EFFECTIVE INTERVENTION

Effective Intervention

Effective Intervention

Introduction

Although two decades of research have confirmed that adults and children often are victimized in the same family, little was made of this finding until recently. For years, in fact, most communities have treated the abuse of a woman and the maltreatment of a child in the same family as separate phenomena having little to do with each other(Baker, 2006). Now, however, communities are asked to confront a new and compelling set of facts: (1) adult domestic violence and child maltreatment often occur together and (2) new responses are required of everyone , if violence within families is to stop.

Discussion

To date, community institutions and families have been offered few resources and tools to resolve the complex issues raised by overlapping domestic violence and child maltreatment in a family. The task of Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment Cases: (Bell, 2002) Guidelines for Policy and Practice ( Effective Intervention) is to offer a more comprehensive set of responses to eliminate or decrease the enormous risks that individual battered mothers, caseworkers, and judges must take on behalf of children.

Certainly, when dealing with a child's disruptive behavior and a parent's feelings of frustration or even clear hostility toward the child, the most successful intervention is usually some form of family intervention. (Cairns, Brannen, 2005)Family therapy has long been our primary approach to behavioral problems with children and adolescents, with strong evidence of its efficacy. And the integration of family therapy and individual treatment has been standard practice for years, as it is not uncommon for individual members of the family to require separate but parallel help.

As communities work to improve their responses to families experiencing domestic violence and child maltreatment, Effective Intervention offers a framework for developing interventions and measuring progress. (Carr, 2004)Leaders of communities and institutions should use the principles and recommendations in this book as a context-setting tool to develop public policy aimed at keeping families safe and stable.

To gain the perspectives of different social and legal systems, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges convened an Advisory Committee of diverse professionals from the courts, child welfare and domestic violence services, federal agencies, and the academic community. Over a series of three meetings, spanning a period of seven months, the Advisory Committee met to discuss draft recommendations developed by the authors, Susan Schechter and Jeffrey L. Edleson. (Children and Young People's Unit 2001)These deliberations guided and informed the authors in the development of the principles and recommendations summarized below.

Summary of the Advisory Committee's Conclusions and Recommendations

Effective Intervention focuses on three primary systems: the child protection system, the network of community-based domestic violence programs, and the juvenile or other trial courts which have jurisdiction over child maltreatment cases. Many other systems-including law enforcement, child welfare, faith institutions, schools, health care systems, extended families, and community-based agencies-contribute in important ways to the solutions outlined below, and many of the recommendations in Effective Intervention are relevant to these systems as ...