Month: June 2022

Beyond co‐occurrence: addressing the intersections of domestic violence, mental health and substance misuse. (2022)

Posted by: Rhys Lawry Posted on: June 16, 2022 ,

This paper reports an Australian project designed to simultaneously explore and capacity build professional practice when working at the intersection of parental mental health and/or problematic substance use and domestic violence (DV). Data from this paper are derived from two main sources: observations and ethnographic notes obtained during 28 Community of Practice (CoP) meetings and semi-structured interviews with 28 CoP participants. Participants were front-line workers from a range of government and non-government organizations providing services to families experiencing DV across three Australian states who participated in The STACY Project: Safe and Together Addressing ComplexitY.

Thematic analysis was employed to examine the research questions:

  • How do professionals and organizations understand and respond to families experiencing DV, parental mental health difficulties and problematic substance use issues?
  • How did practitioners report participation in the STACY Project reorienting professional practice with families experiencing DV, parental mental health difficulties, and substance misuse issues?

This paper reports workers’ exploration of practice implications. The research found that ‘domestic violence blind’ practice has become entrenched at the intersections of child protection, substance misuse and mental health problems, but a shared framework could bring practitioners from diverse sectors together to generate new ways of working with these complex problems.

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Researchers: Humphreys, C., Heward‐Belle, S., Tsantefski, M., Isobe, J., & Healey, L.

Year: 2022

Citation: Humphreys, C., Heward‐Belle, S., Tsantefski, M., Isobe, J., & Healey, L. (2022). Beyond co‐occurrence: addressing the intersections of domestic violence, mental health and substance misuse. Child & Family Social Work, 27(2), 299-310.

Participatory practice guideline development at the intersections of domestic and family violence, mental distress and/or parental substance use (2022)

Posted by: Rhys Lawry Posted on: June 16, 2022 ,

It is well established that the service system has a poor history of responding holistically to address the needs of children and families living with co-occurring complexities such as domestic violence, parental mental health and/or substance use. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to primarily describe the developmental process used to create guidelines to inform practice at the intersections of domestic violence, mental health and alcohol and other drug services, ensuring that the tactics of coercive control are visible in contexts of complexity.

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Researchers: Heward-Belle, S. L., Kertesz, M., Humphreys, C., Tsantefski, M., & Isobe, J.

Year: 2022

Citation: Heward-Belle, S. L., Kertesz, M., Humphreys, C., Tsantefski, M., & Isobe, J. (2022). Participatory practice guideline development at the intersections of domestic and family violence, mental distress and/or parental substance use. Advances in Dual Diagnosis, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 51-65. https://doi.org/10.1108/ADD-12-2021-0017

Response to the Draft National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children (2022)

Posted by: Rhys Lawry Posted on: June 16, 2022 ,

In this response to the 2022 Draft National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children, Professor Cathy Humphreys highlighted the lack of attention to the issue of substance use as an integral part of coercive control and the tactics of abuse.

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Researchers: Humphreys, C.

Year: 2022

Citation: Humphreys, C. (2022). Response to the Draft National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children.