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 Community Psychology
Masters' and Doctoral Theses
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Abstract
Corbett, Lorraine A. Child protection workers' interactions with women abused by their male partners: Five women's stories.
The purpose of this research was to investigate women's experiences of child protection workers. Five in-depth interviews with women who been abused by their male partners were conducted. The analysis and methodology of this research was guided by a feminist framework.
The five interviews are presented in case study format, highlighting the dynamics of violence in the women's relationships and their feelings about their contact with CYPFS and other institutions. All of the women talked about their interactions with child protection workers, this interaction being mostly negative.
The research found that as child protection workers may not acknowledge the presence of family violence in their cases, they subsequently fail to understand the constraints that women experience in their relationships with violent men. The child protection workers may thus fail to assess the context of the women's lives women which can lead to blaming, endangering and/or re-victimising the abused women and also failing to appropriately refer to other helping agencies. To ameliorate these problems, it has been suggested that: child protection workers be trained to understand the dynamics of abuse; and, child protection agencies working closely with other agencies which serve overlapping populations of women and children such as the police and refuge.
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