This report presents the findings of a research study exploring the health service response to domestic violence within Wakefield. Recent international, national and local research has identified domestic violence as a serious health care issue resulting in a wide range of long and short term health implications for women1 (Butler, 1995: Stark and Flitcraft, 1995, 1996: Campbell, 2002). The research highlights the changing face of domestic violence considering the implications of the recent reframing of domestic violence from a social care issue into an integrated health and social care issue (Glendinning, 2003). Explored is the impact of such changes for health policy makers, health professionals and women who having experienced domestic violence then access health care services in the District. / Eastern Wakefield Primary Care Trust

Intimate partner violence (IPV) involves aggressive or abusive behaviour that harms or intimidates a current or former romantic partner. Although sexual and gender diverse (2S/LGBTQIA+) people may disproportionately experience IPV, their experiences are not well documented in the Canadian context. This multi-methods qualitative study documents 2S/LGBTQIA+ survivors’ experiences with IPV and access to related services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic via in-depth interviews with survivors and service providers. Survivors experienced multiple, concurrent forms of abuse that contributed to poor mental health outcomes, both of which were intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Survivors had difficulty recognizing themselves as victims and were unaware of services. Services are insufficiently funded and unable to meet the needs of their communities. Gender-based violence organizations want to serve transgender women and transfeminine people but second-wave feminist frameworks in policy and funding mechanisms are a barrier to expanding services. Service providers need predictable, annualized funding, must improve outreach, and shift to an intersectional feminist framework that includes 2S/LGBTQIA+ people. Comprehensive sexual health education and regular IPV screenings by mental health professionals are crucial for IPV prevention.

This thesis intends to explore the relationship between three specific types of abuse and their susceptibility to developing Stockholm syndrome. Stockholm syndrome is the psychological phenomenon of a victim empathizing with their abuser. It can occur under various types of abuse, such as captivity, domestic violence with a partner, and child sexual abuse. A thorough literature review was conducted on the topic to determine which type of abuse makes a person more susceptible to developing the syndrome. It was concluded that the circumstances involved in child sexual abuse make a victim more inclined to sympathize with their abuser. By understanding the intensity of a victim's situation, clinicians can properly sculpt their treatment methods. The lack of research comparing types of abuse and their corresponding effects provides an impetus for future studies to explore this topic. A mixed-mode study is proposed as an alternative method of measuring the researcher’s hypothesis.

Syftet för denna studie har varit att undersöka vilka bakomliggande faktorer som påverkar kvinnor som levt med våld i nära relation att inte anmäla våldet de utsatts för. Samt möjliga samband mellan kvinnors första myndighetskontakt och om den kontakten är avgörande för kvinnors beslut att gå vidare med en polisanmälan eller ej undersöks. Studien är en kvalitativ studie där empirin består av åtta intervjuer, varav fyra med kvinnor som levt med relationsvåld men lyckats ta sig ur relationen. Den andra delen som intervjuades var socialsekreterare som jobbar i kvinnofridsteam i olika stadsdelar i Stockholms stad.Resultaten i studien visar på att både det bemötandet som kvinnorna fick av socialsekreterarna samt att det stödet de fick inte var anpassat utefter de behoven som kvinnorna hade. Studiens resultat visar på en brist på samordning, att myndigheterna inte har ett tillräckligt bra samarbete myndigheterna emellan vilket gör att kvinnorna inte får den bästa möjliga hjälp som de skulle kunna få. / The aim of this study has been to research the underlying factors or causes that affect women who are living with violence in their relationships not to report the violence they have been exposed to. Even the possible links between women's first contact with Social authority and whether that contact is crucial for women's decision to proceed with a report to the police or not is being investigated. The study is a qualitative study where the empirical data consists of eight interviews. The interviews were held with four women who used to live with violence in their relationships and with four social workers who works in teams for domestic abuse specialised for women in various districts in the city of Stockholm. The results in the stud yshow that both the way the women were treated and the support they received was not adapted to the needs of the women. The result of the study also shows that different authorities do not have enough cooperation, which means that women who have experienced domestic abuse do not get the best help possible.

For centuries women have experienced domestic violence from men they know, as a consequence of which many turn to public services for support. Traditionally, these services have failed to provide adequate support, yet it is through these interactions with the services that abused women's lives are shaped and defined. Service providers therefore need to hear their voices in order to develop effective support services that enable survivors to 'move on' with their lives. A government initiative ¬- the Supporting People Programme (SPP) - has the potential to ensure that housing support providers develop their services in this manner. The main aim of the SPP is to place service users at the 'heart' of the system through user participation. Whilst this is certainly a step in the right direction, my concern is whether this actually happens or whether services adopt a tokenistic approach to user participation that marginalises and silences women survivors. My primary research question, therefore, is: 'What is the impact of the SPP on women survivors of domestic abuse?' Using a research design that included document analysis, observation and semi-structured interviews, I argue that the SPP has the potential to improve the lives of survivors and even to ameliorate, if not eradicate, domestic abuse. However, far from achieving this, the SPP through lack of commitment to ensuring that services actually meet the funding requirement of user participation continues to marginalise and silence the voices of women survivors.

In the first essay, I demonstrate that during the 1970s, the marital behavior of US Catholics changed dramatically relative to that of the total population. The Catholic marriage rate, that is, the number of Catholic marriages per 1000 Catholics, decreased nearly 20 percent relative to the civil marriage rate. Before and after this time period, the two rates moved in unison. Empirically, I find that the Catholic reforms and encyclicals of the 1960s, that is, Vatican II and Humanae Vitae, led to a decrease in the Catholic marriage rate relative to the civil marriage rate and that the reform of civil divorce law had no effect on this relative rate. In the second essay, I expand the analysis of the previous essay and test whether a negative response among US Catholics to the reforms of Vatican II and to Humanae Vitae is able to explain the increase in the civil marriage rate, the decrease in the Catholic marriage rate, and the increase in the interfaith marriage rate seen in the data. To do this, I construct an original model that treats marriage as a set of two contracts, one civil and one religious, with the benefit and cost of the religious contract depending upon a social complementarity. The theory and the data match if the primary effect of 1960s Catholic reform was to decrease the benefit of a Catholic marriage. In the third essay, I examine the link between religiosity and the incidence of domestic abuse and model sanctification as the pathway connecting the two. Sanctification is "a psychological process through which aspects of life are perceived by people as having spiritual character or significance"[25]. In the model, the abuser must his choose level of abuse, and both abuser and abused must allocate a scarce amount of time between the production of a marital good and a personal consumption good. Sanctification is modeled as an increase in the return to time invested in the marital good. Theoretically, abuse increases in both spouses' level of sanctification and the wife's productivity and decreases in the husband's productivity. This partially agrees with the data. / text

Since the issue of dating violence emerged onto the research agenda in the 1980s, researchers have focused upon measuring the prevalence of physical violence occurring in young people’s intimate relationships, using quantitative methods. Surveys, which have limited young people’s reporting to stating whether or not they have perpetrated or sustained any of a fixed range of predetermined violent acts, have formed the dominant methodological approach. In the main, dating violence studies have focused on researching university students in the United States of America, and young people not attending American universities are an under-researched population in the dating violence literature. The dearth of qualitative approaches to past studies of dating violence has meant that young people’s own accounts of their experiences, attitudes and perceptions of dating violence and abuse have been afforded minimal focus. Feminist theoretical approaches to dating violence research are now emerging, contributing a valuable gendered analysis of the issues. Through qualitative interviews with forty five young people aged 16-21 (23 men and 22 women), recruited primarily from a Further Education college and an organisation working with young people not in education, employment or training, this thesis explores young people’s attitudes, perceptions and experiences of violence and abuse in intimate dating relationships, through a feminist theoretical lens. The study is couched in a rich body of feminist empirical and theoretical literature, which conceptualises intimate partner violence as primarily an issue of men’s violence against women, perpetrated with the rationale of maintaining power and control. The impact that popular theoretical discourses of gender equality and female empowerment may have upon young people’s capacity to acknowledge ongoing gender inequalities is also considered in this thesis. The findings of the current research indicate that young people’s dating relationships (and experiences of heterosexuality in general) reflect ongoing gender inequalities which are influenced to a great extent by patriarchal modes of power and control. The accounts of young men and women in this study established dating relationships as sites of imbalanced gender power, with many modes of men’s power control, surveillance and monitoring of their girlfriends described as ‘normal’ and acceptable. There was a widespread perception among the participants that dating violence is an issue of ‘mutual combat’ where women are just as likely as men to be perpetrators, even though their experiences of dating violence largely reflected the pattern of female victims and male perpetrators. In regard to violence against women by men, many of the participants perceived men’s violence to be understandable in the face of women’s provocation, particularly in cases where women are perceived to be ‘cheating’. For a significant minority of young people, intimate relationships are sites of violence and abuse, with women disproportionately the victims. The findings from this study indicate a lack of awareness of the avenues of support that can be accessed by young people experiencing dating violence and abuse. The findings also highlight a requirement for direct educative strategies to challenge some young people’s support for men’s violence against women.

This study examined if domestic violence shelters in Texas are responding to the needs of older female victims of intimate partner violence. Data for this study was collected through online questionnaire surveys of 45% of Texas domestic violence shelters. Findings of this study indicated that less than 10% of Texas shelters are providing specialized programming for older victims of IPV. In Texas, the demographic growth of older adults has remained comparable to increased national trends. The state of Texas will face several policy implications and social issues related to an older population that is rapidly growing. This includes, the importance of addressing certain members of an aging population who continue to fall victim to domestic violence. Furthermore, an unchanged resource of safety for victims of IPV is domestic violence shelters. Therefore, this study challenges current domestic violence shelter policies to address this issue of a rapidly growing segment of the Texas population. This study found less than 10% of shelters in Texas, who participated in this study, were providing specialized programming and outreach for older victims. Important practical implications for domestic violence shelter programming in Texas is provided.

Abuse in adult relationships as affected by stress, anxiety-proneness, and exposure to abuse as a child was examined using 579 North Texas State University undergraduates, Frequency and levels of abuse observed or received as a child and received or expressed as an adult were measured using a modification of Straus' Conflicts Tactics Scale (1979). Anxiety-proneness was determined by scores received on Spielberger's (1970) State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Current levels of stress for the past two years were measured using the Life Experiences Survey (Sarason, 1978). Overall frequencies for received and expressed abuse (including physical and verbal abuse) in adult relationships were quite high (62.9 percent and 73.8 percent respectively). Females reported expressing significantly more abuse than did males. No gender differences were found for the receipt of abuse. Gender differences in types of violence were also examined. In addition, multiple regression was used to determine predictor variables for the expression and receipt of abuse. For males, receiving abuse as a child, positive stress scores, higher levels of anxiety-proneness, and observing father's abuse of mother significantly predicted expressing abuse as an adult. Observing mother's abuse of father and positive stress scores significantly predicted receiving abuse as an adult. For females, having received abuse as a child and trait anxiety were significant predictors for the expression of adult abuse. Receiving abuse as a child was the only significant predictor for the receipt of adult abuse. The greater impact of observing abuse between parents on males was discussed. In addition, difficulties confronting researchers in this area and the possible explanations for more frequent reports of female expression of abuse were examined.

Domestic violence is a continuing public health problem. Immigrant women facing domestic violence have additional challenges in dealing with domestic violence and accessing services. Hopeful thinking has been identified as a strategy for intervening and surviving beyond domestic violence. The purpose of this multiple descriptive case study was to explore hopeful thinking in Haitian immigrant women domestic abuse survivors' (HIDAS) conceptualizations of the future beyond domestic abuse. The framework for the study was resilience theory, which emphasizes the individual's ability to bounce back from stressful situations. This framework was used to investigate how HIDAS in the United States experience hopeful thinking and the role hopeful thinking plays in how they perceive the future. Four women participants were recruited from a Haitian community in Florida, and data were collected through interviews. Findings from content analysis showed that while each woman had a different strategy for how to get out of the abusive relationships, they became independent by hoping that things would change for the better. Although the interpretation of findings clarified these survivors' experiences of domestic abuse, the findings are not meant to solve the larger problem of domestic abuse. The study results may influence social change by informing development of operational hope-based community and trauma intervention services for HIDAS and other groups of immigrant women.