A Model for Getting Domestic Violence Survivors Wraparound Support

Domestic abuse of the staff in the households of the 1% is often overlooked or ignored. But foreign missions in the US that abuse their domestic staff are finally being held accountable.

Assertive community treatment teams working through outreach-centered programs in Maricopa County have become an industry standard for treating those with persistent and severe mental illnesses who have recently been incarcerated. They provide a long-term approach, aiming to halt a cycle of incarceration and hospitalization by focusing on underlying issues such as what caused the police interaction and incarceration.

In High Point North Carolina, domestic violence cases dramatically dropped after the city adopted a “focused deterrence” approach. “Where the city once saw between three and five domestic homicides a year, it has only had two in the last five years (one involved a couple from out of town). The last domestic homicide in High Point was in 2015.” The approach has worked in other cities as well. Now, Spartanburg County is the first to implement it at the county level.

Health providers are well-positioned to identify and help those who have experienced domestic violence. Nepal is one of several countries training medical workers to identify abused patients and refer them to in-hospital crisis support services.

Kansas City Municipal Court deals with over 40,000 cases of domestic violence per year, but the implementation of a compliance docket aims to reduce how many of those offenders come back to court. By forming a relationship with the people on the docket and leveraging accountability as well as requiring a series of classes, the court has been able to successfully decrease the number of reoffenders.

Coaches and players around the world are using sports to teach boys about masculinity and the importance of integrity, both on and off the field. From cricket in India to rugby in Fiji, games are used as a foundation for teaching important life lessons and values. As a result, young men participating in these programs have been found less likely to show aggression and more likely to believe abuse against women is wrong.

Focused on the idea of honor and honor killings, activist Khalida Brohi started a program that provides rural women in Pakistan career skills and an income in order to fight the pervasive cultural attitudes about women's education. Brohi has been working for this cause for over a decade now and has done a number of different initiatives along the way. In this episode she shares some of her insights from her work, such as working with the women themselves to change social attitudes rather than the men, or broaching the topic for both men and women using the language of Islam.

Leading up to Father’s Day, Philadelphia criminal justice organization Frontline Dads raised money to bail out fathers. Inspired by the annual Mother’s Day bailouts that happen around the country, Frontline Dad aims to not just free father’s, but raise awareness about the issue of cash bail as well. Beyond bailing out fathers, participants will also have access to services like haircuts, counseling, and job placement assistance.

The Violence Against Women Act was billed as a way to make a patriarchal society, and policing profession in particular, take domestic violence more seriously. It encouraged policies making arrest of alleged abusers mandatory, even to the point of punishing victims who refused to cooperate in prosecutions. This has backfired on many victims, especially women of color who distrust police and their punitive approaches to solving family problems. The law also prioritizes punitive approaches in its awarding of federal grants, thus denying victim aid to women who do not wish to cooperate with arrests.

Bogotá’s city government started the Calm Line to give men a way to connect by telephone with psychologists trained in therapeutic responses to the machismo that leads to gender-based violence. Despite doubts that Colombian men would use the service, the line fields about a dozen calls a day. "Fear, shame and confusion pervade many of the conversations," but also can lead to breakthroughs in understanding the attitudes that oppress women. That understanding is the first step toward cultural change, the Calm Line's supporters believe.