Season 3 Episode 3: Minisode on Worker Safety & Well-Being: When Workers Have Their Own Histories of Abuse
About This Episode
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 in 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 Australian study of female personnel at a medical facility that 45.2% of participants reported violence by a partner and/or family member during their lifetime, with 12.8% reporting both. One Spanish study of 1,039 health professionals found that 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 and Ruth discuss how the research suggests that workers with histories of abuse may be more sensitive to the issue, including working harder to keep children with survivors, but this can also lead to victim-blaming, collusion with perpetrators, lack of engagement with perpetrators, fears, and stress.
Keeping with their solution-focused approach, Ruth and David address what agencies can do including:
Building policies and training to reflect the assumption that staff includes survivors of domestic violence
Reviewing HR and Employee Assistance Programs to see if this is an identified issue
Developing communications and supervision strategies that start with new workers around their own histories and how to take care of themselves
Naming indicators or areas of concern like:
Fears and resistance around engaging perpetrators as part of the job
Victim-blaming
Symptoms of stress like self-medicating
Rigid views on issues of domestic violence
Aggressive and abusive behaviors toward colleagues or client
Looking to leverage lived experience experts on your staff as a resource by:
Creating a lived experience employee advisory group that allows survivors to provide input as both survivors and professionals into agency policy and practice
Creating a confidential peer support network—lived experience experts who are trained to help other survivors on staff and supporting each other to bring their “A” game to work
Training supervisors to keep focus on professional behavior while supporting workers to get the help they need