Policy

5

Connecting Passion with Goals

Janice Mattie

Walden University

SOCW 6351 Social Policy, Welfare, and Change

Dr. Gail Augustine

6/19/2022

Domestic violence appears to be a social issue I am most enthusiastic about, and I would like to make progress as a social worker. When people think of domestic abuse (DV), they usually picture an adult victim or survivor. But what about the youngsters who have witnessed or been abuse victims, the boys, girls, and young adults who have felt unsafe in their own homes?

I have witnessed everything as the eldest of four children from a Caribbean household. My mother's firstborn and we had a close relationship; I was very parentified, so she shared everything with me. Instead of being a child, I was emotionally responsible for my mother, which was sometimes overwhelming. My father attempted to take out his frustration and wrath on us; as children, we did not know what to do. We are harmless and do not know what or how to defend ourselves. Social workers, teachers, the school district's ELECT program, and Turning Points for Children helped me towards my desired identity. Without them, I am convinced I would have taken an entirely different path (Donato, 2020).

Domestic violence can burden several social system sectors and has a subtle but profound impact on national development. The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA) includes provisions designed to promote victim services and the apprehension and prosecution of batterers. VAWA established a nationwide hotline for domestic abuse and donated substantial funds to several initiatives and programs, including shelters and other help for battered women, judicial education and training programs, and outreach programs for rural women. VAWA not only reauthorized STOP grants, which support programs meant to increase law enforcement and prosecution response to domestic abuse but also required domestic violence advocates to participate in the creation and execution of these programs.

The sole gap between VAWA and the population it wants to serve is that VAWA's emphasis on law enforcement reduces the more complex issue of violence against women to a problem of the law. In contrast, it is not merely a matter of the law. There is little clear evidence that VAWA has meaningfully reduced the frequency of violence, despite improved prosecution rates for domestic abuse cases. Domestic abuse is still a crime that is grossly underreported, and some opponents assert that obligatory arrest regulations have aggravated this issue (Zweig et al.,2021). Some women refrain from reporting domestic abuse because of concern that their partners, who are often the sole breadwinner, will be immediately arrested and placed in jail.

As a social worker, my contribution to the GBV course would be to plan and run psychosocial support groups for beneficiaries at primary health care centers, community centers, and outreach centers; find ways to raise awareness; organize focus group discussions on important information when needed and contribute to and regularly update service mapping of service providers in the area of intervention to make sure that GBV caseworkers are aware of all relevant and ad hoc information.

References

Donato, S. (2020). Gender-based violence against women in intimate and couple relationships. The case of Spain and Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Italian sociological review, 10(3S), 869A-887.

Zweig, J., Farrell, L., Walsh, K., & Yu, L. (2021). Community approaches to sexual assault: VAWA’s role and survivors’ experiences. Violence against women, 27(1), 30-51.

Reference

Fasani, F., Mastrobuoni, G., Owens, E. G., & Pinotti, P. (2019). Does Immigration Increase Crime? Cambridge University Press.