Family Violence and Public Health Education: A Call for Action

• NCJ Number: 195690
• Journal: Violence Against Women Volume: 8 Issue: 6 Dated: June 2002 Pages: 746-778
• Author(s): Elaine J. Alpert; David Shannon; Alisa Velonis; Maura Georges; Rachel A. Rich
• Date Published: 2002
• Length: 33 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program Description (Model)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article discusses the public health approach to family violence, describes the content and experiences of a 15 week course on family violence offered at Boston University School of Public Health, describes the use of teaching assistants in this course, and offers recommendations for future public health courses in the field of family violence.

Abstract

The authors note that family violence is a public health issue because nearly every health care professional will encounter it at some point in their career. Thus, in an effort to successfully treat victims of family violence, emerging public health professionals must be trained in the field of family violence. Boston University School of Public Health has developed a 15 week course to ensure that practitioners are well schooled in this area and can proactively respond to the problem of family violence. The authors begin this article by providing an overview of the public health approach to family violence. They then move on to describe the content and experience with the Boston University course. Since the course began in 1996, 132 students have completed the course with rave reviews. Students cite specific strengths of the course as including course organization, readings, instructor expertise and enthusiasm, guest faculty expertise, student interaction and participation, and approachability. In the spring of 2000, the course faculty decided to add another component to the Family Violence course, the Family Violence Teaching Assistant Program. The goals of the FVTA Program are to train students on how to teach about family violence and to support peer-led teaching initiatives. The FVTA Program has proven effective in teaching about sensitive issues such as family violence. The authors conclude the article by offering recommendations for future courses in the area of public health. Among the recommendations offered are that family violence courses should continue to be offered, family violence topics should be integrated into existing courses, and that funding and incentives should be offered to encourage the incorporation of teaching assistants into existing courses in light of their success in teaching about sensitive topics. Tables, references