Project Overview
Background
Statistics on the prevalence, consequences and costs of woman abuse attest to its persistent and devastating impact on the lives of women and their children, and on society.
Since 1995, 207 women, 24 children and 11 loved ones have been killed by an abusive male partner or ex-partner in Ontario alone, and 190 children have been left motherless.
Shelters are a safe place for women and their children during a time of crisis, but also provide outreach services and a crucial advocacy and “navigation” function to assist women in the process of breaking free from violence.
In Ontario, shelters are available to women in 122 communities, covering the province. At any given time, well over 1000 women (and their children) reside in Ontario shelters. Three-quarters are fleeing domestic violence, and almost a quarter have used a shelter before, many repeatedly. Half of women who leave shelter do not know where their next home will be. The remaining women find new accommodation; move in with friends or family or return home without the abusive partner. Only 7% of women return home with the abusive partner.
There is a lack of good evidence indicating what shelters do, and how well they do it. Previous evaluations have been small, used inadequate evaluation methods, and focused on outcomes that may not be most relevant to women.
Partnership model
Our team, led by Michele Hansen, formed in 2004 to address a significant gap in knowledge, namely to understand what it is that shelters provide across the spectrum of care and referral services, and how this helps women and children who have experienced violence in their lives
Project planning and oversight for the proposed project will be by the shelter community, represented by three shelter directors on the main project team, and by an Advisory Committee composed of shelter workers and those from key related sectors providing service to abused women.
Evaluation planning and methods will be led by university-based experts in woman abuse research.
Objectives & Approach
The difficulties women experience in ‘navigating’ the various health and social service systems to get help for themselves and their children should not be underestimated. In an ongoing study of 309 Canadian women who had left abusive partners in the past 3 years, more than 80% felt they were confident in knowing where to go for various kinds of services, yet 65% of them reported that it was difficult or very difficult to get the support they needed from formal systems. 1 Furthermore, a recent U.S. study 2 revealed that even though all ‘official’ state government web sites contained some information relevant to abused women, the content, level of coverage, and ease of access varied considerably and the information was often too general to be useful to abuse survivors who need highly specific, local information to address their problems. Our approach will focus on identifying specific and accessible forms of service at the local level, and examine how shelter workers link women to, and guide them through, these various services and resources to reach desired success outcomes.
1. Ford-Gilboe et al. (2006). -Knowledge Translation: Developing an Evidence-Based Health Advocacy Intervention for Women who have left Abusive Partners . Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 31(1), 147-167.
2. Davenport et al. (2008). E-government access to social service information: State web resources for domestic violence survivors. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(6): 903-915.
Selection of evaluation approaches will be based on a model of the multiple and interrelated services provided by shelters, outlined in Figure 1.
A phased approach will be used. Phase 1 will involve broad and representative sector consultation to review, document and begin to categorize the range of services provided by shelters. We will survey, using qualitative and quantitative research methods and weighted sampling techniques, front-line workers, administrators and service recipients in the shelter sector across Ontario, and key representatives of related service organizations to which women are often referred (see Figure 1). Phase 1 will provide important data regarding:
What shelters do, both in terms of short-term residential services, but also, importantly, in terms of ongoing outreach and “navigation/linkage” work; as well as other forms of instrumental, cognitive and affective support that help women make and implement decisions to break free from violence;
Whether other sectors (per Figure 1) are aware of and fully understand the work done by shelters;
Contextual factors at the system, community and organizational level that influence service delivery and efficacy;
Success outcomes – that is, what stakeholders feel should be assessed to determine whether shelter services have been effective in improving the lives of abused women and their children.
Phase 2 will be developed as Phase 1 nears completion and will focus on designing a project to evaluate shelter services using the woman-focused success outcomes identified by stakeholders in Phase 1. Figure 2, based on previous work by our team members, and existing research literature, provides a conceptual model for Phase 2, which will examine the following questions:
Do the services identified in Phase 1 map onto the instrumental, cognitive and affective support functions outlined in Figure 2?
Do women receive these services and supports?
If so, how are they helpful or not helpful?
To what extent does the service context influence how women evaluate these services and functions?
Knowledge translation, linkage and exchange will be integrated throughout the project, with a particular focus on working with local Coordinating Committees 3 to feed back emerging project results to inform their work, but also to engage them, and through them their service sectors, in identifying emerging priorities, needs and opportunities.
3 Domestic Violence Community Coordinating Committees provide important service coordination work at the local level, seeking to improve the quality of services to survivors and perpetrators of family violence through collaboration.
Deliverables
A report on Phase 1 project results
A Proposal for funding for Phase 2
An assessment of the effectiveness of the communication and knowledge translation, linkage and exchange activities
