Perceived violence climate: A new construct and its relationship to workplace physical violence and verbal aggression,and their potential consequences

Abstract

Workplace accidents and violence are both potential sources of employee injuries that have been dealt with in entirely separate literatures. In this study we adapted the concept of safety climate from the accident/injury literature to violence in developing the concept of perceived violence climate. A scale was developed to assess perceived violence climate, including items about management attention, concern, and policies designed to keep employees safe from violence. Data were collected from a sample of 198 nurses from a US Hospital. Perceived violence climate was found to correlate significantly with both physical violence and verbal aggression experienced by the nurses, injury from violence, and perceptions of workplace danger. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that climate explained additional variance in psychological strain and perceptions of danger over experienced violence. These results have implications for interventions aimed at producing a good perceived violence climate in order to reduce the incidence of violence and aggression within an organization.     

SASA! Together: An evolution of the SASA! approach to prevent violence against women

One in three women globally will experience intimate partner violence (IPV) with devastating consequences for individual survivors, their families and communities. While prevalence remains high, violence against women is not inevitable and community mobilization approaches have emerged as particularly promising for transforming the gender inequitable norms and practices that underlie violence. The SASA! Activist Kit to Prevent Violence Against Women (SASA!), developed by Raising Voices in 2008, provides a theory-based approach for mobilizing communities to transform power imbalances between women and men through critical discussion and positive action. In this article, we provide the rational for revising SASA! after ten years of program learning and formal research. We aim to contribute to the knowledge base around what works to prevent IPV by describing the core enhancements in the revised version--called SASA! Together—and linking these changes to Raising Voices’ program learning and broader advancements in the field. In addition, we reflect on how current debates—such as how best to “scale up” violence prevention programs—were considered and resolved in SASA! Together. The paper concludes by sharing lessons learned that may provide guidance for future revisions development and revisions of evidenced-based programs.     

在暴力与死亡中受洗——谈奥康纳作品中的特殊宗教救赎方式

弗兰纳里·奥康纳是美国20世纪四五十年代重要的南方小说家之一。她在病痛缠身的短促一生中，留下一批优秀的中、短篇小说。其小说具有深刻的宗教意味、怪诞的哥特风格和浓郁的南方乡土气息，成为福克纳以后南方文学传统的优秀典范。她的所有作品似乎都是在致力于构建一种特殊的宗教救赎方式，而这种宗教救赎方式的表达使其与狄更斯、雨果文学作品中的宗教救赎方式的表达明显区别开来。     

Strengthening the Domestic and Family Violence Workforce: Key Questions

ABSTRACT

The significant impact of domestic and family violence in Australia calls for a workforce that is both highly skilled and capable of meeting the demands of complex and challenging jobs. Yet despite the increasingly national visibility of domestic violence, the workers—and work itself—have largely remained invisible. We argue for a shift in conversation, highlighting the need for a workforce approach that is not only strategic but that also applies a theorised lens to domestic and family violence work inclusive of both gender and Indigeneity.

IMPLICATIONS

• The domestic and family violence workforce and workers should be made more visible to better support development in this sector.

• A workforce development strategy is needed to build knowledge about who is doing this work, the nature of the work, workplace structures and cultures, and work environments and conditions.

• The significance of gendered power relations, Indigeneity, high risk, trauma environments, and emotional labour in domestic and family violence work cannot be ignored in development strategies.

     

Transforming Into Men Who Matter: Increasing Empathy in Domestic Abuse Treatment

ABSTRACT

Men referred to domestic abuse treatment are typically involuntary clients, ranging from being legally mandated to being under significant pressure from others to attend. Such treatment programs have mixed results in achieving change in abusive behaviours. Most programs emphasise taking responsibility for abusive behaviour by examining the precursor thinking beliefs and values, with less attention paid to learning new interpersonal skills that replace antisocial behaviours with prosocial alternatives. Empathy provides a measurable moderator of moving beyond simply acknowledging responsibility for past abuse into learning and applying prosocial relationship enhancement skills with their treatment cohort, families, and significant others. This paper describes a program that builds empathy skills through a series of program and mentalisation tasks that include routine client feedback using the Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS). Evidence of increased retention and statistically significant changes in empathy using the Social Empathy Index are provided from a previous study examining the same program. The practice and research implications for domestic abuse clients and other involuntary populations are discussed.

IMPLICATIONS

• Involuntary clients continue to have high dropout rates across a range of client populations and are a challenge to engage in the change process. With the application of the client feedback tools and relationship enhancement skills described in this paper professionals can more effectively engage other types of involuntary clients in their change efforts.

• The focus on empathy and relationship enhancement skills can lead to reduced treatment dropout across involuntary client populations referred for substance use, domestic violence, or other offender behaviours.

     

‘We Don't Have to Take This’: Zero Tolerance of Violence against Health Care Workers in a Time of Insecurity

Doctors, nurses and other health care workers in the UK are said to be increasingly aware of the ‘risks of the job’ as a result of mounting verbal abuse, threats and assaults from patients and their relatives. In the late 1990s the UK government introduced a policy of ‘zero tolerance’, which it claimed was designed to minimize the risk of such violence. Current policy refers to the need to be tough on offenders and encourage a culture of respect. In this article we review this strategy and the reasons for its introduction and consider some of the potential consequences. The article starts with an account of the policy, the definition of violence that underpins it and how it has been measured, and assesses the evidence regarding prevalence. This is then interpreted in the context of wider policies of zero tolerance to crime, and debates about risk, anxiety and insecurity.     

Cognitive model of patient aggression towards health care staff: The patient's perspective

Abstract

Aggression towards health care staff has become the focus for research as well as for government intervention. Negative effects upon staff and organizations have been established, yet few detailed explanations are offered for this aggression, and none represents the patient's perspective. This paper presents a model from the patient's perspective that takes account of situational variables, while also focusing upon patient cognitions. It also considers physiological responses related to arousal that might underpin aggression in an anxiety-provoking situation. In a previous study the frequency with which aggression was preceded by some anxiety-provoking event and the extent to which assailants displayed diminished cognitive processing were established; these were incorporated into the model. Increased anxiety commonly experienced by patients can have a negative effect upon cognitive processing. Anxiety generates a hyper-vigilance for threatening stimuli, induces selective attentional bias for threat, and causes a narrowing of attention, thus reducing cues and information upon which to make accurate appraisals and attributions. With such impairments, patients may make negative rather than positive attributions regarding actions of staff, which are frequently anxiety provoking. Thus, patients perceive staff behaviour as threatening rather than benign, and in the absence of positive attributions it will invoke an aggressive response. What health care staff perceive as aggression may be seen by patients as a defence against perceived attack. Changes in policy that take this into account may reduce future aggressive incidents.     

The Life Course: A Sociological Introduction

Abstract

Recognition of the deleterious effects of domestic violence on women's mental health has highlighted the potential benefits for women of collaboration between mental health and domestic violence services. Yet the different histories, knowledge bases, and organisational cultures of the mental health and domestic violence sectors present formidable challenges to the development of effective collaborative work. This article draws on a large research enquiry, involving four separate but related studies, which explored aspects of collaboration between these two service sectors. It focuses particularly on data collected in interviews with practitioners from mental health and domestic violence services who were participants in an action research study (one of the four studies), which was aimed at discovering the factors that contributed to enhanced collaboration and the benefits of this for women who experience both domestic violence and mental health issues.     

Aboriginal Women's Perceptions and Experiences of a Family Violence Transitional Accommodation Service

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative study of Aboriginal women's perceptions and experiences of a transitional housing program in South Australia that was established to assist long-term homelessness and family violence. The aim of the study was to explore the experiences and service outcomes for Aboriginal women and their children and to identify both facilitators and barriers to the effective operation of the program. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 13 Aboriginal women and thematic analysis was used to report their collective stories. The women's stories showed individualised, flexible, and open-ended support as well as practical outcomes of stable, safe housing for themselves and their children were particularly valued. The women reported that these features of the program augmented feelings of strengthened confidence and self-efficacy. The authors argue the domestic and family violence sector has the opportunity to learn from the perceptions and experiences of Aboriginal women, particularly allowing time and commitment to working long-term with families.