The System Sucks What Victims of Domestic Violence

Want You To Know

Celia John

Copyright © 2012 by Celia John

The System Sucks What Victims of Domestic Violence Want You To Know is

protected by copyright of Celia John, 2012. No part may be reproduced in any form

without the express permission of the author. Legal action will be taken against

anyone found to be infringing the author’s copyright. All rights reserved.

Also by Celia John

Get Out If You Can How To Escape An Abusive Relationship And Be Happy

Inside The Abuser’s Mind Be One Step Ahead Of The Abuser

Love Poetry

Poems For The Spirit

Lyrical Goddess A Collection Of Poems

www.overcomedomesticviolence.com

www.facebook.com/overcomedomesticviolence

Preface

This book is based on a qualitative research study using a sample of eight women

from two women’s refuges. Each woman was interviewed using semi-structured

interviews. I have quoted the exact phrases the women used during the interviews to

illustrate their points and make their voices heard. Although this is a small sample I

believe the views of these women are relevant and are able to give us an insight into

the experiences of victims of domestic violence and how they are treated by social

services and other support agencies when they are seeking help.

It is my wish that this book will be an eye opener to professionals and other agencies

that support victims of domestic violence. As a survivor of domestic violence my

heart goes out to all women out there who suffer domestic violence on a daily basis.

I hope that this research will give you a voice and let the world know how you wish to

be treated.

Chapter Three Research Findings

This chapter will present the findings of the research; it begins with a profile of the

sample, followed by a presentation of the themes which emerged from an analysis of

the findings. In the interest of transparency, the voices of the respondents (presented

in italics) will be a central feature of these findings.

Profile of the Sample

Participant Age No of Children

Ethnicity

Nationality Country Of Origin

Employment Status

1 31 1 Black African Sierre Leone

Unemployed

2 41 2 Black African Nigeria Unemployed

3 43 1 White Bulgarian Bulgaria Unemployed

4 27 1 Black British UK Unemployed

5 37 2 Indian British UK Unemployed

6 53 2 Black African Nigeria Unemployed

7 21 2 White Romanian Romania Unemployed

8 26 2 Black African Eritrea Unemployed

As the profile above shows, eight women from two women’s refuges participated in

this research. They ranged in age from 21 to 53 years old. Five of the women were

Black, one was Indian and two were White. Two of the participants were British,

whereas the rest of the participants varied in nationality. All of the participants were

unemployed and have children. This profile suggests a varied sample in terms of

age, ethnic background, and nationality. Their employment status points to their

potential vulnerability in terms of income and job profiles.

The Findings of the Study

The data generated from this research was analyzed using Interpretative

Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). In accordance with IPA methodology, the themes

were extracted from the data and are composed of super-ordinate themes which are

the main themes and sub themes which reflect the super-ordinate themes (Smith et

al., 2009). The super-ordinate themes are represented in the table by capital letters,

followed by sub themes in lower case. Each participant has had a different

experience of domestic violence and reason for being referred to social services.

Among the themes that will be presented are the referral process and the factors that

precipitated the referral as well as differing views on social workers. Each participant

has been given a pseudonym in order to protect their identity.

EXPERIENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Factors that precipitated self-referral and subsequent involvement of social

services

Deedra, aged 31, from Sierre Lione, explains that her experience of domestic

violence began when she was brought to this country by her husband:

My husband married me from back home and he brought me here but since I

came here it was not good between us. He was abusing me, wasn’t letting me

talk to people, controlling me, even my private life. He kept control, telling me

he is the one who brought me here and he should control everything of my

life.

She recounts an incident which influenced her decision to flee:

He beat me and I was holding the baby when he gave me a slap so since that

day I make up my mind that I will not bear no more. So I decided to walk out.

Deedra referred herself to social services in order to receive support to find housing.

Agency Referral

Sandra, aged 26, from Eritrea, explained that witnessing the domestic violence had:

an effect on my daughter. She was making threats of harming her brother. As a

result, the refuge worker referred Sandra and her daughter to social services in order

for them to receive support for the behavioural issues her daughter was presenting.

Yvonne, aged 53, from Nigeria, reported a long history of domestic violence:

I’ve got long years of domestic violence. So it has been quite horrendous and

something that has affected my health. Yvonne kept the domestic violence hidden

from family and friends until: a passerby called the police. The social service got

involved. As a result of a neighbour calling the police, the police referred Yvonne to

social services.

Robin, aged 21, from Romania, describes her experience of domestic violence which

began in childhood: I grew up in a family which did not treat me well. They abused

me and I have been abused by being taken into prostitution as well. Robin’s

involvement with social services began when she became ill at the refuge and had to

go to the hospital. While she was sick a hospital social worker was assigned to her in

order to find a foster family to take care of her children while she was in the hospital.

Delia, aged 41, from Nigeria, stated that the police became involved in her situation

and

......it was through victim support, it was the police who called them. The

social workers got involved because I believe it is the police who give them

my number...

Ann, aged 27, from the United Kingdom, describes the physical abuse she endured:

He used to try to strangle me, suffocate me, punch me. He broke my jaw, came at

me with a knife several times so it was quite nasty. Social services became involved

because of a child protection referral made by the hospital when she was attacked

by her partner in front of her daughter.

Kendra, aged 43, from Bulgaria, states that her abuse began when she came to the

UK with her son to join her husband:

As soon as we came here he took advantage of me being without job. He was

very short with me with money, cut me from the travel, things like that.

Kendra decided that she wanted to leave her partner when he began to abuse their

son. Subsequently, Kendra reported her husband to the police and the police made

a child protection referral to social services because her son had witnessed the

violence.

For Pamela, aged 37, from the United Kingdom, the abuse started happening after

her children were born:

And you can see things changing like you know becoming a parent. He

wouldn’t listen to me or help me and by that time I had my second child and

after that it just got worse. He was physically abusing me from about when

my kids were three years old.

Pamela initially became involved with social services when she asked her

psychologist to refer her to social services because of her son’s behavioural issues.

After Pamela moved into a refuge the refuge workers referred her and her son to

social services because they could not cope with her son’s behaviour.

LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM

Unprofessional Conduct

Among the participants there was an overall feeling of dissatisfaction with social

services because they felt that some social workers lacked professionalism and this

resulted in unprofessional conduct. Deedra had a unique case because as a result of

her immigration status she had no recourse to public funds which made her ineligible

for government benefits or support. When she approached social services for help,

Deedra had a traumatic experience with a social worker who was a manager. She

states that the social worker told her:

Well, social service is not responsible for people like you. We don’t have any

fund for people like you. We cannot help you. Well, let me tell you how we

work. We cannot help you. Now we are going to call the Home Office. If the

Home Office say they are not going to give you stay you should be ready to

go back home. Yes, you should be ready to go back home. She was so

aggressive as if we are quarrelling.

Deedra’s encounter with social workers shows that instead of receiving the support

she needed Deedra was terrorized by fear of being sent back to her country. She

went on to say: I felt bad. She put fear on me. I felt disappointed. Then I start crying

there. I said, well, now, I don’t have any help.

Deedra was so distraught at the treatment that she had received from social services

that she replied to the social worker:

If you people are telling me that you are not helping me, I said it’s fine. I will

go back to my husband and maybe when he kills me then you will help with

my dead body.

Deedra was feeling hopeless after this encounter with social services and felt after

the treatment that she had received, that all she could do was go back to her

husband.

When Sandra and her daughter were referred to social services by a refuge worker

in order to receive support for her daughter’s behavioural issues, the social worker

closed the case without informing them. When the refuge worker tried to contact the

social worker about the referral, the social worker refused to return messages or

even give feedback about the referral. Sandra explains that:

...no one could not get through to her. She hasn’t called back. She hasn’t got back to

the messages or anything.

Yvonne was put in a bed and breakfast by social services for two nights and then

received a call from social services explaining: we don’t have money to fund you

because of government cuts. Yvonne was not in a state of mind to hear about

government cuts and felt that this was unprofessional behaviour because they

should not have told her about the cuts.

Bad Practice

Social workers are trained not to discriminate and to be anti-oppressive in their

approach by empowering individuals (Oko, 2009). However, Deedra felt that she had

experienced discrimination because of the aggressive manner in which the social

worker manager spoke to her. Deedra speaks of her feelings and states:

I feel like, I was, I don’t know. There was no equality. If I was discriminated or

what, I don’t know what I will say but I didn’t feel good at all, and the manner,

the way they talk is very rude.

There was another scenario of a social worker who came to the refuge and did an

assessment on Sandra and her daughter. The social worker recommended that

Sandra’s daughter: Needed therapy like a play group and that was the last time we

heard from them.

Sandra’s social worker accessed her daughter and realised that her daughter

needed therapy because of behavioural issues. However, she did not take any

action to refer her. There was no follow up after the assessment was conducted.

Similarly, Pamela wanted social services’ involvement in order to help her son who

has behavioural problems. However, the social worker did an assessment on her

and her family and no follow up action was taken in the form of intervention or

referral of her son to therapy. Pamela summed up her view of social services’

involvement by remarking that: They didn’t really do much.

Yvonne also was dissatisfied with her involvement with social services, when she

stated that there was

....no help whatsoever because all they were saying was that I have to charge

the person abusing me and go into a refuge. Then I was so naive. I didn’t

know much. I was scared as well. I was very scared because he has tried to

take his own life before so he can do anything to me....

Yvonne did not know anything about refuges and had not wanted to bring charges

against her partner for abuse. The social worker did not explain to her what a refuge

was and that it would be a safe environment for her and her family. Yvonne also felt

that social services had a judgemental attitude towards her and would not help her to

find housing because of being influenced by the housing department. Yvonne went

on to say that social services was

.......using housing to judge my incident, you understand. So they were not

listening to me. I had to flee to a friend’s place and stay there for six months

and I couldn’t cope. I had to go back to the same address where I was being

abused until this day...

Yvonne further explained that at

.....the time I was fleeing I had bought my council flat with my husband. He

wasn’t paying the mortgage. I didn’t know where to get help from. So when I

asked for the help what they just knew was why did you buy your place with

him.....

Unethical Practice

The participants reported many examples which could be deemed as

unethical practice. In Sandra’s and Pamela’s case the social worker acted unethically

because she promised a service and did not deliver it. Sandra remarked that: she

said she was going to get her to do a playgroup therapy thing. And that was it.

When Yvonne was staying at her friend’s house she says that a social worker came

to visit. Yvonne states:

I was staying on the floor. I approached social services. They came, visit the

place. They said they were going to give me the money to buy sleeping bed.

They didn’t do none of the above.

Deedra was staying at a refuge and needed her social worker to send her solicitor

her case study with her Home Office application for indefinite leave to remain.

Deedra explains that the social worker said that

....she has prepared my case study which I gave her and she will put it in the post for

me. I said okay and she never did that. Deedra’s refuge key worker was constantly

asking for the case study and the social worker would keep saying that she would

send it and then she would not send it. Finally, Deedra’s solicitor called the social

worker and asked her to send the case study to her. When Deedra finally received a

copy of the case study from her solicitor, she discovered that the social worker had

written an untruthful case study but it was already too late for Deedra because the

case study had already been sent to Home Office by her solicitor.

Deedra explains:

So she sent it and when I read it, the copy that I got, she wrote things that I

never said to her. She wrote that I said I am comfortable back home. I have a

job, something which I never said.

Deedra is now very upset because the case study was not a true representation of

what she said and she cannot understand why the social worker wrote statements

that were incorrect and which she claimed she never said.

Deedra claimed that the social worker wrote:

And she wrote that I am comfortable going back home. I have a job there. I

have a relative that will support me which I never said and even put that fear

on me that I even send my documents to the Home Office they will say I am

okay to go back home.

Now, Deedra lives in fear that because of the misrepresentation of her situation in

the case study she will not get indefinite leave to remain.

LACK OF SUPPORT

Lack of Support for Victims of Domestic Violence

Most of the participants complained of a lack of support from social workers. When

Yvonne was referred to social services by the police the only support she received

from social services was a letter addressed to her and not the perpetrator: They

wrote that this is the first incident and if anything happens then they will take it further

from there. When Yvonne approached social services on her own for help she was

advised to: Look for a place to rent or if I have family I should move in with them.

Deedra was desperate to get practical support from social services:

I explained to them that I just walk out of the house without taking anything, even if

they could help me to get some stuff from my house, for my baby. There was no

help.

Lack of Support for Children

Many of the participants’ children have been affected by domestic violence and want

support from social services to manage their children’s behaviour, but they also

received little or no support for their children.

Sandra was deeply disappointed in her social worker because her social worker had

assumed that she was fine and even though her daughter had behavioural issues

there was no referral for therapy:

Based on one assessment with me she said that everything is fine and there

is nothing for them to be worried about even though my daughter’s been

making quite horrific comments about my son, about her brother.

Ann also wanted her daughter to be referred to therapy because of her daughter’s

behavioural issues. Even though her daughter was actually physically violent

towards the social worker during the visit no referral was made.

Ann speaks of her daughter’s behaviour towards the social worker: Yeah, she kept

hitting her and she cracked her top. She was quite rough to the lady. She just kinda

ignored her and told her to stop. The social worker gave the following advice:

She just told me to be consistent with her and her behaviour should settle

down. But now my daughter needs to talk to someone because she’s

constantly talking about it. You know if they were involved and they saw her

more often maybe they’d see that yes she does need to speak to someone.

When Pamela was referred to social services by her psychologist there was no

intervention with her son:

There was no progress on how to deal with the situation. He had no anger

management thing. Things that we need for a child, you know, if they’re in

trouble, they should respond quickly.

Additionally, since entering a refuge Pamela and her son have been referred to

social services by the refuge worker but there has been no action. Pamela is

disturbed by her son’s behaviour and feels social services need to act upon referrals

quickly when it is urgent:

I think they should act upon when the help is necessary like you know when

it’s an urgent thing, like you know my son used a weapon on me. He strangles

me. How am I supposed to handle a ten year old? Are they going to respond

to me when he stabs me and then come running to the hospital?

WHAT VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE WANT

Information and Advice

Many of the participants wanted social workers to give them advice and information

about options concerning what they should do about their situation. Pamela spoke of

the support that she received from her social worker:

She gave me her support to move out. She gave me instructions that you

know, you can go to a refuge. I mean I wouldn’t have had a clue what a

refuge was like and I couldn’t think you know.

Pamela appreciated the fact that at least her social worker had given her the option

of going to a refuge. However, Pamela feels there is a lack of information about

what a parent can do to support a child with behavioural issues:

Social services need to find a way and tell me some of the places we can go

to so he can get this help and this is with other children as well. Because we

parents don’t know where to go. They don’t give enough information where it’s

based, who can help you.

Support

The participants in the study highlighted the need for them to receive emotional

support as well as support in terms of communication and follow up. Victims of

domestic violence need emotional support because they are going through

tremendous stress and heartache.

Deedra speaks of the support she needed:

At the time, you see me, you could know this person is stressed, is

devastated. So my feeling, I was thinking that going to them they would calm

me down, give me courageous words but I didn’t get that from them. Instead

they put more fear on me and so I didn’t have a good experience with them

actually.

Ann felt that social workers should follow up their cases and have contact in order to

ensure that the individual is coping. Ann spoke about the kind of contact she wanted

from social services:

I thought it would be constant. I did think there would be a follow up call or I

don’t know maybe constant contact to make sure everything’s okay or how I’m

progressing but it was just that once. So in that sense I was a little bit let down

because I thought they were there not just for myself but for my child as well.

Safe Environment

Many of the participants’ main concerns when they were fleeing from domestic

violence was getting housing away from their partner and being safe. As a result,

one participant remarked that:

Whatever they want to do later they can do but make sure the family is in a

safe environment.

VIEW OF SOCIAL WORKERS AND SOCIAL SERVICES

The participants expressed both positive and negative views of social workers and

social services. However, the negative views outweighed the positive views.

Positive Views

Those participants who had a positive view of social workers were those who

received the support that they needed to cope with their situation. Three of the

participants had a positive view of social workers while the remaining five

participants had negative views. As a result of the support she received Delia stated:

I feel great. To me I feel they were really fantastic you know to me. Delia was able to

receive support to find housing: Last minute they try and find us somewhere to put

our head on at night, you know me and my children. Delia also received follow up

calls from the social worker after she moved into the refuge.

Robin also had a positive view of social workers because while she was ill in the

hospital the social worker had arranged for a foster family to take care of her

children. Robin spoke of her experience:

I feel very good because that week I was really unwell. So I think that if I did

not have the social worker, I could not manage. I feel good because I did not

have stress looking after children.

In Robin’s case there was also follow up after she became well and returned to the

refuge.

The social worker visited her and Robin remarked:

She wanted to make sure I am well enough to look after the children. And they ask

me if I am in need of anything.

Kendra also had a positive view of social workers. Her son was assessed during a

child protection investigation. She says her experience was positive because her son

was treated well during the assessment. She stated that I was happy because they

did treat my son well which was the important thing for me.

Negative Views

However, the rest of the participants had negative views of social workers for a

variety of reasons. Deedra felt that the social workers had treated her with a lack of

respect because she had no recourse to public funds and states: I don’t feel good

about them. I don’t feel good.

Sandra has a negative view of social workers because they told her that her child

would be referred to play therapy and it was not done: Well, for me personally it’s like

they didn’t care. I don’t like them.

Yvonne feels that social services failed her because they did not provide her with

housing and she had to find a refuge on her own: So to me I feel the system failed

me woefully and it failed me to the extent that I am here now.

Pamela is very dissatisfied with social workers because she desperately needs

therapy for her son and has not received it even though he has been referred to

social services. Pamela expressed strong feelings about the social worker’s

involvement:

I think it’s disgusting. It is disgusting due to providing help for vulnerable

people especially the children and the elderly. I mean at the end of the day, I

think it’s disgusting, that you know if you can’t find out urgently your referrals.

You can’t blame the child if they become in teenagers, criminals.

Pamela also feels that social workers lack knowledge and training on how to handle

children with behavioural issues:

She couldn’t find out things about how he felt. That was my main thing like being a

social worker, you have training. If it’s a difficult child, how would you know how

they’re feeling, why they do this, but they don’t have no clue. They don’t have any

experience. How can you become a social worker for children and vulnerable

people when you have no experience or knowledge of how to approach them?

If you enjoyed reading this sample chapter of The System Sucks What Victims Of

Domestic Violence Want You To Know it is available for sale on Amazon.

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