Admissible Strengths: Leveraging Research on Domestic Violence Survivors' Parenting Capabilities in Family Court Proceedings

As family law attorneys, you are often representing domestic violence survivors fighting for custody of their children. While the impacts of abuse are well-documented, less attention is given to the remarkable strengths many survivors exhibit as parents. One of the strengths of the Safe & Together Model  is its consistent focus on the need for assessing survivors' parenting strengths, validating those strengths and documenting them so they can impact decisions in courts and child protection systems. A few years ago I co-wrote a research brief that sheds light on these often-overlooked qualities, providing valuable insights for legal professionals advocating on behalf of survivor parents in family court. 

Challenging Assumptions

Contrary to common misconceptions, studies show that many domestic violence survivors demonstrate parenting abilities on par with or even surpassing those of parents in non-violent homes. For instance:

- Research by Tailor et al. (2015) found that mothers parenting in the context of domestic violence had similar rates of positive and negative interactions with their children compared to mothers in non-violent homes.

- Sullivan et al. (2001) observed that battered women often remained extremely emotionally available and supportive as parents.

- A study by Casanueva et al. (2008) revealed that women who had previously parented in the context of domestic violence actually scored higher on parenting measures than those who had never experienced domestic violence.

These findings challenge the automatic assumption that domestic violence survivors are less capable parents and underscore the importance of individual assessments.

Protective Capacities in Action

Many survivors develop unique strengths and strategies to protect and nurture their children:

1. Emotional Resilience: Survivors often demonstrate remarkable emotional resilience, providing stability and warmth even under challenging circumstances. This "mothering resilience" can play a critical protective role for children exposed to abuse (Buchanan et al., 2015).

2. Safety Planning: Survivors frequently engage in complex safety planning to minimize their children's exposure to violence, such as creating safe spaces within the home or developing emergency exit strategies (Haight et al., 2007).

3. Maintaining Normalcy: Despite the chaos of abuse, many survivors work tirelessly to maintain routines, support their children's education, and foster positive experiences (Lapierre, 2010).

4. Open Communication: Survivors often develop strong communication skills with their children, helping them process their experiences and build resilience (Haight et al., 2007).

5. Resourcefulness: Many survivors show incredible resourcefulness in accessing support services, maintaining employment, and securing housing - all while navigating the challenges of abuse (Gilroy et al., 2015).

Mental Health and Substance Abuse: Dispelling Myths

Recent research challenges the assumption that all domestic violence survivors struggle with severe mental health issues or substance abuse:

- Carlson et al. (2002) found that depression rates for women who experienced severe domestic violence could be as low as 16.7%, with anxiety rates as low as 33.3% - similar to or even lower than general population rates.

- Studies show that 76-86% of women experiencing domestic violence do not use drugs, and only 4% regularly abuse alcohol (Hutchison, 2003; Kantor & Straus, 1989).

These findings underscore the importance of individual assessment rather than blanket assumptions about survivors' mental health or substance use.

Practice Gaps

When working with practitioners, I often ask: "Who in your community is assessing and documenting survivors' parenting strengths, including their protective behaviors and acts of resistance?" This question is crucial because many of our systems are not designed to directly seek out this information.

Advocates report that they typically focus on safety planning, identifying family needs, and advocating for those needs. Mental health professionals, on the other hand, often adopt a deficit-focused approach, identifying pathologies like anxiety that may arise from abuse and developing treatment plans for these issues. Furthermore, adult mental health professionals may be reluctant to comment on parenting capacity, viewing it as outside their scope of practice.

The implications are significant: two potentially valuable sources of information about survivors' parenting strengths may not be automatically providing survivors with the evidence they need to strengthen their cases in family court or child protection matters. This evidence gap underscores the need for lawyers representing survivors to be more proactive in pursuing and documenting evidence of their clients' parenting strengths.

Legal Implications

Understanding these strengths is crucial for effective legal representation:

- Be direct in your requests of domestic violence advocates and mental health professionals: ask them specifically about their assessment of a survivors’ protective capacities and parenting strengths.

-Be strength focused in your conversations with your client: Consider the survivor the best expert on her own parenting. The questions you ask can unlock critical information about how she parented in the context of the abuse. 

- Consider the full picture: Advocate for comprehensive evaluations that consider the totality of the survivor's parenting, not just isolated incidents or circumstances.

-Challenge biases: Be prepared to challenge any automatic assumptions about a survivor's parenting capabilities.

- Highlight protective efforts: Document and present evidence of the client's specific actions to protect and support their children.

- Emphasize resilience: Frame the survivor's experiences in terms of the strengths and coping skills they've developed.

- Address mental health and substance use accurately: Be prepared to counter generalizations about survivors' mental health or substance use with research.

Conclusion

As legal professionals, you have a unique opportunity to shift the narrative around survivor parents in family court. By recognizing and highlighting the often extraordinary strengths these individuals bring to parenting, we can work towards more just and equitable outcomes that truly serve the best interests of children and families affected by domestic violence.

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Sources:

- Tailor, K., Stewart-Tufescu, A., & Piotrowski, C. (2015). Children exposed to intimate partner violence: Influences of parenting, family distress, and siblings. Journal of Family Psychology, 29(1), 29.

- Sullivan, C. M., Nguyen, H., Allen, N., Bybee, D., & Juras, J. (2001). Beyond Searching for Deficits: Evidence that Physically and Emotionally Abused Women Are Nurturing Parents. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 2(1), 51-71.

- Casanueva, C., Martin, S. L., Runyan, D. K., Barth, R. P., & Bradley, R. H. (2008). Quality of Maternal Parenting among Intimate-Partner Violence Victims Involved with the Child Welfare System. Journal of Family Violence, 23(6), 413-427.

- Buchanan, F., Wendt, S., & Moulding, N. (2015). Growing up in domestic violence: What does maternal protectiveness mean? Qualitative Social Work, 14(3), 399-415.

- Haight, W. L., Shim, W. S., Linn, L. M., & Swinford, L. (2007). Mothers' strategies for protecting children from batterers: The perspectives of battered women involved in child protective services. Child Welfare, 86(4), 41.

- Lapierre, S. (2010). More Responsibilities, Less Control: Understanding the Challenges and Difficulties Involved in Mothering in the Context of Domestic Violence. British Journal of Social Work, 40(5), 1434-1451.

- Gilroy, H., Symes, L., & McFarlane, J. (2015). Economic solvency in the context of violence against women: a concept analysis. Health & Social Care in the Community, 23(2), 97-106.

- Carlson, B. E., McNutt, L.-A., Choi, D. Y., & Rose, I. M. (2002). Intimate Partner Abuse and Mental Health: The Role of Social Support and Other Protective Factors. Violence Against Women, 8(6), 720-745.

- Hutchison, I. W. (2003). Substance Use and Abused Women's Utilization of the Police. Journal of Family Violence, 18(2), 93-106.

- Kantor, G. K., & Straus, M. A. (1989). Substance Abuse as a Precipitant of Wife Abuse Victimizations. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 15(2), 173-189.