Paper examines use of language in working with victims and perpetrators

Policy Quarterly has published a paper which discusses the use of language and the concept of empowerment in working with family violence victims and perpetrators.

Becoming Better Helpers: rethinking language to move beyond simplistic responses to women experiencing intimate partner violence by Denise Wilson, Rachel Smith, Julia Tolmie and Irene de Haan, considers agency records collected during Family Violence Death Reviews. The authors state the way language is used in the records "fails to reflect what we know about family violence and almost always advantages perpetrators and disadvantages victims."

The records are found to reveal "a lack of a shared understanding of intimate partner violence as a gendered problem." The records "misconstrue victims' and perpetrators' roles and convey distorted notions about the realities of victims' lives and the context of the violence they suffer."

Further, the authors say the (mis)use of empowerment theory can create a barrier to victims receiving appropriate support and lead to unintended harm, contributing to deaths.

The paper argues for a shift to a "safety and dignity mindset" requiring policy makers and practitioners to work to ensure "accurate recording of events, identifying the context of the violence, the perpetrator's acts of violence and the victim's acts of resistance." The authors provide examples. They say development of an integrated response to family violence will continue to be undermined and unsafe if this mindset shift does not occur.

The paper (7 pages) is freely accessible from the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse library.