Contradictions and Their Consequences: How Competing Policy Mandates Facilitate Use of a Punitive Framework in Domestic Violence–Child Maltreatment Cases

TY - JOUR

T1 - Contradictions and Their Consequences

T2 - How Competing Policy Mandates Facilitate Use of a Punitive Framework in Domestic Violence–Child Maltreatment Cases

AU - Armstrong, Elizabeth Marie

AU - Bosk, Emily Adlin

N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this work, awarded to the second author, was provided by the National Science Foundation: Law and Social Sciences Division (SES—1323916), the Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Wellbeing, and the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation. Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge Heidi Gansen for her role in data collection and the initial development of this work. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and Karen Staller for her ongoing mentorship. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this work, awarded to the second author, was provided by the National Science Foundation: Law and Social Sciences Division (SES?1323916), the Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Wellbeing, and the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2020.

PY - 2021/11

Y1 - 2021/11

N2 - Research shows child welfare cases involving caregiver domestic violence (DV) continue to produce punitive consequences for non-abusive adult victims. This occurs despite the adoption of a supportive policy framework that emphasizes perpetrator responsibility for DV-related harm to children. Risk assessment procedures have been implicated in punitive outcomes, but we know little about how they shape child welfare workers’ decision-making practice. Focusing on a state with a supportive policy framework, this paper uses grounded theory to examine how policy contradictions, procedural directives around risk assessment, and informal interventions produce punitive consequences for adult victims of DV and unmitigated risk to children. Data include state policy and procedural documents and interviews with child welfare workers describing decision-making in their most recent completed case and most recent case involving DV. Findings point to the need for active alignment of policies and procedures, greater integration of knowledge across practice areas, renewed commitments to differential response, and greater inclusion of DV specialists in child welfare settings.

AB - Research shows child welfare cases involving caregiver domestic violence (DV) continue to produce punitive consequences for non-abusive adult victims. This occurs despite the adoption of a supportive policy framework that emphasizes perpetrator responsibility for DV-related harm to children. Risk assessment procedures have been implicated in punitive outcomes, but we know little about how they shape child welfare workers’ decision-making practice. Focusing on a state with a supportive policy framework, this paper uses grounded theory to examine how policy contradictions, procedural directives around risk assessment, and informal interventions produce punitive consequences for adult victims of DV and unmitigated risk to children. Data include state policy and procedural documents and interviews with child welfare workers describing decision-making in their most recent completed case and most recent case involving DV. Findings point to the need for active alignment of policies and procedures, greater integration of knowledge across practice areas, renewed commitments to differential response, and greater inclusion of DV specialists in child welfare settings.

KW - child welfare

KW - decision-making

KW - domestic/intimate partner violence

KW - exposure to domestic violence

KW - risk assessment

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U2 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559520969888

DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559520969888

M3 - Article

C2 - 33124474

VL - 26

SP - 441

EP - 451

JO - Child Maltreatment

JF - Child Maltreatment

SN - 1077-5595

IS - 4

ER -