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The Evidence Hour: Cultural Responsivity in Domestic Violence Intervention Approaches for Immigrants in the U.S.

Center for Victim Research’s webinar series, The Evidence Hour, showcases a recent systematic review* or meta-analysis about victimization, trauma, or victim services. Each webinar features an author of the research and a practitioner discussant who will review the findings and reflect on what they mean for victim service providers and researchers.

On October 27, Abha Rai, Ph.D., MSW and Kristen Ravi Ph.D shared findings from a forthcoming scoping review collected articles about domestic violence services designed or adapted for South Asians, East Asians, and Latinx individuals and “immigrant groups who were not disaggregated to depict specific communities.” Their review covers fifteen studies. Radhika Sharma, MPH, discussed her work with Apna Ghar, Inc. (Our Home) and implications of the scoping review for adapting services. The recording is available on the CVR YouTube channel:

WATCH

This webinar is based on findings from this forthcoming article: “Culturally Responsive Domestic Violence Interventions for Immigrant Communities in the United States: A Scoping Study” in Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. (Contact the CVR library for full-text).

Resources from Apha Ghar:

• Apna Ghar (Our Home) One Pager
• Preparing Bilingual Advocates so that Immigrant and Refugee Survivors Receive Equal Services – Poster at Children and Family Services, African American Advisory Council Institute
• Directory of Programs Serving API Survivors, as of January 2020
• Domestic Violence Agency Referral List with Language Identifier Chart, as of 2020
• Resources for Afghans – RefugeeOne Fall 2021

Related Research:

• Center for Victim Research: Research Snapshot & Annotated Bibliography on the Impact of Culturally Relevant Programs
• “‘We Weren’t Ready’: Provider Perspectives on Addressing Intimate Partner Violence Among Refugees and Immigrants in The United States” by K. Wachter et al. (2021). Journal of Family Violence. This study reports on interviews with 57 social services providers about what influences their ability to serve immigrant and refugee women. The major themes included lack of organizational capacity to serve all survivors seeking help and “the rigidity of service timelines.”
  • See also Watcher et al.’s related articles about how immigrant women navigate help-seeking in the United States: ‘Where Is the Women’s Center Here?’: The Role of Information in Refugee Women’s Help Seeking for Intimate Partner Violence in a Resettlement Context” and “‘Back Home You Just Go Talk to the Family’: The Role of Family Among Women Who Seek Help for Intimate Partner Violence Pre- and Postresettlement to the United States.” (Links to abstracts only; contact CVR Library for full-text.)
• “Assessing Organizational Cultural Responsiveness among Refugee-Servicing Domestic Violence Agencies” by J.L. Lucero et al. (2020). Social Sciences. Executive directors from U.S. domestic violence agencies discussed how their agencies integrate culture responsiveness into services. The researchers organized what they found into various “levels” of responsiveness. Organizations may have a culturally competent organizational climate, which relates to mission statements and action plans for implementing multicultural practice and holding themselves accountable for working toward these visions. Organizations may have culturally competent staff and service providers who reflect on their beliefs and connections to the organization’s mission and take the time to be “immersed in the cultural norms, communication practices, and celebrations of the people for whom they serve.” Organizations may have culturally adapted programs, especially language services, and evaluations to understand how well the adaptation is working.
• “Exploring the Needs and Lived Experiences of Racial and Ethnic Minority Domestic Violence Survivors through Community-based Participatory Research: A Systematic Review” by M.I. Ragavan et al. (2020). Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21(5), 946-963. This collection of studies that used community-based participatory research (CBPR) a research approach that emphasizes collaboration, shared decision-making, and power-sharing between researchers and community partners during every stage of the research process.” The authors discussed how studies reflected CBPR values, like “creating relationships of transparency and trust” or “building on every person’s strengths, interests, and resources.” Also, the authors note the importance of capturing survivors’ lived experiences, including how the immigrant experience informs domestic violence.
• More research related to this Evidence Hour:
  • El-Moslemany, R., Mellon, L., Tully, L., & McConkey, S. J. (2020). Factors Associated With Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration and Victimization in Asylum Seeking and Refugee Populations: A Systematic Review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838020977147
  • Tripathi, S., & Azhar, S. (2020). A Systematic Review of Intimate Partner Violence Interventions Impacting South Asian Women in the United States. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838020957987

Related Resources from our Research2Practice Network:

• Esperanza United: Using Technology for Culturally Responsive Interventions ; see also their participation in the Alliance for Immigrant Survivors.
• National Resource Center on Domestic Violence: Responding to the Needs of Immigrant Survivors of Domestic Violence
• National Resource Center for Reaching Victims: COVID-19 Survivor Impact Brief: Immigrant and Limited English Proficient Survivors

*What are Systematic Reviews?

1. A systematic review is the process of bringing together all available studies about a well-defined question, analyzing the quality of their study methods, and summarizing their findings.
2. Systematic reviews often use a statistical practice called meta-analysis. This means combining data from multiple studies, to find patterns and calculate the average effect of the intervention.
3. Because systematic reviews pool results from many experiments and rate the methods of each study, these reviews increase our confidence in the quality and consistency of the evidence and what it means for the field.

Basically, systematic reviews take a large amount of information about a complex issue from multiple sources and make that information more manageable and usable. These reviews can also help make sense of conflicting findings from different studies.

Learn more from:

• Quick Reference: Systematic Reviews
• Quick Reference: Tips on Reading Research Articles

Tags: culturally relevant, culturally specific, evidence hour