A Judicial Guide to Child Safety in Custody Cases (PDF)
"This Judicial Guide contains 14 bench cards which provide an easy-to-use checklist system for judges at critical decision-making points throughout child custody cases, as well as a supplemental guide which provides additional information about in- and out-of-court behaviors, best interest of the child, and order issuance and enforcement. "
Accountability and Connection with Abusive Men
"This document is an effort to remedy the excessive focus on mothers in cases involving domestic violence. It provides suggestions for connecting with and holding abusers accountable. It is a resource for child protection workers, supervisors, managers and others working with families involved in the child protection system."
Advocacy Matters: Helping Mothers and Their Children Involved with the Child Protection System
"This manual is intended for advocates working with women involved with the child protection system. It's purpose is to underscore the importance of the advocates work, provide tips for how to improve practice in this area, and inspire them to better understand women’s situations and help them be safe and self-sufficient." Related publications and resources are highlighted."
Beyond Observation: Considerations for Advancing Domestic Violence Practice in Supervised Visitation
"This paper presents considerations for expanded practice in the Supervised Visitation Grant Program and describes interventions that go beyond observation in the supervised visitation setting."
Building Bridges Between Domestic Violence Organizations and Child Protective Services
This paper provides both background information and a framework for collaboration with child protection agencies that will support the work of domestic violence advocates as they try to improve safety for women and their children.
Building Capacity in Child Welfare Systems: Domestic Violence Specialized Positions
This report seeks to assist policymakers and practitioners in developing domestic violence specialist positions that are tailored to the circumstances of their communities and states. We offer observations about initial expectations for these positions and the evolution of the positions over time. We also set forth composite examples of each of the major types of specialized positions and lay out the components of each, including responsibilities, auspices and settings, competencies, and funding sources. By doing so, we highlight different approaches to improving understanding of domestic violence and strengthening the likelihood of achieving safety for non-offending parents and their children.
Child and Family Service Review Outcomes: Strategies to Improve Domestic Violence Responses in CFSR Program Improvement Plans (PDF)
"Child and Family Service Reviews (CFSRs) evaluate public child welfare systems to determine how well they achieve safety, permanency, and well-being in difficult situations of neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and co-existing domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health issues, poverty, and community violence. This guide can help stakeholders develop effective (Program Improvement Plans) PIPs for achieving safety, permanency, and well-being in domestic violence cases, and to identify or anticipate related technical assistance needs."
Confidentiality and Information Sharing Issues for Domestic Violence Advocates Working with Child Protection and Juvenile Court Systems
"This paper explains basic advocacy practice and legal concepts related to information sharing and provides a framework for making decisions about how to handle and use information when working with women involved in the child protection or juvenile court systems."
Conversations with Mothers of Color Who Have Experienced Domestic Violence Regarding Working with Men to End Domestic Violence
This document explores the attitudes and perceptions of women of color survivors with children. The overarching objective was to hear what women had to say about efforts to engage men and fathers of color as allies in stopping intimate partner violence and restoring health in partnership and parenting. The research was undertaken by the Family Violence Prevention Fund as part of the development of our national violence prevention campaign.
Criminal Prosecution of Battered Native Women for Failure to Protect
This document provides an overview of the criminal prosecution of battered native women for failure to protect and the impact of laws and policies.
Cross-System Dialogue: An Effective Strategy to Promote Communication between the Domestic Violence Community, Child Welfare System, and the Courts
Cross-system dialogue is one strategy that has been used to improve communication. The cross-system dialogue is an approach that promotes and helps to facilitate communication among representatives working in the domestic violence, child welfare, and court system. It provides a formal structure to address conflict in a productive manner. Cross-system dialogues bring people together, lay the groundwork for effective communication, and give those who work with families experiencing both domestic violence and child maltreatment an increased confidence that meaningful cross-system communication is possible.
Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment Cases (Executive Summary)
This is an executive summary of the document "Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment Cases: Guidelines for Policies and Practice." The aim of this document is to offer a more comprehensive set of responses to eliminate or decrease the enormous risks that individual battered mothers, caseworkers, and judges must take on behalf of children.
El Paso County, Colorado Institutional Safety and Accountability Audit Report: A Project of the El Paso County Greenbook Project (PDF)
This report explores adult/child victim safety and offender accountability efforts in the criminal justice response. The goal of this audit was to strategize ways to improve the safety and well being of adult/child victims, enhance offender accountability, and create a system of accountability for the agencies that respond to domestic violence.
Family Team Conferences in Domestic Violence Cases: Guidelines for Practice (PDF)
"These revised guidelines further describe the thoughtful and safe use of Family Team Conferences (FTCs) for families affected by domestic violence. The guidelines are designed to provide useful information for trained FTC facilitators and FTC participants, including domestic violence advocates, batterer intervention staff, other community based service providers, and extended family members."
Fathering After Violence: Working with Abusive Fathers in Supervised Visitation (PDF)
"This guide is intended to assist Supervised Visitation Program or SVP that want to enhance the safety and well-being of women and children by working more deliberately with abusive fathers who use the centers to visit their children."
Guiding Principles for Safe Havens: Supervised Visitation and Safe Exchange Grant Program
"This document was designed to guide the development and administration of Supervised Visitation Program centers with an eye toward addressing the needs of child(ren) and adult victims of domestic violence in visitation and exchange settings. The Guiding Principles look beyond the visitation setting to address how communities funded under the Supervised Visitation Program should address domestic violence in the larger community."
In the Best Interest of Women and Children: A Call for Collaboration Between Child Welfare and Domestic Violence Constituencies
This is a briefing paper prepared for a Wingspread Conference of a similar title. It discusses family violence, specifically against women and children, barriers to helping the victims, and the importance of collaboration to effect change.
Intersection of Domestic Violence and Child Victimization in Indian Country (PDF)
This document provides an overview of the "destructive effects of domestic violence on children, families, and communities which are magnified by the intergenerational trauma that Native American families and communities have experienced since colonization began."
Interstate Child Custody: A practitioner's Guide to the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA) 28 U.S.C. § 1738A
An information sheet on the Parental Kidnapping and Prevention Act and how it relates to cases of domestic violence.
Key Provisions of UCCJA, PKPA, UCCJEA, & ICWA and Improvements Made by the UCCJEA for Battered Women (PDF)
This document provides a flow chart of various child custody laws in the United States, with a special focus on state and tribal court jurisdictions.
Problems Associated with Children's Witnessing of Domestic Violence (PDF)
This document discusses children's problems associated with witnessing violence and the factors that influence the degree of those problems. The author also offers a critique of the research methods used to study child witnessing of violence and explores the policy implications of the data on this issue.
Project Leadership in Multi-System Change Efforts to Address the Co-Occurrence of Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment (PDF)
"This document shares many of the leadership lessons from the perspective of the Greenbook project directors and is one of several publications that document the Greenbook sites’ experience."
Reasonable Efforts Checklist for Dependency Cases Involving Domestic Violence (PDF)
"This checklist includes easy reference bench cards for judges to consult during removal, adjudication, disposition, review, permanency, and termination hearings involving domestic violence. It is designed to aid judges in making reasonable efforts findings that are required by federal law in dependency cases involving domestic violence."
Reflections from the Field: Considerations for Domestic Violence Specialists
In 2006, specialists, advocates, CPS, and domestic violence program administrators, and representatives from national organizations convened for Exploring the Role of Specialized Positions in Child Welfare and Domestic Violence Collaborations (Specialized Positions Meeting). At the Specialized Positions Meeting, participants shared their stories, reflected on lessons learned, and strategized about future directions for specialist positions addressing the overlap of domestic violence and child abuse and neglect. This document is a reflection of the discussions that occurred at that meeting and literature reviews that support those discussions.
Responding to the Co-occurrence of Child Maltreatment and Adult Domestic Violence in Hennepin County
In this report, Drs. Edleson and Beeman and their research assistants detail information collected from a variety of sources during the first half of 1999. Information collection included detailed reporting by child protection screeners and investigators in the Hennepin County Department of Children and Family Services (HCDCFS), consulting with national experts in this area, reviewing published materials on prominent demonstration projects from around the United States and Canada, and holding a series of stakeholder meetings throughout Hennepin County.
Should Childhood Exposure to Adult Domestic Violence Be Defined as Child Maltreatment Under the Law?
Published as a chapter in Protecting Children From Domestic Violence: Strategies for Community Intervention (2004), this article reviews the research on childhood exposure to domestic violence and emerging laws aimed at protecting these children. The author concludes with an argument against assuming that childhood exposure to violence is automatically a form of child maltreatment and suggests the need to modify child protection services and the expansion of primarily voluntary community-based responses to these children and their families.
Six Crucial Issues in Supervised Visitation
This article describes six crucial issues that may decide how victims, their children, and their communities experience supervised visitation. These issues, based upon research and experience from supervised visitation providers nationally, are: how staff and volunteer training can enhance victim safety; how risk assessment tools can help staff identify dangers; how stalking can be reduced at supervised visitation programs; how liability issues can be addressed at programs; how court orders can increase protection for victims and children; and how staff can avoid unintended outcomes in program record keeping.
Strategies to Improve Supervised Visitation Services in Domestic Violence Cases
This Violence Against Women Online Resources commissioned document describes the evolution of supervised visitation services for domestic violence cases, notes legal trends in these cases, describes practice concerns, and presents strategies to improve the safety of participants when supervised visitation, due to domestic violence, is court-ordered.
Supervised Visitation Programs: Information for Mothers Who Have Experienced Abuse
"This guide was created for mothers who have experienced abuse and whose children are involved in supervised visitation programs. The guide provides information about how the programs work and how mothers can prepare themselves and their children for the experience."
Toolkit to End Violence Against Women (PDF)
To provide concrete guidance to communities, policy leaders, and individuals engaged in activities to end violence against women developed the Toolkit To End Violence Against Women. The recommendations contained in the Toolkit were reviewed by numerous experts in the fields of sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking. Each Toolkit chapter focuses on a particular audience or environment and includes recommendations for strengthening prevention efforts and improving services and advocacy for victims.
Understanding Women’s Experiences Parenting in the Context of Domestic Violence: Implications for Community and Court-Related Service Providers
This Violence Against Women Online Resources commissioned document describes the intersection between woman abuse and parenting. The authors identify and discuss seven central themes that highlight the challenges of parenting in the context of woman abuse. Specific implications and recommendations for community and court service providers are also offered.