Using Formal Services
Using Formal Services
Battered women reach out to formal services in substantial and under-appreciated numbers. Formal services include shelters and other domestic violence agencies, law enforcement, health care, and therapists and other counselors. Although battered women are sometimes criticized for not seeking formal services more frequently, the comparison should not be to some hypothetical ideal of 100% formal helpseeking. A better comparison is to helpseeking for other problems. It turns out that the formal helpseeking of battered women is quite similar to the helpseeking for other types of crime and for mental health problems, again indicating that battered women do engage in protective strategies in ways that are like other people. Battered women are not especially passive. This chapter also discusses some of the under-appreciated impacts of many formal human services, such as the ways they can shift social norms in communities and offer information that is not always captured in service statistics.
Keywords: Law enforcement, police, shelters, domestic violence agencies, health care, therapists, battered women, domestic violence, intimate partner violence
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