Intervening in domestic violence: interprofessional collaboration among social and health care professionals and the police.

Encountering domestic violence victims, perpetrators and witnesses in the multiprofessional fields of health and social care and policing includes various challenges. Each professional group perceives domestic violence from its own perspective, linked to its position in the field, core tasks, institutional practices and organizational structures. In this study, we examine interprofessional collaboration among Finnish social and health care professionals and police officers, focusing on the practices and conceptions concerning domestic violence interventions. The data consists of 16 focus group interviews, involving a total of 67 interviewees from social and health care professions and the police. The results indicate that successful interprofessional collaboration requires comprehensive knowledge and education on domestic violence as a phenomenon, on the tasks and the duties of different professionals, as well as tolerance and flexibility in their joint efforts. However, the emphasis on professional relationships often shifts the focus from the institutional and structural challenges of interprofessional collaboration to individual interactions. Organizational barriers and differences in goals may impede good intentions from being materialized into concrete outcomes. These findings challenge all organizations and professionals working on domestic violence intervention to reconsider their training, practices and organizational arrangements.

Parents' Perceptions of Answering a Survey on Violence Against Children.

The effects of participation in research is an important ethical question in studies involving human participants. In research concerning violence, the common presumption is that participation is especially harmful for those who have personally experienced violence. In this article, parents' perceptions of answering a violence-related survey are analyzed based on free-text comments. A total of 3,170 parents responded to the survey about their violent behavior toward their child (ages 0-12), and 45% (2,047) of those reflected on their perceptions of answering the survey. These answers are analyzed using a thematic analysis. In addition to describing the perceptions, the associations between perceptions and experiences of violence are analyzed. The vast majority of the participants perceived participating in answering as being positive. Negative perceptions, such as distress, were also reported, but these perceptions were mostly reported together with positive perceptions, especially among those who personally had experienced violence.

Children's Experiences of Completing a Computer-Based Violence Survey: Finnish Child Victim Survey Revisited.

The involvement of children as research subjects requires special considerations with regard to research practices and ethics. This is especially true concerning sensitive research topics such as sexual victimization. Prior research suggests that reflecting these experiences in a survey can cause negative feelings in child participants, although posing only a minimal to moderate risk. Analyzing only predefined, often negative feelings related to answering a sexual victimization survey has dominated the existing literature. In this article children's free-text comments about answering a victimization survey and experiences of sexual victimization are analyzed together to evaluate the effects of research participation in relation to this sensitive issue. Altogether 11,364 children, aged 11-12 and 15-16, participated in the Finnish Child Victim Survey in 2013. Of these, 69% (7,852) reflected on their feelings about answering the survey. Results indicate that both clearly negative and positive feelings are more prevalent among victimized children compared to their nonvictimized peers. Characteristics unique to sexual victimization as well as differences related to gender and age are also discussed. The study contributes to the important yet contradictory field of studying the effects of research participation on children.