarriage. I probably would have died; I nearly did! I thank God for this place. I had not known there was help for me until I was in the hospital having surgery.
Limitations
The results of this study must be interpreted cautiously because there were limitations in the design and methodology. All the participants were drawn from one state, and thus the results may relate only to survivors in that state. The sampling design consisted of an availability sample, so there is no way to ensure that the participants are representative of the population of survivors of domestic violence. Thus, the results cannot be generalized to the population of domestic violence survivors. Because complete anonymity of the participants was important to the team, no demographic data were collected. The lack of demographic data, however, limited the teams ability to describe the sample and to reflect on whether the sample represents the larger population of survivors. The data-collection method also introduced some limitations. Because the survivors were being interviewed by caseworkers from the agencies in which they were receiving services, some of their responses may have been biased so as either not to reveal negative comments or to overly embellish positive comments. The written transcriptions of notes during the interviews instead of more precise data-recording techniques introduced a limitation in the validity of the data. As I stated in the Method section, however, this limitation was conscientiously
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chosen to maximize the womens anonymity and thus safety. Since the gathering of these data was originally designed to inform the team with regard to strategic planning processes, rigorous empirical methods were not chosen at the outset. Nonetheless, the team realized after the data were collected that the women survivors had important information that may be valuable to the victim treatment community. Despite the methodological limitations, the results of this study may be informative to others who are planning services or advocating for policy.
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Acknowledgments
The following members of the 2007 Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence Services Committee were instrumental in the data collection for this project: Sarah Conlon, Kathy Doherty, Pat Prinzevalle, Donna Moulton, Carrie Melton, Connie Doran, Joyce DeRenzy, Theresa DuBois, Teri Ducy, Martha Daly, Ida Anger, Diane Mayfield, Terrie Wingo Eichorn, Joan Rappaport, Crystal Bass-White, Cathy McClanahan and Becky Winstead.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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Bio
Diane Zosky, PhD, is an associate professor in and the interim director of the School of Social Work, Illinois State University, Campus Box 4650, Normal, IL 61790-4650; e-mail: dlzosky@ilstu.edu.