Praxis International | Library: Advocacy

Ellen Pence, The National Training Project, Duluth, MN; Martha McMahon, University of Victoria

This article describes the eight aspects of a coordinated intervention model in domestic violence cases. The article also introduces the notion of safety and accountability audits as an assessment planning and reform tool in the criminal justice field.

Ellen Pence, Praxis International

This chapter provides a history of advocacy in the battered women's movement and analyzes the dilemmas facing legal advocates today in relationship to overspecialization of job duties; a shift from institutional advocacy to individual advocacy within the domestic violence field; and the tendency of shelter programs to become a part of the social service system rather than standing outside of that system.

Radhia A. Jaaber and Shamita Das Dasgupta

This article goes beyond assessment of immediate safety risks of battered women and focuses on the varied social features that impact their choices and decisions. Many of the social factors that commonly relate to women's experiences of battering and act as hindrances to securing women's safety are labeled here as "social risks" such as immigration, child protection, job, finances, family, and religion. These social risks carry differential value for each woman according to her social circumstances and status. The article points out that social risks are the results of history and simultaneous occurrences, which may intersect and interact to promote complicated emotions, attitudes, and perspectives. Social risks are presented here as concentric bands around a battered woman:

   1. Immediate personal risks,
   2. Institutional risks, and
   3. Cultural risks.

A model of analysis presented in this article directs advocates and practitioners to consider assessment aspects that would lead to achieving sustainable safety for battered women of diverse backgrounds.

Shamita Das Dasgupta

Excerpt from article...
"Interventions in domestic violence situations are pivoted on the idea of creating safety for battered women and their children. Safety planning is nearly always placed at the center of all advocacy and systems change interventions. New advocates are insistently taught that victim safety must be the most important concern in their work. Yet, we have only begun to recognize that safety cannot be arranged formulaically. What might appear to be definite safety -- such as a woman leaving an abuser -- may not translate to actual safety for all victims. In fact, we now know that the period around separation from the abuser may be the most hazardous time for some battered women"...

Excerpt from Making Social Change: Reflections on Individual and Institutional

Advocacy with Women Arrested for Domestic Violence

Martha McMahon and Ellen Pence, Violence Against Women, Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2003

Excerpt from article....

"Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), once referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), is not the mysterious psychiatric illness that many might think it is. The stigma associated with DID or MPD comes from a lack of understanding about the disorder and from inaccurate depictions in movies and on television where individuals with DID are portrayed as dangerous and mentally disturbed with fragmented personalities acting in shocking and uncontrollable ways. This disorder is not the catastrophic affliction that it is often made out to be. You can have DID and still complete your college education, hold down a responsible job, get married, be a good parent, and have a circle of close friends. And best of all, you can recover.”