Domestic Violence and Criminal Justice Training Needs of Social Services Workers

• NCJ Number: 223070
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 36 Issue: 2 Dated: May/June 2008 Pages: 190-197
• Author(s): Brian K. Payne
• Date Published: May 2008
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper examines whether social services workers are adequately trained to meet various social needs and criminal justice needs of domestic violence victims.

Abstract

The results suggest that social work directors believe that social services workers are for the most part adequately trained in several different topics to help domestic violence victims. This includes knowledge about criminal justice type issues related to domestic violence. Approximately three-fourths of the directors said that social services workers knew enough about working with the police and the courts on domestic violence cases. Areas in which workers were believed to need more knowledge included worker safety, dealing with frustrations of these cases, developing a rapport with domestic violence cases, responding to the critical complications, and understanding the laws related to domestic violence. Based on these findings, several implications for training arise and are briefly discussed. Domestic violence is a multifaceted problem requiring collaborative efforts by human services workers serving domestic violence victims. As such, domestic violence victims will need assistance from social services workers in regards to meeting various social needs. The question arises as to whether social workers possess enough knowledge about various aspects of domestic violence, including information required to process domestic violence cases in the criminal justice system. With surveys mailed to all 339 social work program supervisors at all 122 social work agencies in the State of Virginia, this study considered how well social services workers were prepared to deal with both social needs and criminal justice needs of domestic violence victims. Addressing the criminal justice and domestic violence training needs of social services will help determine if workers are able to help victims meet their social and criminal justice needs. Figure, tables, appendix and references