Domestic Violence and Abuse: Aboriginal Community Case Study

This case study examines domestic violence and abuse within Aboriginal communities, focusing on the interplay between behaviour and environment. It begins with an overview of the issue, highlighting its impact on families, children, and the broader community, including its connection to substance abuse, barriers to women's leadership, and intergenerational trauma. The study identifies key stakeholders such as victims, perpetrators, community members, and law enforcement, and proposes a holistic intervention strategy that includes counselling for both victims and perpetrators, implementation of identity programs, and building cooperation with local police. The intervention is evaluated based on the theory of planned behaviour, emphasizing the importance of addressing men's behaviour to reduce violence, and adopting a partnership approach involving indigenous communities. The case study provides a comprehensive analysis of the problem and a proposed solution.

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Section 1: Overview of Domestic Violence and Abuse & Proposed Intervention
The case study focuses on domestic violence and abuse among the aboriginal
community. Domestic violence and abuse are currently causing untold damage to the
interaction between the people and the environment which creates damage to the
culture along with the fabrics of indigenous societies (Goulet, Lorenzetti, Walsh,
Wells, and Claussen 2016). The issues are damaging our families, our children,
women, men, and the community. It is imperative to note that all indigenous
individuals are entitled to live lives full of human dignity and safety. This is to mean
that they have to live without the fear of violence, intimidation, and domestic abuse.
It is their culture and human right. Similar to all Australians, Aboriginals are entitled
to the equal right of protection by the law.
Problems aimed to Solves
In this, we focus on the issue of domestic violence and abuse among the
aboriginal communities in the context of the connection to substance abuse, the
concept of abuse and domestic violence as a barrier to the women attaining leadership
position for the equality of women. The use of international models for different
programs which are aimed at dealing with inter-generational grief and trauma through
healing. Finally, the impact that domestic violence has on the indigenous youth in the
form of developing their cognitive disabilities, the entry in juveniles, under-
performance in institutions, and in cases of adult criminal processes. In addition to
the above noted psychological factors, domestic violence has been connected to
increased incidences of psychological illness as well as suicides among the youth in
the Indigenous community (Sherman 2018, p.454). Finally, family violence is the
reflection and cause of poor health among aboriginal individuals.
Implementation of the Solution
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We plan to sue a holistic approach in the form of implementing the solution
that will address the causes as well as the effects of domestic violence among
indigenous communities. While implementing the solution we will treat the issues of
domestic violence in a wide spectrum and not focusing simply on the legal
compliance, law, and order, or health matters (Hunter, Botfield, Estoesta, Markham,
Robertson, and McGeechan 2016, p.156). It only through a holistic approach that
lasting improvements could be achieved among the lives of aboriginals who are
suffering from both physical and psychological effects of domestic violence and
abuse.
Section 2: Identify all key stakeholders:
In this case, the Key stakeholders are the victims of domestic violence,
families who are affected by the issues, women and children who have suffered
directly from family violence and abuse, the general community, the law enforcers,
the interventions agents, the government policymakers as well as practitioners which
entailed family and domestic violence, primary prevention along with wider health,
human services sectors, justice sector, and researchers. The stakeholder might have a
number of interests which are significant to identify in the evaluation to aid define
appropriate intervention program strategies. Therefore, this might be stated by the
stakeholders or might be easily visible since they may be underlying or even hidden
due to the fear of being traumatized. While considering how any initiative gives
priority to each stakeholder in terms of meeting their interests in the issues, the
survivor centred approach will be used to ensure that the immediate survivors of
domestic and family violence receive the highest priority.
From the list of stakeholders indicated above, the victims range from women,
men, and children whose families are affected by family and domestic violence and
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abuse. Mostly, in this case, the focus is on the female survivors of violence as well as
their children. The issues to be addressed for the victims will be the threat of future
and current abuse along with violence. The other stakeholders are the men who are
mostly the perpetrators of family and domestic violence which arises from the
impunity to commit the crime and the pressure of that the community imposes on men
to control all the female members of the family. The community members who know
about the causes of violence among the community but opt to remain silent for the
sake of protecting cultural norms. The final primary stakeholder in the issue is are the
police officers or law enforcers working at the community level. Based on the
agencies and law enforcement department in the local community, we will address the
issues of officers blaming the victims for the violence as well as the delay in terms of
response to the violence.
Section 3: Explain how the Intervention Strategy should be implemented
To implement the intervention strategy, the first thing that would be done is
consulting with the Aboriginal individuals since addressing the issue will need
effective partnerships with the community and the people. In this case, all the daily
realities existing in the aboriginal community should be recognised and addressed in
all the policies that respond to domestic violence. The intervention strategy will be
implemented through the use of support programs which will offer freely accessible
as well as appropriate counselling for both the victim and the perpetrators of domestic
violence and abuse. In addition, the counselling will also offer post violence
counselling to all t4he affected family members.
The intervention strategy will also entail the implementation of identity
programs within the community that will use therapy-based programs focusing on
specific cultural, psychological and spiritual healing. The programs will thus access
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before, and after a violent incident, thus it will aim to change the underlying situations
that lead to domestic violence. For the sake of the police officers, the intervention
will aim to build cooperation as well as mutual respect with the local police. This will
improve night patrols in remote regions hence strengthening the mechanisms for
social control by affording the tradition methods the main role of controlling all of the
antisocial behaviour that might lead to family and domestic violence and abuse. The
final process after the creation of awareness and implementation of protective
measures will be to implement behavioural change among men and women groups.
Most of the domestic and family violence is committed by men; hence, the reason
why the intervention strategy aims at supporting behavioural reform programs for
men. The whole strategy will involve complementary groups for women and youth in
the community.
Section 4: Evaluation of strategy/rationale
The holistic approach to the eradication of domestic violence and abuse
among aboriginals is effective since it focuses on strategies and programs which aims
at eliminating the planned behaviour of the perpetrators of violence. According to
Arjen’s theory of planned behaviour, the attitude instigated towards a behaviour,
perceived behavioural control, as well as subjective norms together shapes the
behavioural intentions of an individual along with their respective behaviours
(Montano and Kasprzyk 2015, p.231). In most of the cases, domestic violence among
aboriginal has been termed as a planned behaviour in which the men succumb to the
pressure of punishing the female members of the family.
The intervention strategy is effective in such a way that it acknowledges the
efforts of the government in addressing the issue while implementing long term
programs that will permanently meet the set objective. Adopting the partnership
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approach which includes indigenous communities, families and community police. It
is through acknowledging all the successful strategies empowers the aboriginal people
since it enables them to control and manage their lives, thus regaining responsibility
for their communities. The intervention program uses the concept of the theory of
planned behaviour to focus on men with the aim of stamping out violence in the
families and the community (Abildso, Dyer, Kristjansson, Mann, Bias, Coffman,
Vasile, and Davidov 2018, p.195). The strategy implements behavioural change
programs that aim to help the men change their behaviour and reduce the rate of
violence in the community. This intervention strategy is highly effective since, in
most cases, domestic and family violence perpetrators are men.
The need to support men cannot be ignored if a considerable step is to be
taken toward making an effective step towards eradicating violence. Aboriginal men
have a major role they play in terms of ending violence in the community. Therefore,
the strategy aims at modelling the appropriate behaviour as well as challenging
violence while standing up against it. Through the behavioural change groups, men
and women would learn to nurture the behaviour of our children. It is because all the
strategies implemented a holistic approach needs to be adopted in order to address the
causes and consequences of domestic violence in the community.
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References
Abildso, C.G., Dyer, A., Kristjansson, A.L., Mann, M.J., Bias, T., Coffman, J., Vasile, E. and
Davidov, D., 2018. Evaluation of an intimate partner violence training for home visitors
using the theory of planned behavior. Health promotion practice, 19(2), pp.194-202.
Goulet, S., Lorenzetti, L., Walsh, C.A., Wells, L., and Claussen, C., 2016. Understanding the
environment: Domestic violence and prevention in urban Aboriginal communities.
Hunter, T., Botfield, J.R., Estoesta, J., Markham, P., Robertson, S., and McGeechan, K.,
2016. Experience of domestic violence routine screening in Family Planning NSW
clinics. Sexual health, 14(2), pp.155-163.
Montano, D.E. and Kasprzyk, D., 2015. Theory of reasoned action, theory of planned
behavior, and the integrated behavioral model. Health behavior: Theory, research and
practice, 70(4), p.231.
Sherman, L.W., 2018. Policing domestic violence 1967–2017. Criminology & Public
Policy, 17(2), pp.453-465.
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