Child Protective Services Self-Advocacy Notebook Project

Partnership between Buncombe County Family Justice Center, Helpmate and

UNCA

Sydney Stradling

University of North Carolina Asheville

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Background/Origins of the Project

Domestic violence (DV), also commonly referred to as interpersonal violence (IPV), is defined as physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression (including coercive acts) by a current or former intimate partner (CDC, 2016). DV is currently the leading cause of injury and the 7th leading cause of death for women in the United States. It is the number one reason women and children become homeless in the U.S. and 1 in 4 women will report violence at the hands of an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime (Buncombe County, 2016). It is a public and private health issue that is sometimes hard to quantify in a community, given that it is often hidden and kept behind closed doors.

Research has shown a high prevalence of domestic violence in low-income households where financial resources may scarce and a form of control (Imbery, 2014). Approximately 45% of children are raised in low-income households (NCCP, 2017). More than 40% of couples experiencing IPV have a minor living in the home (Rhodes et al., 2010). Within the first five years of IPV, a mother may experience mental health trauma and a child may begin to internalize and externalize their behaviors based on their surroundings and experiences (Huang et al., 2010). Children are sometimes a reason to leave an abusive relationship, but they can also inhibit the act. Mothers may be torn between sparing their children from potential violence and keeping their family together (Rhodes et al., 2010). A study done in 2000 showed that women who experienced IPV in the past year were more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and miss school or work compared to women who had not experienced IPV (Tirone et al., 2014). This can largely impact the entire family and anyone close to the victim. One study found that around 50% of DV victims end up losing their jobs as a consequence of physical and emotional violence (Imbery, 2014).

As shown in the power and control wheel (figure 2), victims of domestic and interpersonal violence slowly lose control over aspects of their life like the freedom to communicate with friends or ability to go out on their own. When working with a survivor of DV, the goal should be not to assert power, but to come to their level, listen, and help them regain the confidence they may have lost during years of abuse. As defined by Mills in 1998, legal power is the victim’s perception of their role in the legal process. Personal power is defined as the victim’s sense of control when dealing with others (Miller, 2003). Victims of DV often lose a sense of personal power, depending on their circumstances. Perceptions of personal power can be reaffirmed by legal power (Miller, 2003); therefore it is important to increase legal and personal power together to create a feeling or perception of safety for the victim.

The current project, the Child Protective Services (CPS) Notebook Project, began with Grace Anixter, intake coordinator with the Buncombe County Family Justice Center, and Nita Carroll, a Systems Advocate with Helpmate. I began working with the project along with Dr. Batada and three other UNCA students in collaboration with the Buncombe County Family Justice Center to help create, implement, and evaluate the notebook.

The intention of the notebook is to empower survivors with the knowledge they need to go through the Child Protective Services system. This system can be daunting to anyone involved for the first time. The notebook is intended to help ease the power differential that may occur

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between social workers and survivors. When someone understands what they are going through and what is ahead of them, they can better prepare for their future. The notebooks will be distributed with an initial questionnaire about the survivor’s history with CPS. A one and three month follow-up will then be conducted to document any changes in attitude or feelings about the usefulness of the notebook.

The notebook contains a comprehensive outline of the CPS process (figure 1). This is accessible because it follows a flow chart style that shows basic “if-then” scenarios that are part of the process. It also contains important information logs, helpful tips, and resources that are organized in easy to read formats. We refrained from putting anything with too much legal jargon in the notebook. There are places to take notes and draw pictures that allow the user to personalize the notebook. The user could also incorporate their children by adding pictures or drawings from them and making it act like a journal.

Figure 1

Methods and Work Undertaken

I first heard about the project from Dr. Batada after Nita Carroll and Grace Anixter contacted her to recruit a team to help with the assembly and execution of the notebook and research surrounding it. After I expressed my interest in the project, I went through a short interview with

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Nita and Grace to see if I was a suitable candidate for this project. The interview included a review of my resume with questions about my previous experience, if any, with domestic violence (DV) and the CPS system. I did not have any previous experience with DV or the CPS system, which Nita and Grace found potentially beneficial because I would be seeing the project from the viewpoint of someone new to the system, as many of the survivors are.

Before we could dive into the project, UNCA students had to sign up for the IRB net system and complete the CITI training. IRB is the Institutional Review Board and approval is required for any research that will be studying human subjects. CITI training helps walk those new to research through the ethics of conducting research in general and with other people. This training was helpful because I have never participated in a research study before, and it outlines the basic “rights and wrongs” of research with human subjects and their data. Nita and Grace also held a Domestic Violence training session with the UNCA members of the project. The goal was to educate us about the causes and effects of DV and IPV on survivors and their families. We discussed legal involvement and what some possible outcomes of this were. Some of the statistics we went through were pretty alarming, especially when I consider that 1 in 3 women will experience IPV in some form in their life, and there were 8 of us working on the project. The DV training spent some time on the power and control wheel (below) that identifies different kinds of abuse. Often people categorize domestic violence as physical violence, but it can go on for years without the victim being touched. It is sometimes harder for victims to identify things like intimidation as abuse because they have not been physically touched it is easier to excuse an emotional outburst.

Figure 2 Power and Control Wheel

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I took on roles to help with the literature review, create the initial questionnaire, and create an informational video about the project to share with other advocates and agencies. My timeline, shown below, is a rough outline of the timing of each aspect of the project.

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All partners had a role in the literature review to find and summarize a few sources. We compiled this into a Google doc so we all have access. We worked on the questionnaire and consent form

Emily Cantrell, another UNCA student working on the project, and I created a short video outlining the how the project began and what it entails. Grace thought it would be important to have some sort of visual to show advocates, employees at Helpmate, students, and anyone else interested in the project.

We laid out a general timeline for the video and conducted interviews with Grace and Dr. Batada. The questions were open ended, for example, “How did the project come about?” We overlaid visuals of the notebook and a simple timeline visual created by Dr. Batada. The video is simple and easy to follow and will potentially be added to if we see fit in the future. This was exciting for me to create because I am a Mass Communication minor and I really enjoy editing videos to be used in professional settings. Even if the video is not redone, it was good practice for me to use what I have learned in the MCOM department.

Challenges Faced and Responses to those Challenges

At first I was worried that my lack of experience with DV would not make me a suitable candidate for the project. I was nervous when answering scenario based questions during my initial meeting with Nita and Grace, but luckily my gut reactions and answers were on the right

Timeline of Public Service Project Activities

January 2017: First contacted Dr. Batada about my interest in the project.

February 2017: Met with Nita and Grace for an interview, completed the screening process, completed CITI and IRB online training, initial meetings were held.

March 2017: Completed DV training with the group.

April 2017: We all began collaborating to complete the materials, such as the consent form and questionnaire.

May-July 2017: The project was temporarily on hold as Nita and Grace went through the approval and editing process of the actual notebook. No notebooks had been distributed over the summer.

August 2017: Reconnected with Dr. Batada and Helpmate. We discussed the upcoming semester and determined the distribution of the notebooks was around a month away.

September 2017: First notebooks distributed, created an informational video to show advocates and others who are interested in the project.

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track. They also reminded me that my lack of experience mirrors that of many survivors who come to the Family Justice Center, so it was a good perspective to hold. This is also my first experience working on a research project of any kind. The research training I completed early on helped me understand the do’s don’ts, but I think in the beginning I lacked confidence in my knowledge of how to contribute. I tried to work with this innate feeling of helplessness by paying attention at meetings and asking questions when I had them. I realized I am not supposed to know a whole lot about this experience myself, and any input I have can be beneficial in some way.

The challenges we faced in the project itself started with funding and approval for the notebooks. At first I hadn’t really thought of funding as an issue; I thought that might have been worked out beforehand. All of the time and planning that Nita and Grace had put into the project was incredible, so having to put parts of it on hold was frustrating. The project is grant-funded, meaning the time and processes it takes to get funding are not always timely.

As the first notebooks were distributed, we saw a potential challenge in the timing of the distribution in relation to where the survivor is in their process. Some survivors may receive the notebook during their first or second visit, which can be daunting. Because the notebook maps out the entire CPS project, looking at the whole thing at once can make it seem like there is a lot ahead of a survivor. We discussed potentially distributing the notebooks later into the visits, or somehow working through this barrier by talking with social workers when they are distributed.

When doing research and working with survivors, there is always an ethical aspect and an effort to not negatively affect any of the participants (Husso, 2012). This can be difficult when attempting to create an intervention such as this for the benefit of a large and diverse portion of the population because everybody has different experiences. The evaluation process and questionnaires took longer than we had initially thought to put together, but this was to ensure the quality and sensitivity of the materials.

Project Outcomes & Sustainability The project itself is still in progress, and one could say it has a long way to go in what it can accomplish. As I complete my paper, the interview process has just begun. Being able to flip through the nice, new, finished notebook feels pretty good. I believe the notebook will continue to be a great resource for the Family Justice Center of Buncombe County after this project, but also a part of many other DV agencies. The notebook is still under grant funding, so to keep it going may require further grant applications. I don’t think getting those will be an issue given how far along the notebook project is. The work we have done is already beneficial outside of the project itself, and I think that is what makes this so sustainable. The literature review in itself, with a lot of help from Leah Westendorf, will be helpful when the results are ready to be published.

UNCA could still be involved in this project in the future with new students getting on board as they go further into the interview and evaluation processes. I know in the Health and Wellness major specifically, DV is not often discussed at length and I think this project could be very eye opening to some students.

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Ties to Academia

This project has shown me a lot about public health projects and how much work and coordination goes into them. I had essentially no research experience except reading scholarly research articles, but now I have more knowledge about the steps it takes to get an idea off the ground. For me, an important aspect of this project was the confidence I gained in my ability to contribute meaningfully to a subject I didn’t know anything about to begin with. I remember going to the initial meeting thinking I didn’t know the right stuff to be involved in real research, but I soon learned that there is a starting point in everything and I started to speak up more at future meetings and with my co-workers. There are many different ways of being helpful in a research team, and sometimes having a fresh pair of eyes or experiences can bring up new questions and ideas.

Over the course of my involvement with this project I began to think more seriously about getting my Masters in Public Health. While this idea did not spawn from the project specifically, it helped me connect my interests and involvement now to what I see myself doing with my future. I never considered a career that would be connected with domestic violence, but I think this was an important opportunity for me to learn more about this aspect of health that is often hidden from society at large.

Domestic violence affects so many parts of a person’s life and wellbeing. Emotional trauma can manifest itself in how a person copes with their own stress and how they care for others. Often survivors do not realize the effects of emotional abuse until they become too difficult to get away from. Physical abuse, while the most obvious to the outside world, is associated with a host of mental health problems across women of all races, age, and education status (Ellsberg et al., 2008). One of the first things we learn in the Health and Wellness major is that physical and mental health are closely intertwined and one should not be looked at without the other. Going forward in the public health field (however that may look) I realize that health is a very personal thing and the goal of public health agencies should be to empower people in their own health choices. Whether this looks like personalized nutrition or a full understanding of the system in place to help a DV survivor, empowerment is important.

In my global and domestic parity class we learned about a specific Native American population, the Pima, who live on reservations across southern Arizona. Through years of discrimination and being pushed off of their land, they have come to rely heavily on government food handouts. We listened to what some of these people had to say, and aside from the fact that they are getting basic food that lacks nutritional value; they have lost some of their tradition and their pride in the traditional way of life. By confining a group of people to infertile land and decreasing their freedom to be wholly in charge of their people and their land, we have essentially left them powerless; a public health crisis in itself. This is similar to many health problems we face today, but especially DV because when you take away a person’s ability to feel empowered, you take away their ability to achieve total wellness.

Conclusion

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In conclusion, the CPS notebook aims at empowering survivors to understand and feel involved in the CPS process. The notebook provides the information needed to lessen the power differential between government workers and survivors who may have no experience with the system or such daunting legal processes.

I am excited to have been involved in the process of creating something new to hopefully benefit a large part of the population. The collaboration between Helpmate and UNCA has been a great learning experience for all involved and I think our institutions will remain close throughout and after this project. I personally have learned a lot about domestic violence from a personal and academic viewpoint, and I see how research like this can help public health agencies move forward.

This research can be utilized along with current practices in domestic violence cases to better understand how we can mediate the effects of DV and IPV and work alongside survivors in their own healing process. The CPS system is not always helpful in the eyes of a survivor and their children; therefore a clearer picture of the system as a whole will no doubt be beneficial. The notebook will help create a sense of legal power for survivors, which can translate to a feeling of more personal power over one’s life.

References

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