Category: DV/IPV

Futures Without Violence is hosting a webinar next week on school-based health services, adolescent health and anticipatory guidance for dating and sexual violence and harassment. The session will be April 27th at 6:30pm ET (yes, it’s a late one). From the announcement:

Teens experiencing relationship abuse are more likely to report unhealthy diet behaviors, engage in substance abuse, and report having suicidal thoughts. Given these sobering facts, adolescent relationship abuse is a major health concern facing teens today, and health care providers have a unique role to play in preventing it. Not only can they provide valuable prevention messages to help their patients build healthy relationships, but medical professionals are also uniquely positioned to help those exposed to abuse access the resources they need.

Clinical settings that serve adolescents in particular, such as confidential teen clinics and school health centers, are strategic sites for adolescent health promotion, prevention, and intervention. Unfortunately, the standard-of-care within adolescent health settings does not currently include specified protocols to assess for or intervene to reduce dating and sexual violence and harassment. This webinar will provide participants with strategies and tools to provide universal education on safe, consensual and healthy relationships, as well as models for trauma-informed responses to disclosure of DSV.

(My one wish for Futures Without Violence is that they would publicize their events a little sooner, but alas, here we are, another intriguing topic with not much notice.)

I just got notice of this in my inbox this morning, so apologies for the late notice: OJP is hosting a webinar, Relationship Dynamics and their Contribution to Adolescent Relationships and Dating Violence. If this title looks familiar it’s because it was originally slated for last month, but a technical difficulty caused them to reschedule it for March 30th at 2pm ET. From the announcement:

Teen dating violence is a common and serious public health problem that persists into adulthood. While it is evident that relationship dynamics are important to consider in teen dating violence, there is limited understanding about how these relational interactions shape relationships and impact dating violence among youth. Furthermore, current intervention and prevention efforts generally do not consider and incorporate these relationship dynamics into their strategies.

This webinar will provide newly emerging information from two NIJ-funded longitudinal studies regarding important relationship dynamic contexts in dating violence among youth. In the first presentation, Drs. Michael Lorber and Amy Smith Slep will discuss the role of negative interaction patterns in dating relationships and violence over time in a sample of 200 adolescent dating couples in New York City. In the second presentation, Drs. Megan Bair-Merritt and Ty Ridenour will present findings about how daily changes in relational factors like feelings of jealousy, intimacy, and instrumental support are associated with dating violence victimization and perpetration in a sample of 158 high-risk adolescent females. Kelly Miller with the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence will provide an overview of the possible impact of the presented research on primary prevention strategies on adolescent relationship abuse and how these studies can better inform approaches across the socioecological level.

Register here.

There’s an interesting new study looking at the rates of revictimization for adults who experienced teen dating violence. The study, Revictimization After Adolescent Dating Violence in a Matched, National Sample of Youth, found that “…heterosexual victims of teen dating violence were significantly more likely to be re-victimized five years later compared to their non-victim counterparts with other similar risk factors. Those who were victims again, by the five-year mark, were also more likely to be re-victimized by romantic partners 12 years later.” (source)

Anytime you entertain the idea that forensic healthcare is limited to response and has no place in the prevention world, or you think to yourself, prevention work is for other folks, read studies like this that really drive home how important it is that we all are reaching beyond documenting injuries. Prevention is a key pillar in all aspects of healthcare, ours included.

Read more about the study over at the Washington Post.

There’s new research available on the teen dating violence. NIJ has an overview of the study, the National Survey of Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRiV), on their site. The study is wide-ranging, looking at sexual harassment, physical and sexual violence, and psychological abuse. It also examines perpetration, as well as victimization. Worth checking out.

February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month, and there are plenty of good resources available to make you even better at caring for this patient population:

Love Is Respect has both twitter chats (#teendvchat) and webinars, plus Respect Week, February 13-17 (download the guide here). You can check out all of their offerings, and downloadable media on their dedicated page.

VAWnet has a special collection just published on preventing and responding to teen dating violence.

Break the Cycle has a conversation guide for parents on talking to teens about healthy relationships. Don’t let the parent part deter you–there’s plenty in this that will make you better at talking to your adolescent patients.

Check out CDC’s Dating Matters online training; there’s also an interactive guide to informing policy, for those of you who have your hands in that arena.

Interested in some of the research on this topic? You’ll find a solid overview from NIJ here; fact sheet from CDC here (with references).

The National LGBTQ Institute on IPV is hosting a webinar in honor of TDVAM on a topic particularly interesting to me, There’s No One I Can Trust: Rethinking Mandatory Reporting Practices on February 21st at 12pm PST. [I am very conflicted on the issue of mandatory reporting, so I am going to try and attend this one.]

A couple newer resources available for (and about) LGBTQ patients:

1. CDC has some infographics about sexual minority youth and violence–in schools, in relationships, etc. Trans- youth aren’t specified in this data, so be mindful of that omission, but if you’re considering some targeted programming, or you want to make it clear that your services are inclusive by adding this material to your waiting area, these are a good addition to your resource library.
2. Futures Without Violence published some safety cards for LGBTQ IPV materials: a poster; safety cards (in English and Spanish); and a trans-/gender non-conforming safety card (in English and Spanish). They’re free downloads or you can order hard copies (also free) from their store. The dedicated web page also has some tips and other resources.

Here’s a project to get excited about: IAFN just released the non-fatal strangulation documentation toolkit, available for free download (PDF). As noted in the preface, the toolkit “provides the forensic nurse with detailed guidance on assessment techniques, documentation, and evidence collection for this patient population. This toolkit also provides documents such as discharge instructions and sample policies that can be adjusted to best suit your institution and your forensic practice.” I encourage you to share widely, particularly with your ED physician and nursing colleagues (you’ll notice there is emergency medicine representation on the task force that developed this document).

We’ve been pretty hungry for guidance like this, so my hunch is this will be a popular post 🙂

{see also: Strangulation Position Paper, strangulation case review (fee)}

I’m really pretty well consumed with the election coverage, or at least my Twitter feed is (and my FB feed, and my Instagram feed). I fear until the election is over, this weekly feature will be a little sad. Sure, there are other things happening in the world, but I have no idea what. So here’s what little I’ve been reading since last we spoke:

 A familiar story

This hurt me on so many levels

A lovely tribute

As someone with chronic pain I feel all of this

The magnitude of stalking

One paper’s response to threats

A long, but fascinating, read

The sexism of the likability trap

The Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention has a webinar coming up: The Development and Operation of a Strangulation Response Team. The session will be held October 4th at 12pm CT. Click through for details:

I love when I find offerings that I don’t frequently see. The Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence has a 2-part series coming up on DV and pregnancy, the first of which is Impact of Domestic Violence on Healthy Births. The session will be held September 13th at 10am PT. Click through for details: