Domestic Violence •Percent Those EVER a Victim of Domestic Violence That Filed Protection Orders 21%

22nd Annual Children’s Law Institute January 9, 2015

Kelly Browe Olson

Domestic Violence Screening:

How Do You Know What You Don’t Know?

AGENDA

Audience Demographics & Most Pressing Questions

What is DV/IPV?

Screening for DV: When, Who and How? What Then?

Best Practices

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

Discussion Questions

In small groups of 2 - 4

Discuss the following for 5 – 8 minutes:

How do you screen for intimate partner violence a part of your job? If you don’t screen, who do you expect to screen?

How much IPV have you seen in your cases? How was it identified, when did it surface?

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

Five things you need to know about

DV/Intimate Partner Violence & Screening

•1. Every court program needs to incorporate an ongoing standardized screening protocol.

•2. Screening should be done with each party separately, preferably in person, before and throughout court or agency processes.

•3. There is not one type of victim. IPV victims and offenders are members of all socio-economic classes, all races, ethnicities and religions. Each victim has a distinct experience.

•4. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) includes psychological, emotional and physical abuse. When deciding how to proceed on a case, it is important to look for patterns of fear, coercion and control, not just orders of protection or physical harm.

•5. Most parties, even parties represented by lawyers, have not been asked about IPV issues in their relationship or been adequately prepared for their role in the process.

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

Domestic Violence (Model Code)

Attempting to cause or causing physical harm to another family or household member;

Placing a family or household member in fear of physical harm; or

Causing a family or household member to engage involuntarily in sexual activity by force, threat of force, or duress.

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

New Mexico and National Definitions

30-3-11. Household Members

As used in the Crimes Against Household Members Act (30-3-10 to 30-3-16 NMSA 1978), “household member” means spouse, former spouse or family member, including a relative, parent, present or former step-parent, present or former in-law, a co-parent of a child or a person with whom a person has had a continuing personal relationship.

Suggested Statutory Language

Interpersonal Violence involves the infliction of physical injury or the creation of a reasonable fear thereof and may include a pattern of coercive control involving tactics such as threats, intimidation, psychological and emotional abuse, sexual abuse, isolation of the victim, manipulation of children, and exercise of economic control.

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

INCIDENCE AND NATURE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN NEW MEXICO IX: An Analysis of 2008 Data from The New Mexico Interpersonal Violence Data Central Repository

1.The rates of domestic violence, intimate partner

violence and stalking in New Mexico are staggering; and

higher than national comparable rates found in the

National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS).

2. These interpersonal violence crimes are significantly under- reported to law enforcement;

3. There are significantly more victims of interpersonal

violence than ever identified by law enforcement or service providers statewide, especially

in the case of stalking;

4. There are significant co- morbidity and healthcare utilization associated with

interpersonal violence; and

5. There are significant differences between males

and females in the experience and adjudication of

interpersonal violence crimes.

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

1

New Mexico Statistics From NMCSAP

Statewide Victimization Survey 2010:

• Percent Those EVER a Victim of Domestic Violence That Filed Protection Orders 21%

• Percent Those EVER a Victim of Intimate Partner Violence That Filed Protection Orders 23%

• Percent Those EVER a Victim of Stalking That Filed Protection Orders 26%

District Court Protection Orders Issued Statewide 2010 3,638

Percent of Law Enforcement Identified Incidents 28%

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

http://www.nmcsap.org/DV_IN_NM_2010_Nov2011_FACT_SHEET.pdf

What is Domestic or Intimate Partner Violence?

Physical Violence

Sexual Violence

Emotional Abuse

Economic Abuse

Intimidation Isolation Minimizing, Denying & Blaming

Coercion & Threats

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

How are these visible in child welfare cases?

How Perpetrators Use Children

Using children to make victim feel guilty

Using children to relay messages

Using visitation to harass

Threatening to take children/report victim

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

The Who: The Abused Party

Found in all age, racial, socioeconomic,

educational, occupational, and

religious groups;

May or may not have been victimized as

children;

DV is under the control of the perpetrator, not

the victim.

Some very isolated; Isolation combined with

misinformation, Realistic fear of escalating

violence,

Worse when seek help, depending on response of

“system”.

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

What About the Children?

Trust and security necessary for healthy upbringing shattered.

Confused and terrified by abusive parent’s behavior;

Children frightened for their own safety;

Children are the silent victims;

Focus on perpetrators or their victims;

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

WHY DOESN’T SHE JUST LEAVE?

•Question erroneously implies that leaving the batterer necessarily increases the woman’s safety.

•Puts emphasis on what she didn’t do, rather that all that she has done.

•Why not ask “Why does he abuse his family?”

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

Why Some Victims Stay

• Belief in cultural/family/religious values that encourage the maintenance of the family unit at all costs;

• Continual hope and belief in the perpetrator’s promises to change and to stop being violent;

• Lack of real alternatives for employment and financial assistance, especially for victims with children;

• Lack of affordable legal assistance necessary to obtain a divorce, custody order, restraining order, or protection order;

• Lack of affordable housing that would provide safety for the victim and children;

• Being told by others that the violence is the victim’s fault.

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

How might the following behaviors be used as a means to dominate and control a family member?

•Pushing a family member down a flight of stairs

•Throwing something at a family member

•Opening a family member’s mail

•Hiding a family member’s car keys

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

Exercise 1

Exercise 1 continued

(CREATED BY LORETTA FREDERICK)

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

How might the following behaviors be used as a means of protection of self or others from or for a family member?

• Pushing a family member down a flight of stairs

• Throwing something at a family member

• Opening a family member’s mail

• Hiding a family member’s car keys

Exercise 2

Foster Parent (FP) who forbids visitation on a regular basis and it isn’t reported to authorities

FP reporting to case workers that mom or dad is acting erratically and may be using again

FP telling children that if their parent does what they are supposed to do, the children will get to go home

• How might the proceeding behaviors be used as a means to dominate and control a parent?

• How might these same behaviors be used as means of protection (of self and/or children)?

CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

If ‘violence’ or ‘abuse’ is an issue in your case, would you know?

How would you know?

How could it affect what your client needs or wants?

What difference would it make to your representation if you know?

If you discover or are told that there is DV, what would you do with that information?

Take Five Minutes and talk in small groups about these questions.

• From Loretta Frederick CLI 2015 DV/IPV Screening

Challenge assumptions

Screen on an ongoing basis for new issues or reoccurrence of older issues

Match families with appropriate procedures & services

Use of a Domestic Violence Typology

Need for Caution and Research

Typologies are theoretical in nature

All domestic violence m