Critical Literature Review: Help Seeking and Domestic Violence

This report presents a critical literature review on help-seeking approaches for domestic violence, specifically focusing on the experiences of migrant women. It begins with an exploration of the conceptual framework, utilizing the conceptual exosystemic theory to understand the interplay of biological, psychological, and environmental factors influencing help-seeking behaviors. The study then integrates intersectional feminism to highlight the multifaceted challenges faced by migrant women due to intersecting forms of discrimination based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, the report employs critical social work theory to analyze the impact of societal structures and power dynamics on the women's ability to seek assistance. The research question focuses on the connection between obstacles and the help-seeking attitude of women immigrants facing domestic and family violence in Australia. The methodology involves critical reflection, utilizing deconstruction, resistance, challenge, and reconstruction to analyze the analytical event. The strengths of the critical reflection method include its emphasis on language use, personal experience, and its capacity to identify areas for social justice and professional improvement. The report emphasizes the importance of disseminating the research findings to enhance the situation of domestic violence.

Running head: HELP SEEKING APPROACHES FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
HELP SEEKING APPROACHES FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note

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Conceptual
Exosystemic theory
As quoted by Harms, the multidimensional approach shows that human behaviour can
be perceived in different ways by different people and there exists a connection between an
individual’s biological, psychological and spiritual aspects with the environmental influences
such as culture, relations and structure. This theory helps in understanding the
biopsychosocial aspects of an individual which gives an insight about the problems faced by
the individual. This approach pertains to the experiences of migrant women, facing domestic
violence, along with their ability of risk taking, protectiveness and flexibility. This particular
study executes the multidimensional approach to examine the interconnection between the
factors microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem and how does
all this factors create obstacle for a migrant women who is seeking help for experiencing
abuses and domestic violence. The factors microsystem refers to the relationship of women
with her family members, mesosystem is the relationship between different microsystems,
and in this case it shows the isolation of women from the community including family, peer
groups or friends, the exosystem refers to the regulations and policies on the visa and
immigration sometimes also includes gender biasness, macrosystem shows the cultural aspect
and social beliefs affecting a woman living in that society and lastly the chronosystem refers
to the amount of biding one’s time before a woman can apply for a permanent citizenship.
To analyze the human behaviour in respect to seeking help, the connection between
biopsychosocial aspects of migrant women in Australia and the structural, cultural and social
aspects should be understood properly. Understanding the behaviour of the migrant women in
Australia will help the human development team to understand their reasons for not asking
for any help against the domestic and family violence faced by them.

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Intersectional Feminism
Intersectionality defines the process by which several aspects of inequity, such as
gender, race, age and status biasness, crossover and interconnect with the social drawback.
On the contrary, feminism refers to the concept of the abuses faced by women in a men
dominated society and the development and struggles done by women for liberty. Feminism
aims to develop women safety and security by linking their private issues and grievances with
their status and position in the society they live in. Australia gives refuges to migrant women
coming from all over the world. The crossover of different complexion, gender and economic
position of migrant women makes them experience different kinds of abuses and ill-treatment
from the society. Intersectional feminism helps to highlight the different abuses faced by
these migrant women. Focusing on a single abuse will not be enough to have an insight of the
issues faced by the migrant women based on her age, gender, migrant, economic and social
status. The use of intersectional feminism helps to identify the connection between all this
partiality factors social status, gender and complexion and the drawbacks within every
individual.
A cross-sectoral women’s liberty gives a view of the nature of violence experienced
by the women immigrants in Australia due to their social beliefs, culture, status, position,
complexion, emotional stability, gender, religion and physical ability. The research section of
this study executes the cross-sectoral feminism to figure and analyze the various aspects of
the lives of women immigrants such as their sex, complexion, social status and their
capability to state the violence and abuses faced by them and how all this influence their
behaviour for not asking any help. This feminism ideology also highlights that except their
gender other discrimination factors like being an immigrant, their language and their
economic and social status makes them unprotected in the society. Deficiency of a proper

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cross-sectoral women rights will make the women immigrants helpless in the cruel society as
they need help the most.
Both cross-sectoral women rights and the multidimensional approach are used in this
study to get a better understanding about the different obstacles arrive while asking for help
and the behaviour of the women immigrants in Australia while asking for help. Through this
study women immigrants will have a power to speak thus empowering the women
immigrants.
Critical Social Work Theory
This theory was developed to provoke the supreme beliefs of the society and the
prevailing social structure which caused all the abuses and social issues for the people who
were ruled over by the society. The purpose of this theory is to set free those unprotected
people from the social restrictions. The human development support team uses this theory to
figure out the source in the society which generates this problem in the life of those
unprotected people and this theory will also help to stop any further abuses caused on these
people. This theory emphasizes on the abuses, social discrimination and social structure
relatively than the interpersonal relationship of people or their perception of social issues.
An anti-abuse exercise and an anti-biasness exercise are the major motive of this
theory. The anti-abuse model aims to remove the cruelty of discrimination practiced in the
society. The people who has an authoritative power on the society maintains their hold by
creating a negative mind set of the people in the society. The anti-biasness model works on
removing biasness from the society. Anti-biasness prevents the biasness of social culture,
social status, religion, nationality, sexual identity and complexion. This biasness have
developed from the social hierarchy and not from a single person or a group. The anti-abuse
exercise focuses on removing the harshness or cruelty caused due to biasness in the society
while anti-biasness exercise focuses on removing the biasness raised from the social

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structure. Both anti-biasness and anti-abuse theories helps to interpret how the prevailing
social hierarchy and the authoritative power of people in a society influence the behaviour of
women immigrants in asking for help against domestic violence. Both of these theories
opposes the assumptions and negative perception of different people for women immigrants
in not asking for help.
Research question
The above literature review consisting of theories from different psychologists and
sociologists shows that different obstacles exists at different levels which causes the women
immigrants to ask for help. It is also observed that the restrictions on visa restricts the women
immigrants from learning, getting a decent job thus leading the immigrants to be depended on
their family members for financial support. Immigrant women becoming financially
depended on their families and are living at a risk of being banished from the country
prevents the women from asking for help from the human development support groups.
Different authors have mentioned about the connection between different obstacles however
none of them mentioned about the connection of these obstacles with women not asking for
any help. Their theories focuses on the model of a male dominated society rather than
discussing about the reforms needed for the discrimination prevailing in the society which
would help the women immigrants. Based on this findings evaluated from the literature
review, this research focuses on the connection between these obstacles, how does the cruelty
of the society, social hierarchy and inequity prevailing in the society influences the help-
seeking attitude of the women immigrants, this study also opposes the perception of people
based on sexual identity, abuse and potential ability by examining the direct connection
between power and sexual identity.

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The objective of this research is to analyse the connection between all the obstacles
and their influence on the help-seeking attitude of women immigrants facing domestic and
family violence in Australia.
Methodology
Critical reflection helps to understand the reason behind accumulating complex
thought and facilitates the usage of complex concepts in the job of a social worker. This will
help the people to have a more critical approach towards the society as well as combining the
people’s views, thoughts and actions in a unique way. To perform this study critical reflection
is used along with critical reconstructive process occurring in four steps, deconstruction,
resistance, challenges and reconstruction.
Deconstruction refers to the hegemony prevailing in the society and also examines the
language, discrimination, binary constructions and actor descriptor. Resistance shows how
the authoritative thinking of the society and some other cruelties affect the help-seeking
attitude of women immigrants. Challenge mentions about the society, which does not have
any enforced perception and the society, which has it.
 Deconstruction Identifies and examines the hegemony prevailing in the society
 Resistance Highlights authoritative thinking based on gender, religion, race and
social class prevailing in the Australian society.
 Challenge Discusses about the society with authoritative thinking and a society
with no authoritative thinking
 Reconstruction Evolution of the construction ideologies prevailing in the society
and development of new discourse. A new discourse would consist of new terms and
actions.
The development of a new discourse will give rise to different new actions, which needs
to be taken. This research paper focuses mainly on the deconstruction and reconstruction

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model, as it is directly connected with the postmodern theory of critical base. This research is
based on the analytical event, which happened in the workplace during an interaction with a
colleague. This event has been chosen because it was the factor responsible for the creation of
this research and this research will provide knowledge on how to enhance the situation of
domestic violence. The report discusses about the analytical events for domestic violence. A
detailed background insight about the analytical event has been provided. A reflective
analysis has also been stated such as why this event has been chosen, why it is so important,
what are the feelings about this event and what knowledge can be gained from this event.
This event is presented before the colleagues and the research professor who will
provide the guidance for the critical reflection by applying Fook’s model. This leads to
development of various insights and feedback is obtained from the professor. After the
analytical event is mentioned to the colleagues and professor and with the help and feedback
obtained, the critical or reflective analysis is constructed which consist of systematic analysis
done with the help of deconstruction and reconstruction frameworks, which gives rise to new
ideologies. An in-depth analytical research is done over the event linking to domestic
violence. After obtaining feedback this critical analysis will be linked to other appropriate
theories relating to social works. This research discusses about the critical reflection theory,
deconstruction of dominant beliefs and reconstruction of new ones ending with a critical
action, which will help the case of the women immigrants.
Strengths
The process of critical reflection mainly emphasizes on the use of language by an
individual therefore by executing critical reflection there is a chance of identifying the use of
language by oneself in terms of social practice and the source of its origination. This also
identifies how the use of language can influence power relation. As this is a process of
understand from personal experience thus it can help an individual to learn more about one

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self by getting in touch with different emotional and personal aspects. This method will
discover areas for achieving social justice and enhances professional exercises. This method
is negative in nature, has quality and flexibility and is generally transformable.
This method uses deconstruction to transform the authoritative structures and
hierarchies in the societies by evolving the thinking process of every individual. Individuals
are shown through critical reflection how they constitute being a part in the construction of
the current social structure. Therefore critical reflection is a way more personal approach as it
connects with the emotional mind of individuals. This method demolishes and then
reconstructs a new perception rather than focusing on several other discourses.
With the help of critical or analytical reflection, social workers can change the
perception of people about their ideologies, social structure and the attitude of people in
accepting the social rules.
Dissemination of result
Suitable methods are analyzed to disperse the research findings. These findings would
be shared at a conference with the students, studying social work, within the end of their final
semester. Improvements will be duly made in the research according to the feedback obtained
from teachers and students attending the conference. This research work will also be
uploaded in QUT turnitin as well as other journals relating to social work to spread the
findings to more number of social workers in Australia. Apart from this, a feminism approach
should be taken to bring a gender equality between men and women by promoting women’s
rights, leadership, protecting women’s interest and celebrating their achievements.