This provocative book presents a strengths-based framework that challenges negative stereotypes about battered women. The volume also outlines ways to improve research, risk assessment, and safety planning.

Safety Planning with Battered Women introduces a new model of ôwoman-definedö advocacy that is designed to bridge the gap that sometimes occurs between a battered womanÆs perspective and a victim advocateÆs perception. Created to improve service delivery to women who are victims of domestic violence, this new model emphasizes placing attention on the victimÆs assessment of the risk in a violent relationship and in her decision making. Authors Jill Davies, Eleanor Lyon, and Diane Monti-Catania strive to help advocates better understand battered womenÆs decisions, including the decision to remain in an abusive relationship; to improve advocacy for victims with varying cultural backgrounds and experiences; and to provide advocates with assistance in redesigning their services, so they may better meet the needs of battered women. Since there are no quick fixes to the problems encountered in cases of domestic violence, it is vital that victims be provided with a real understanding of their options and the opportunity to implement those safety plans they deem most feasible. Safety Planning with Battered Women helps advocates tailor alternatives that will enhance the safety of battered women based on the individual realities of battered women. This book is both enlightening and highly practical and is a must read for anyone working with domestic violence victims. By introducing a woman-defined model and offering a new approach to advocacy, Safety Planning with Battered Women will compel readers to reexamine current approaches and examine the future provision of services to domestic violence victims, making it a valuable resource for students, researchers, academics, professionals, and practitioners.

Canadian and American contributors to this book describe a wide range of programs offered to deal with the direct and indirect victims of men who batter. These include individual treatment options for children who witness the violence, parenting programs for men who batter, and prevention programs targeting high school students. For those involved in providing family services, the book is guaranteed to be both informative and thought-provoking. --John Hunsley in The Canadian Family Psychologist "There is a great deal to reflect upon in every section of the book. The chapters on assessment of children exposed to family violence, and on providing individual and group therapy for children of abused women, take up some very important issues. . . . This book is to be highly commended for its unequivocal espousal of the tenet that a child who witnesses the abuse of his or her mother is an abused child." --Chris Goddard in Child Abuse Review "This is an invaluable collection of papers that both raises awareness regarding the growing body of research that indicates the negative psychological effects domestic violence has on children even if they themselves are not the target of the violence, as well as offering practical suggestions for clinicians. It is a useful resource book for anyone working with the issue of family violence." --G. Smith in European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Although there is a growing body of research on children of battered women, there has been little practical information available on intervention with these children. Ending the Cycle of Violence is the first volume to cover the varied and complex arena of intervention with children of battered women. It provides an overview of current practices including strategies and program models. The expert contributors present a concise and accessible look into four major areas: living in a violent culture, shelters and domestic violence counseling, child protection services and the criminal justice system, and prevention and education in schools and communities. Practitioners who work with battered women and their children--shelter and domestic violence program staff, battered women′s advocates, and counselors--will find this book most useful. It will also be helpful to all professionals working with children in schools, child protective services, youth programs, health and mental health agencies, institutions, group homes, and foster care settings. Ending the Cycle of Violence also provides and overview of innovations in this field that can enhance policymakers′ ability to further develop services for this at-risk population.

Battered Women's Protective Strategies: Stronger Than You Know challenges the pervasive stereotypes that depict battered women as passive and shows how to use the strength of battered women to create better and more nuanced research and intervention. Through an alternative strengths-based framework, Hamby deftly illustrates how battered women are in fact not passive and in denial but are active and diligent in protecting themselves and their loved ones. In addition to the traditional risks of being battered, many women who experience abuse face the risk of homelessness or the threat of losing custody of their children in a divorce battle. Understanding the full range of risks is necessary to understanding the complex problem of battering, and in this book, quantitative, qualitative, and clinical data reveal a wide range of protective strategies: immediate defensive responses in the moments following an attack, protecting children and other loved ones, reaching out for social support, turning to religious and spiritual resources, and engaging formal helpseeking. Using an approach called Multiple Criteria Decision Making, this book outlines a procedure for comprehensive risk assessment, safety planning, and risk management. Many, many strategies are still largely invisible to providers and researchers, and the steps that women take that receive very little attention or acknowledgement in the domestic violence field. The author identifies the vital role that researchers can play by simply acknowledging the variety of approaches that battered women employ. In this book's two new studies, survivors of domestic violence identify 133 different protective strategies in open-ended questions. These and other insights from survivor testimony make this volume the largest and most comprehensive review of battered women's strengths to date.

Donation from Centre for Children & Families in the Justice System of the London Family Court Clinic 2004.

Reports of mistreated children, domestic violence, and abuse of elderly persons continue to strain the capacity of police, courts, social services agencies, and medical centers. At the same time, myriad treatment and prevention programs are providing services to victims and offenders. Although limited research knowledge exists regarding the effectiveness of these programs, such information is often scattered, inaccessible, and difficult to obtain. Violence in Families takes the first hard look at the successes and failures of family violence interventions. It offers recommendations to guide services, programs, policy, and research on victim support and assistance, treatments and penalties for offenders, and law enforcement. Included is an analysis of more than 100 evaluation studies on the outcomes of different kinds of programs and services. Violence in Families provides the most comprehensive review on the topic to date. It explores the scope and complexity of family violence, including identification of the multiple types of victims and offenders, who require different approaches to intervention. The book outlines new strategies that offer promising approaches for service providers and researchers and for improving the evaluation of prevention and treatment services. Violence in Families discusses issues that underlie all types of family violence, such as the tension between family support and the protection of children, risk factors that contribute to violent behavior in families, and the balance between family privacy and community interventions. The core of the book is a research-based review of interventions used in three institutional sectorsâ€"social services, health, and law enforcement settingsâ€"and how to measure their effectiveness in combating maltreatment of children, domestic violence, and abuse of the elderly. Among the questions explored by the committee: Does the child protective services system work? Does the threat of arrest deter batterers? The volume discusses the strength of the evidence and highlights emerging links among interventions in different institutional settings. Thorough, readable, and well organized, Violence in Families synthesizes what is known and outlines what needs to be discovered. This volume will be of great interest to policymakers, social services providers, health care professionals, police and court officials, victim advocates, researchers, and concerned individuals.