Community Information Networks for

Domestic Violence Survivors:

Gaps and Safety-Nets

Library Research Seminar IV, London Ontario, October 2007; Lynn Westbrook

Personal Crisis Context

•Kaleidoscopic views•Dependent on actor’s perspective

•Divergent and even contradictory purposes

•Consider the crisis of IPV

• Law enforcement priorities on judgment, evidence, processes of filing charges, obtaining Protective Orders, prosecuting abusers

• Shelter priorities on safety, empowerment, and independence via housing, job, childcare

• Other perspectives include Child Protective Services, public housing, emergency room staff, and government social service agencies

IPV survivor viewpoint•Kaleidoscope shifts perspective suddenly and constantly

•Information must be gathered•Processes must be tracked•All of that must be managed•Abusers must be kept out of all of it

•Abusers must be resisted at times

Public libraries’ role

•Mission of social service •Information specialists•Finding information•Managing it safely•Teaching end-users•Ethics of privacy

Need information and training [1]

IPV Context•5.3 million victimizations [2]•Poverty, lack of job, primary caregiver [3]

•4/6 x common Black & Hispanic [3]•Depression, PTSD, physical illness at 50% to 70% higher rate [5]

•40%-60% of children also abused [6]

•Private resources provide escape; social support as an increasing norm

“Simply” leaving•Cycle of abuse: honeymoon, escalation, violence [7]

•Control: job, education, children, pets, social isolation, family isolation

•Safety-planning: documents, cash•Most dangerous time [8]•Most vulnerable are least aware [9]

Community Response• Driven by high cost and impact [10]

• Over $4 billion in health care costs• Over $8 billion in lost workdays/life income

• Police are required to provide some information when called in most states

• Police web sites lack basic material [11]

• Emergency room staff are trained to recognize and make referrals on abuse

• Shelters provide and connect to a range of social, legal, medical, and housing aids

Affective Issues•Guilt at “causing” abuse •Guilt at being abused but staying•Shame at being abused•Fear of abuser (be assaulted, stalked)

•Fear of being responsible for self/children

•Hope that abuser will change•Hope that abuser can be evaded•Frustration with escape process

IPV Survivor Info Behaviors

• Prefer informal information systems [12]

• Need information on many different items and look for information in diverse places [13]

• Must navigate three layers of help: emergency aid, IPV-aid, general aid [14]

• Use online BB for affective, cognitive, and behavioral support [15]

Theoretical Perspective

• Everyday Life Information Seeking: information needs, affective states, cognitive mastery, and available resources [16]

• Person-in-situation model: focus in on the crisis state [17]

• Person-in-progressive-situation model: focus in on the progression through multiple situations centered in the crisis state [18]

Data Gathering•Data from two studies were triangulated in terms of the person-in-progressive-situation model of ELIS

•Analysis of postings on an IPV survivor bulletin board (with permission)

•Analysis of interviews with IPV survivors and their first-responders

IPV Survivor BB•Established for 35 months•Includes 1,326 threads and 7,566 responses to those threads

•Uses only screen names, strong cyber-safety precautions

•Monitored for security •Survivors generally have had little contact with formal help systems.

BB analysis•Sampled: 20% - 30% of posts from 10/05 to 9/06; included 1,793 posts totaling 341,382 words

•Removed any potential identifiers•Constant comparison method of emergent coding developed 121 codes

•Code-recode rate of 96% on 10% of the data

Interviews• Triangulated participants: IPV survivors (19), IPV shelter staff (24), police (14)

• Triangulated communities: 10 different shelters in 10 different communities across 3 of the 5 regions of Texas

• Semi-structured interviews, audio-taped

• Total 63 hours; did not transcribe anything that might be identifying, yielded 106,530 words

Interviews Analysis

•Constant comparison method with HyperResearch to record coding

•Three cycles of code development

•Emergent coding generated 467 codes

•Applied a total of 3,259 times•Code-recode rate of 93% in two randomly chosen interviews

Findings•ELIS: information need, affective issue, cognitive domain demand, resources

•IPV survivors are not always “progressive” in their movement

•Movement towards safer living, even within an abusive relationship, requires growth -- managing challenges

I had this assumption that I would go to the authority, to the police and there was some big database that was going to spit out my information to any and all programs so that all I had to do was tell one person. Like go to the police and it would spit it out to a database that would go to the AFDC, to the food stamps, to the Medicaid, to the school programs, to any program that myself and my children qualified for having no job, no money and no education ... That I would have that information dispersed into all these little cubicles. But, in fact, they are a bunch of little cubicles that don't talk to each other. And the fear factor of having to repeat that information 20 times to 20 different organizations because A doesn't talk to B doesn't talk to C doesn't talk to D. [Survivor]

Information Needs• Abuse: I didn't want to see what my life was. I can't open my eyes.

I basically needed information she [a shelter staffer] had. (Survivor)

• Police: Sometimes unfortunately a lot of the victims think that when the officer gives them a … card with a case number they think that they've filed charges. They think that that's it and tomorrow somebody's gonna go out and arrest this guy and they're never gonna see him again. And that's not what happens. (Police Officer)

• Shelter: …because she didn't know that that type of services exist. So everything that she received at the shelter, counseling, protection, everything, she didn't know. Everything was very surprising. (Survivor, self-identified as an immigrant, via shelter staff translator)

• Preparing:When you go in to the office and you want to apply for emergency assistance, it's best to have every information on hand that they're gonna basically ask for. … proof of residency; they give you a letter of residency here. Proof of any kind of income coming in… the children's social security cards … and their birth certificates ... (Survivor)

• Living: …paying bills, making sure everybody's clothed and fed. A lot of these women don't know anything about these responsibilities because all that control was taken from them. Their decision skills are nil because they're not allowed to make decisions for themselves. (Shelter Staffer)

Affective Concerns• Abuse: This is the first time I've ever spoken about what I'm

going through. I feel 100 pounds lighter just to have expressed it. Now that I've defined what's going on, I feel like I can deal with it in a rational manner. (Survivor, BB); I haven't updated in a while. Too embarassed, I guess. Was soooo close to getting out a few weeks ago, got sucked back in. (Survivor, BB)

• Police: There are some that still, because of the fear and the terror aspect, still are afraid to call. Because he's told them, “if you ever call the police on me, I'll kill you.” So it's hard to get past that. (Shelter Staff)

• Shelter: That's probably why some people don't even think about calling the shelters, they have no idea of really what they entail or involve. I think often times it's fear of the unknown. (Shelter Staff)

• Preparing: I am just scared and humiliated that I have to live with family at the age of 27. It is not going to stop me from leaving. (Survivor, BB)

• Living: When I left my abuser, he took everything I owned before I could get it all moved out of the house. What he didn't take, he ruined somehow. I was hurt and angry and felt as if I would never make it. (Survivor, BB)

Cognitive Demands• Abuse: A domestic violence victim 9 times out of 10 doesn't

quite see [themselves as the victim of a criminal act]. They see it as because of their actions or inactions this is why this particular thing happened to them, so they need to be educated about what's going on. (Police Officer)

• Police: When you call for an officer, explain the situation. Try to calm down. We hate hysterical callers -- because we can't understand what they are saying, and that puts them and the officers in more danger. (Survivor, BB)

• Shelter: On a routine basis we really explain the legal assistance and legal options that are available to them. We … go into depth about our shelter service. Mostly because there's a lot of myths about shelters. (Shelter Staff)

• Preparing: One of the ladies here who's new, she's never been on Medicare or any assistance, [but] we're able to help her out and let her know the ropes on how to get certain things. (Survivor, interview)

• Living: Court is very intimidating. They have to face their abuser. … They're afraid of anything they don't understand and they don't understand the legal system at all. They watch TV. (Shelter Staff)

Resources• Abuse: I can tell you that most of my tools came from people,

came from my counselor, came from the police officer, came from the attorney at the family protective unit saying “you need to be careful, he is crazy.” That type of validation clicked in me and gave me the strength to fill out those 20 million forms, to go to court, to follow up on stuff that needed to be taken care of. If it hadn't been for those people, the people aspect, the human aspect, I don't know that the other stuff would have clicked. (Survivor, interview)

• Police: We all get the same information and it doesn't fit us. (Survivor, interview)

• Shelter: I think they feel a sense of trust from anyone here, but especially someone speaking their language, that even helps them trust you even more. (Shelter Staff)

• Preparing: Once you get in, it takes you like 2 weeks because you have to make appointments for everything, but once you get in, you usually get the questions answered. But for those 2 weeks you're scared to death. What am I gonna do? How am I gonna do it? (Survivor, interview)

• Living: I have been trying to read some books about helping kids to cope, but I think I don't have alot of coping skills myself. (Survivor, posting)

Gaps and Safety Nets

• Gaps -- language, current information, cyber-safety • Police to court• Civil & criminal• Police and shelter• Social services

• Safety nets• Victims’ services/police programs• Shelters/outreach services/web sites• Bulletin boards• 211 services, formal and unstructured

• Public libraries

Role for Public Libraries

• Community I&R; 211 system and more• Personal growth support• Legal rights, civil and criminal• System navigation re e-government• Family support; parenting• Cyber-safety instruction, facilitation• Support informal network re I&R within IPV world

• Ideally you'd be able to have everything like a vending machine. That you could say, ok this person has. Let's say she's Spanish speaking, she has 3 children, she lives in a mobile home park outside of the city, so, and there's all these other issues out here. Ok, I need to go on the computer click this, this, this, fact-sheet, client support sheet and print that out and hand that to her. So then I don't have to tell her again. (Shelter Staff)

Public libraries need…

• Reference staff training re impact of crisis, nature of abuse cycle, complexities of escape, effective referrals, focus on process as part of data

• Flexible policies to support crisis needs• Connections to local shelters; personal & digital

• Connections with 211 systems and other resources that gather the gray information

I think that that's one of the things that's most time consuming for staff. It's trying to keep up with those resources. Because especially with nonprofits, they seem to change their phone numbers. They seem to disappear, reappear over here with different names. They're based on grants, so suddenly their grant only lets them service people that have HIV, so ok, well, who knew that? (Shelter Staff)

Insights?Suggestions?

Thank you!