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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pages 1-10

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From page 1...
... In addition, family violence has been associated with numerous social problems, including teenage pregnancy, runaway and homeless youth, alcoholism and substance abuse, and crime and delinquency. The association of family violence victimization with such an extensive range of health, mental health, and behavioral dysfunctions suggests that interventions that can lead to the reduction or prevention of family violence would contribute to the resolution of these other problems as well.
From page 2...
... Programs are often put into place without collecting baseline information about existing services or client characteristics, testing preliminary designs, or specifying -- let alone measuring -- the outcomes that the interventions are expected to achieve. Existing interventions include child and adult protective services, battered women's shelters, special police and prosecution units focused on child maltreatment and domestic violence, victim advocates in health and law enforcement agencies, fatality review teams, guidelines and treatment protocols for health care providers, family support services (including home visitation and intensive family preservation services)
From page 3...
... As a result, they lack shared strategies and common frameworks that could guide efforts to identify common goals, create common measures of service performance, pool resources when appropriate, and guide the implementation and development of selected interventions. THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN THE ASSESSMENT OF INTERVENTIONS In reviewing the research literature on evaluations of family violence interventions, the Committee on the Assessment of Family Violence Interventions identified 114 evaluation studies conducted in the period 1980-1996 that have sufficient scientific strength to provide inferences about the effects of specific interventions in the area of child maltreatment, domestic violence, and elder abuse.
From page 4...
... For this second tier of interventions, the committee makes recommendations for future evaluation studies, also presented below. The committee has also identified a set of four topics for basic research that reflect current insights into the nature of family violence and trends in family violence interventions.
From page 5...
... Recommendation 1: The committee recommends that states initiate evaluations of their current reporting laws addressing family violence to examine whether and how early case detection leads to improved outcomes for the victims or families and promote changes based on sound research. In particular, the committee recommends that states refrain from enacting mandatory reporting laws for domestic violence until such systems have been tested and evaluated by research.
From page 6...
... The committee therefore suggests that it is important for the states to proceed cautiously at this time and to delay adopting a mandatory reporting system in the area of domestic violence until the positive and negative impacts of such a system have been rigorously examined in states in which domestic violence reports are now required by law. In the committee's view, mandatory reporting systems have some disadvantages in cases involving domestic violence, especially if the victim objects to such reports, if comprehensive community protections and services are not available, and if the victim is able to gain access to therapeutic treatment or support services in the absence of a reporting system.
From page 7...
... Although the arrest studies provide empirical support for the use of deterrence in dealing with specific groups of batterers, the differing effects of arrest for employed/unemployed and married/unmarried individuals call into question the reliance of law enforcement officers on arrest as the sole or central component of their response to domestic violence incidents in communities where domestic violence cases are not routinely prosecuted, where sanctions are not imposed by the courts, or where victim support programs are not readily available. What remains to be determined is whether collaborative approaches have the ability to establish deterrence for larger numbers or different types of batterers and how the costs and benefits of increased agency coordination compare with those that could be achieved by a single law enforcement strategy (such as arrest)
From page 8...
... Recommendation 6: Intensive family preservation services represent an important part of the continuum of family support services, but they should not be required in every situation in which a child is recommended for out-of-home placement. Research findings suggest that intensive family preservation services do not show an ability to resolve underlying family dysfunction or to improve child well-being or family functioning in most families.
From page 9...
... family violence training for health and social service providers and law enforcement officials; (2) universal screening for family violence victims in health care and child welfare settings; (3)
From page 10...
... The development of the next generation of evaluation studies will benefit from the building blocks of knowledge that have been put into place over the past 15 years. This research base, and the convergence of the field around such issues as the recognition of the interactive nature of the service system in different institutional settings, the existence of multiple subgroups of offenders, the need for research experimentation to guide treatment and prevention efforts, and the use of multiple measures of program outcomes suggest that a richer and deeper understanding of family violence interventions lies within reach in the decade ahead.


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