Achieving reunification for children in families experiencing domestic violence: Perspectives of battered women and child welfare professionals

The purposes of this study were to explore the following: (1) how battered women with children involved with the child welfare system were perceiving and experiencing a child welfare professionals' intervention; (2) how child welfare professionals engage in and elicit practice with battered women, and (3) in what ways do battered women and child welfare professionals agree and disagree on best practices with families experiencing both domestic violence and child maltreatment.;This study was conducted from 2002 to 2004, and examined the perspectives of 17 battered women involved in public child protective services and 20 professionals working in public child protective service agencies within central Illinois. Individual semi-structured interviews were utilized to identify child welfare practices and the characteristics of child welfare professionals facilitating or impeding a family's reunification process.;Findings revealed that battered mothers and professionals in the child welfare system agreed on many of the same child welfare practices and characteristics of child welfare professionals as facilitating reunification process. However, there were a number of practices and characteristics of the professionals on which mothers and professionals disagreed. Divergence in participants' perspectives was centered primarily on whether or not the intervention should focus on the family as a whole including the batterer, or mainly on the mother-child relationship. Implications for social work practice and policy as well as future research are discussed.