Season 3 Episode 3: Minisode on Worker Safety & Well Being: When Workers Have Their Own Histories of Abuse

Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

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In this fifth installment of the minisode series on worker safety and well-being, Ruth and David discuss the prevalence of histories of abuse amongst professionals and how agencies can proactively shape their human resources, training and supervision to this reality. One of the main takeaways from this episode is that having staff who have abuse histories can be a real asset for an agency that addresses domestic violence in the families they serve.

Research shows that a variety of professionals include health and child welfare have significant prevalence rates for histories of domestic violence, sexual violence and child abuse and neglect. McLindon, Humphreys and Hegarty found in one study of female personnel at medical facility in Australia that at "....45.2% (212) of participants reported violence by a partner and/or family member during their lifetime, with 12.8% (60) reporting both. " A Spanish study found that a " total of 1,039 health professionals participated in the study. Of these, 26% had suffered some type of abuse. Among the men, this prevalence was 2.7%, while among the women, it was 33.8%." A 2003 United States study found that 1/2 of child protection workers had histories of intimate partner violence.
David & Ruth discuss the significance of this data including:

• the research suggesting that workers with histories of abuse may be more sensitive to the issue, including working harder to keep children with survivors
• But can also lead to victim blaming, collusion with perpetrators, lack of engagement with perpetrators, fears and stress

Keeping with their solution focused approach, David & Ruth discuss what agencies can do including:

• Build policies and training to reflect the assumption that staff includes survivors of domestic violence
• Review HR and Employee Assistance Programs to see if this is an identified issue
• Develop communications and supervision strategies that start with new workers around their own histories and how to take care of themselves
  • Name indicators or areas of concern
    • Fears and resistance around engaging perpetrators as part of job
    • Victim blaming
    • Symptoms of stress like self medicating
    • Rigid views on issues of domestic violence
    • Aggressive and abusive behaviors toward colleagues or client
• Look to use lived experience experts on your staff as a resource
  • Create an employee lived experience advisory group that allows survivors to provide input as both survivors and professionals into agency policy and practice
  • Create a confidential peer support network—lived experience experts who are trained to help other survivors on staff, supporting each other to bring their "A" game to work
  • Train supervisors to keep focus on professional behavior while supporting workers to get the help they need.

References
Mieko Yoshihama, Linda G Mills. When is the personal professional in public child welfare practice?: The influence of intimate partner and child abuse histories on workers in domestic violence cases. Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 27, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 319-336.
McLindon, E., Humphreys, C., & Hegarty, K. (2018). “It happens to clinicians too”: An Australian prevalence study of intimate partner and family violence against health professionals. BMC Women’s Health, 18(1), 113. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-018-0588-y
Carmona-Torres JM, Recio-Andrade B, Rodríguez-Borrego MA. Intimate partner violence among health professionals:

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."