Introduction
The population of Michigan is approximately 9,295,000. Over one-fourth of
its residents are 17 years old or younger. Seventeen percent are African
Americans, and 4 percent are American Indians, Asians, and Hispanics.
The state of Michigan is undergoing extensive reforms aimed at providing
better services to children and families. These reforms cut across all human
service agencies (public health, mental health, community services, and social
services) and focus on the need for public and private agencies to work
collaboratively to serve children and their families. State agency directors
meet on a regular basis to discuss common issues.
In 1992, the governor of Michigan introduced 21 initiatives designed to
support families and children in need. One new initiative reorganizes the way
families interact with the public assistance system. Families will be assigned
to a single case worker for all their needs--cash assistance, jobs, and family
support rather than a different staff person for each. These workers will have
a limited caseload of 65 families each and will make more home visits than in
the past. The child welfare staff are quick to point out the close connection
between child welfare and cash assistance programs. Wayne County (Detroit)
estimates that 60 percent of its child welfare cases receive some form of cash
assistance.
One of the initiatives directly related to child welfare, Strong
Families/Safe Children, provides resources to establish community coordinating
councils that provide enhanced services to families and children. Funds
distributed through the councils are to be spent primarily on prevention
efforts--prenatal care, delinquency prevention, immunizations, and child abuse
and neglect prevention. The councils are expected to include law enforcement,
mental health, social services, and domestic violence shelter representatives in
addition to consumers of services and other community members. This initiative
is being phased in gradually. Twenty-eight counties received funding in 1994,
followed by 16 additional counties the following year. By October 1996, all 83
counties were expected to have received planning and implementation funds.
Brief Overview of Child Welfare Services
As part of the system reform, the Department of Social Services recently
changed its name to the Family Independence Agency (FIA) in an effort to present
a clearer statement of the agency's primary goal. This agency houses cash
assistance programs such as food stamps, AFDC, Michigan's job assistance program
(MOST), as well as child and adult welfare programs. The Bureau of Family and
Children's Services within FIA oversees the Domestic Violence Prevention and
Treatment Board, the Office of Native American Affairs, Adult Protective
Services, and the Office of Children's Services, which includes Children's
Protective Services, Children's Prevention Services, Foster Care Supervision,
Juvenile Justice, and Family Preservation.
Children's Protective Services (CPS) is one of the largest divisions within
FIA. CPS staff are responsible for screening referrals, opening cases for field
investigation, and substantiating allegations of child abuse and neglect. In
addition, they make referrals to prevention services and family preservation as
well as other available appropriate services. Statewide, over 500 CPS workers
received an estimated 124,000 child abuse or neglect complaints in 1995,
conducted full field investigations on approximately 58,000 (or 47 percent) of
these complaints, and substantiated child abuse claims in approximately 12,700
cases (10 percent of the complaints). Petitions for the removal of the
child(ren) from the home were submitted to the juvenile court for about 8,000
cases in 1995.
CPS workers use a structured decision-making tool to assess risk to the
child and to make referrals for services or petition for removal of the child
from the home. The risk assessment tool includes eleven risk factors, one of
which is domestic violence. There are four categories of risk: severe, high,
moderate, and low. CPS workers are required to open substantiated cases with a
severe or high rating, and may open substantiated cases rated as moderate or
low, or refer these to other available services. The majority of CPS cases are
referred to Children's Prevention Services.
Children's Prevention Services (PVS) provides in-home services on a
voluntary basis. Approximately 70 percent of the PVS referrals are made by CPS
(from both substantiated and unsubstantiated cases of child abuse and neglect).
The remainder of cases are referred by the community, including the police.
The Foster Care Unit manages cases once a child is removed from his/her home and is made a ward of the probate court.(2)
Foster Care manages the placement of children, reporting back to the
probate court about four times a year.
Families First provides intensive in-home intervention services as an
alternative to removing a child from the home unnecessarily, or when reuniting a
foster child with his/her family. Michigan's Families First program, which
began in June 1988 and was available statewide (and through the Native American
Intertribal Council as of December 1992) is the largest network of intensive
family preservation programs in the country.(3)
Funding for the Families First program has grown from $5 million in 1988 to
$21 million in 1996, of which $19 million pays for direct family services.(4) All Families First workers, supervisors, and
trainers are paid through contracts given to private child welfare agencies or
community mental health organizations. Families First is organized into teams
of four or five workers with one supervisor, who assumes at least one family
case per year. The state is divided into regions within which representatives
of FIA meet regularly with Families First specialists. The state also has eight
trainers who work with specific specialists and their regions to provide
one-on-one consultations, technical assistance, and training for Families First
staff.
CPS workers can refer families to Families First if at least one child is at
imminent risk of removal or is about to return home. Approximately 40 percent
of substantiated abuse and neglect cases are referred for Families First
services. Some families may receive services more than once. Statewide, a
second Families First intervention occurs in about 7 percent of all cases.
The program is designed to deal with families in crisis. Families First
counselors work with only two families at a time for a four to six week period,
and a home visit occurs within 24 hours of referral. Most interventions last
about five weeks. Workers provide a minimum of eight to ten hours of direct
face-to-face services in the home each week and are on-call 24 hours a day,
seven days a week. Services comprise a mixture of counseling and help with
practical problems in order to reduce the risk to children and help families
deal with stress contributing to abuse or neglect. Families First is a
voluntary program and families may request services to end at any point. The
program philosophy, based on the underlying premise of keeping children safe,
focuses on family empowerment and building on family strengths. Staff work with
families to choose which areas they themselves want to improve and to take the
steps necessary to achieve identified goals.
It is important to note that CPS maintains an open case on each family
referred to Families First. As the intervention nears conclusion, the Families
First worker meets with the CPS worker and often with the family itself to
determine next steps. Together a determination about any additional services is
made. Families First workers visit families three, six, and twelve months after
the completion of their services to determine whether the children have remained
in the home and to assess family progress. Clients are asked to describe how
they are doing in relation to the goals that were developed during the
intervention.
Child Welfare Agency Approach to Domestic Violence
The linkage between child welfare and the domestic violence community began
in 1993 at the state level as a dialogue between Families First and the Domestic
Violence Prevention and Treatment Board (DVPTB). Established in 1978 within
FIA, the DVPTB is composed of individuals appointed by the Governor. The Board
currently includes a circuit court judge, a law professor, a practicing
attorney, a community activist, a prosecutor, and a sexual assault program
coordinator. The DVPTB is charged with statewide coordination of efforts to end
domestic violence. The Board also funds 45 domestic violence service providers
covering all 83 counties in the state. Prior to 1993, little to no interaction
occurred between the DVPTB board and CPS, even though the DVPTB board was housed
in the same building as Child Protection Services and staffed by FIA.
The impetus for this dialogue was an evaluation of the Families First
program which demonstrated that 37 percent of participating families identified
domestic violence as a problem. As workers began to provide more intensive
services in families' homes, they began to notice the presence of domestic
violence much more often. Given the level of violence in the home, Families
First counselors were concerned for their own safety as well as the need for
training on how to work with these families to ensure children's safety.
The DVPTB, in turn, was interested in working with Families First for a
number of reasons. The board was aware of the overlap between domestic violence
and child abuse and at the same time knew that only a small proportion of women
affected by domestic violence interact with the shelter system. Furthermore,
working with Families First allowed the DVPTB to collaborate with an agency
willing to learn about the problem of domestic violence and how to address it.
Finally, the two groups could build on important commonalities. Family
preservation and domestic violence programs share goals of empowering
violence-free families and providing interventions such as crisis counseling.
The two groups made a conscious decision, at least at the outset, to limit the
collaboration between domestic violence and child welfare to the Families First
program.
The FIA director and administrative staff have strongly supported the
effort. Collaboration has resulted in the development and delivery of a
training curriculum for all Families First workers and the establishment of a
demonstration project between Families First and domestic violence shelters in
five sites serving nine domestic violence programs (14 counties) across the
state. This demonstration delivers Families First services directly through
shelter referrals. In 1996, the program expanded to 6 new sites and 14 new
counties. In addition, efforts are underway to expand the collaboration to all
of CPS through training and policy development.
Training
Training has always been a primary focus for the domestic violence
community. Prior to 1993, the emphasis of the DVPTB was to work with the
criminal justice system by designing training for police, judges, and
prosecutors and by improving legislation to enable the criminal justice system
to respond to domestic violence. The DVPTB and the Michigan Law Enforcement
Officers Training Council expanded the training program for new police officers
in the state expanded from 4 to 14 hours (4 hours on domestic violence issues, 8
hours on law enforcement response, and 2 hours on the law).
After DVPTB's first in-service training seminar for Families First staff,
the two groups became convinced that a more intensive and comprehensive
curriculum was needed. Families First and the DVPTB became cosponsors (with
HomeBuilders) of a national domestic violence curriculum being developed for
family preservation workers by the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) in San
Francisco. The three-day curriculum that was developed in 1993 addresses how to
identify domestic violence, how to interview parents in homes where it exists,
how to interview the child, and behavior problems of children exposed to
domestic violence. It also addresses the development of safety plans for
children and battered women.
Training for the Families First workers on the first two days of the FVPF
curriculum began in spring 1995 and now occurs every two months. Supervisors
received training first. Training sessions targeted 20 to 40 line workers at a
time. The third day of the training was introduced as a separate component in
April 1996. This session addresses Michigan law (four hours) and batterer
issues (four hours). Currently, both new and existing Families First staff are
being trained gradually because of limited space. Eventually, the entire
training program will be institutionalized so that all new Families First
workers receive the training during their six month of employment.
While not all workers have been trained yet, several workers who had
received the training felt it was very helpful and provided them with many tools
to work with families. In at least one county, the one worker who received the
training directly from the state has helped train her fellow workers who have
not yet been able to attend. Training is conducted jointly by a Families First
staff person and domestic violence workers; state staff and Families First
counselors emphasized the importance of having both perspectives represented.
Experience of the statewide domestic violence coalition indicates that
similar training is needed for shelter workers. Although domestic violence
shelter staff have been invited to attend the Families First training, the
training is not geared toward their needs and they have not attended in large
numbers. The maximum number of shelter staff attending any one session has been
four. Understandably, feedback from these shelter workers has not been as
positive as that from Families First workers. The DVPTB is currently working on
providing training more specific to the needs of shelter workers.
At the request of the Children's Protective Services offices in the
southeast section of the state (Wayne, Macomb, Washington, Washtenaw, and
Oakland counties), CPS workers also received training. Currently, Michigan CPS,
Families First, and the DVPTB are working with FVPF to develop a curriculum
specifically geared toward CPS workers. This training was pilot tested in March
1996. State administrators plan to train CPS supervisors and key
decision-makers and then all current workers. Domestic violence people will be
cross-trained in CPS systems, laws, and policies. State administrators feel
strongly that all workers should have some level of competence in working with
domestic violence.
Families First/Domestic Violence Demonstration Project
The dialogue between Families First and the DVPTB also resulted in a unique
demonstration project through which designated Families First teams could
receive direct referrals from domestic violence service providers. The pilot
began in five sites: Ann Arbor (which also serves metropolitan Detroit), Battle
Creek, Traverse City, Grand Rapids, and Marquette (in the Upper Peninsula).
This report focuses primarily on the collaboration in Ann Arbor, Traverse City,
Grand Rapids, and Detroit.
Designated shelters can refer to Families First, families at risk of
homelessness and those living in abusive or neglectful environments that pose
potential danger to a child. However, abuse or neglect of children that meets
mandatory reporting laws must be referred to CPS. In families active to CPS or
foster care, a referral for Families First by the shelter can be made only in
consultation with (and with the approval of) the assigned CPS or foster care
worker. At that point, the referral can be made to the shelter's Families First
team or to a traditional Families First team.
Shelters in each of the five sites received funding to hire special Families
First staff to work with referred families. Nine shelters serving 14 counties
can refer to these Families First teams. How the shelters choose to implement
the program varies in each site. The chosen structure affects the level of
interaction between the shelter Families First workers and their counterparts in
the traditional Families First teams serving CPS. The autonomy of the domestic
violence shelters in setting up the program and hiring staff was critical to
obtaining their participation and support.
In Ann Arbor, the Domestic Violence Program houses an entire Families First
team (one supervisor and four workers) which takes referrals from the five
shelters in Washtenaw, Oakland, and Wayne Counties.(5)
The supervisor of the shelter team meets with the other Families First
supervisors in her cluster on a regular basis. However, her staff interact with
other Families First staff only during training.
In Grand Rapids, the shelter contracted with the existing Families First
team to provide one counselor to work out of the shelter operated by the YWCA.
This counselor still attends regularly scheduled meetings with other Families
First counselors in the county and, according to the Families First supervisor,
interaction occurs almost daily.
In Traverse City, the shelter also contracted with the existing Families
First team serving CPS and foster care workers in five area counties. This
Families First team provides the shelter with the services of one full-time
equivalent but rotates shelter referrals among the team members. The Families
First workers in Traverse City are not housed at the shelter, but visit the
referred family at their shelter or other residence. The shelter chose this
structure for reasons of quality, expediency, and cost-effectiveness. Since
July 1994, this site has served 20 families through the collaboration.
Most but not all families referred by the domestic violence programs reside
in the shelter at the time of referral. Few families are referred if the woman
has not made a decision to leave the batterer. Domestic violence programs
generally referred families needing more time and help than could be provided by
existing shelter counselors. These families typically had parenting and/or
child behavior problems.
Families First usually works with these families as they begin to think
about leaving the shelter--both to help them find housing and move into an
independent living environment. In Grand Rapids, the Families First worker
usually received a referral about halfway through the family's shelter stay.
All counselors reported that housing was one of the most serious issues facing
women in shelters and one that takes a great deal of time to resolve.
Families participating in the Families First/Domestic Violence Demonstration
Project differ from families referred to Families First through CPS. Due to
mandatory reporting requirements, direct shelter referrals involve only those
families at risk of homelessness or at risk of abuse or neglect (due to the
environment in which they live) but where the risk of removal is not imminent.
CPS-referred Families First cases, by contrast, generally involve families where
the child will otherwise be removed from the family. Shelter referrals tend to
involve women and children living in the shelter, whereas CPS referrals often
involve women and children who continue to live in a violent or potentially
violent home. Often, CPS referrals come in as abuse or neglect cases and it is
not until a Families First worker is working in the home that the domestic
violence is uncovered. In one community, where the same Families First workers
served families from both referral sources, the workers noted that cases
involving CPS-referred families were more serious and dangerous than those
involving shelter-referred families. Shelters in Detroit, by contrast, reported
serving families whose living situations were as chaotic and troubled as those
of families involved in CPS. One shelter that accepted clients with active
substance abuse problems also observed similarities between families involved in
CPS and other families.
Several Families First workers underscored the importance of training for
its teams receiving referrals from CPS, as opposed to its workers receiving
shelter referrals. Regardless of the referral source, however, CPS, Families
First, and domestic violence program staff all agreed on one point. The
intensive family preservation model is the most useful and least victimizing
means of working with women in (or recovering from) battering relationships
because of its focus on empowerment. An added strength is that Families First
is premised on voluntary participation.
Developing a Children's Protection Services Policy
Another aspect of the collaboration among Families First, CPS, and the DVPTB
is the development of a CPS policy to address the issue of domestic violence.
This policy is aimed at CPS line workers to provide more direction on how to
handle domestic violence cases. CPS staff stated that this was the first time
that CPS policy was being developed in conjunction with an outside group.(6) The involvement of others has slowed the
development somewhat, but all state-level participants responded that it has
been a positive experience. Not surprisingly, one of the most difficult issues
involved resolving differences in philosophies between the domestic violence and
child protection communities. Several staff noted the difficulty in addressing
issues such as holding the batterer accountable, not revictimizing the mother by
charging her with a failure to protect, and understanding that family
preservation means preserving safe and well-functioning families (not
necessarily with two parents). At the state level, the policy is currently
under discussion.
State-level staff on both the domestic violence and child welfare sides, are
reluctant to conclude that the existence of domestic violence within a family
points to child abuse. They have decided, at least tentatively, that not every
domestic violence incident presents a serious risk to children. Therefore, not
every domestic violence case requires CPS involvement. Instead, domestic
violence and child welfare staff prefer to look at each family's situation and
make a determination. Furthermore, substantiating emotional abuse is extremely
difficult. It is certainly important to identify domestic violence among
families in the existing caseload and to serve them safely and effectively.
However, one administrator stated that it would be a strategic error to expand
the caseload as an initial way of dealing with domestic violence; such expansion
would create an additional caseload for whom appropriate services are not
readily available.
The Families First/Domestic Violence Demonstration Project has been one way
of targeting resources at families more appropriately than merely expanding the
definition of child abuse. In general, state administrators in Michigan felt
strongly that changes in service delivery can be made most effectively through
changing policy and funding priorities at the agency level rather than through
legislative changes.
State staff also recognize that coming to terms with these issues at the
state level does not mean that this understanding has filtered down to line
workers. This was evident in interviews with line staff in several counties,
who continued to express a readiness to charge the nonabusing parent with a
failure to protect because that parent's primary duty was to protect the child.
Perspectives of Other Community Service Agencies and Organizations
At the state level, CPS, Families First, and their parent agency (FIA)
interact on a regular basis with other social service agencies to improve
services for Michigan's families and children, including those affected by
domestic violence. But the statewide response to domestic violence is primarily
coordinated through the DVPTB. The DVPTB is mandated to "coordinate and
monitor prevention and treatment services, develop standards for those services,
develop training for professionals, and advise the Legislature and Governor on
the problem of domestic violence and needs of victims." In recent years,
the legislature has been very active on the issue of domestic violence. In 1994
alone, 22 bills were passed and signed into law. These laws expanded coverage
of personal protection orders and the authority of police officers in making
warrantless arrests, provided for new crimes of simple and aggravated domestic
assault and enhanced penalties for subsequent violations, and mandated all
police agencies to develop, adopt, and implement written policies for officers
to follow when responding to domestic violence calls.
There is a great deal of variation at the community level in how these
collaborations affect actual practice and the extent to which the Families
First/Domestic Violence Demonstration Project carries over to CPS and other
community service agencies. The five sites that received pilot program funding
were chosen because of strong existing domestic violence programs and a
progressive community response to the issue. In several cases, the Families
First team also serves shelters in surrounding counties with much more varied
levels of community coordination. While some localities had a relatively long
history of communication between the domestic violence and child welfare
communities (pre-dating state-level discussions), in others areas the two
spheres remained relatively separate outside the limited confines of the
demonstration program.
Overall Community Response to Domestic Violence
Several counties have county-wide task forces to address domestic violence.
Grand Traverse County (Traverse City) and Kent County (Grand Rapids) have among
the oldest councils in the state, both established in the mid-1980s. Each
includes law enforcement representatives, judges, various social service
agencies including FIA, and citizens. Wayne County's council, established more
recently, spent the first several years developing a rapport among the various
participants, but since then has been quite active and productive. CPS is not
represented on the council, however.
Washtenaw County (Ann Arbor) does not have a formal task force or council.
However, the executive director of the domestic violence program reports that
conversations take place often between the domestic violence program staff and
certain law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges. The community itself
is also very supportive of the domestic violence program and recently voted to
tax itself (through increased property taxes) to help pay for a new shelter and
program building.
Domestic Violence Programs
The Families First/Domestic Violence Demonstration Project does not
necessarily require new levels of communication or coordination between the
domestic violence program and the local child protective services. Recall that,
for the most part, families being served by the shelter's Families First team
are not involved with CPS. In some communities, however, existing relationships
were quite strong and positive, and in others understanding on the part of the
shelter about CPS and Families First has certainly increased.
In Grand Rapids, a long-standing relationship existed between CPS and the
YWCA, which has operated a 26-bed shelter since 1977. The shelter handles 580
to 700 women and children per year. The YWCA also operates a constellation of
programs that interface with CPS beyond the shelter programs. These programs
include an assailant treatment program, established in 1978; a non-residential
program for battered women, providing services to approximately 200 women
annually; parenting classes; custody evaluations, primarily for divorce cases;
and training programs for Friends of the Court.
The YWCA also cosponsors with other community agencies, including the police
department and the prosecutor's office, an assessment center for children
suspected of being sexually abused. The center is seen as a neutral,
non-threatening environment that allows children to be interviewed on very
sensitive issues. People in the community described the center as a model of
collaboration that has helped to bridge the gap between CPS and domestic
violence advocates.
This range of programs helped create a strong link between the YWCA and CPS
long before the state-level collaboration and pilot program. Working directly
with the shelter was a natural progression for CPS in this community. In 1994,
the YWCA received a grant to develop and train CPS workers. The staff developed
a three-hour program but the training was not mandatory and was only offered for
a limited time. Furthermore, worker knowledge regarding resources available
through the YWCA and the rest of the community allows Families First and CPS
workers to make very specific counseling recommendations.
In other communities visited, the domestic violence programs were not run by
large social service agencies but as separate entities providing shelter and
related services to battered women and their children. These programs rarely
interact with CPS except when a family already active to CPS comes to the
shelter, or when a child is in imminent danger and reporting to CPS is required.
All the domestic violence programs encourage the woman to call CPS herself, but
do not hesitate to do so for her if she does not. In Ann Arbor, police contact
the Domestic Violence Project immediately following a domestic violence arrest.
An on-call team goes to the home of the survivor and offers information,
shelter, counseling, support, referrals, and legal information. One person
talks to the children. Advocates have been trained to ask questions regarding
the children. If any evidence of abuse or neglect exists, the mother or the
advocate contacts CPS.
Services to Children
Services to children affected by domestic violence are primarily provided
only to children living in shelters. However, in addition to their wide range
of services for shelter children (including a Head Start program), Ann Arbor's
Domestic Violence Project offers a 10 week counseling and educational group for
children ages 6 to 11 who are not in a shelter. Any child from a violent home
is eligible to attend. Children in families active to CPS would certainly be
eligible, but no formal relationship or outreach to CPS to refer families to the
program occurs. The Grand Rapids' YWCA is currently seeking funds to establish
a similar program for non-shelter children.
Batterer Intervention Services
All of the counties visited had at least one batterer intervention program
available to take referrals from CPS, Families First, and/or the courts. Some
of the domestic violence programs operated the program in their area, while
others referred to programs run by other social service providers. State-level
child welfare and domestic violence staff are concerned about the quality of
available batterer intervention programs and the lack of information regarding
the efficacy of different models. Several communities have developed or are
developing standards for these programs. Another widespread problem has to do
with ensuring that batterers actually attend counseling programs. A lack of
accountability was seen across programs and court systems. For example, when a
batterer is ordered to attend a treatment program as part of a sentence, there
is no routine feedback to probation or the courts on the successful completion
(or not) of the program. Failure to attend intervention programs is not
generally considered a violation of probation.
In Families First cases where the woman chooses to remain in the
relationship, it is often the Families First counselor who may need to begin the
process of working with the perpetrator. The Families First training includes a
three-hour session on batterers. One worker felt that the curriculum provided
enough information for her to feel comfortable dealing with the batterer. The
curriculum is not intended to teach workers how to treat batterers themselves,
but to help workers understand the importance of appropriate treatment and where
it can be found within the community in order to make referrals.
Law Enforcement
Most initial statewide or county-level efforts to address domestic violence
targeted law enforcement--both through training and legislative changes. All
new police recruits now receive 14 hours of domestic violence training. In
Traverse City, all veteran police officers in the city police and sheriff's
departments have also been trained with this curriculum. In Ann Arbor, an
eight-hour in-service was offered to interested officers who assumed their posts
before implementation of the new training.
The DVPTB has been very active in working to revise Michigan's laws on
restraining orders. Personal protection orders (PPOs) are obtained from the
circuit court in the county where the victim resides. These orders can be
obtained without hiring counsel, are immediately entered into the Law
Enforcement Information Network (LEIN), and are enforceable throughout the
state. PPOs are an important mechanism for the management of child protection
cases in domestic violence homes, because a PPO can remove the batterer from the
home without the intervention of the juvenile court. In many communities the
enforcement of PPOs has been strong, while in others the prosecution of
violations has been more erratic.
In some counties, CPS workers have direct access to the LEIN system. This
network contains all Michigan convictions, arrests, PPOs, and protective bond
conditions. Wayne County's CPS agency has one LEIN terminal to service its four
offices. Only two employees have access to the computer and that access is
limited to information on convictions. Access was granted in the mid-1980s and
has not expanded with the level of information on LEIN. While CPS workers can
obtain some arrest and PPO histories secondhand through working relationships
with various police agencies, administrators are in the process of expanding the
legitimate access to LEIN as well. In other counties, all access to LEIN must
be obtained through written, verbal, or in-person requests to the local police
or sheriff's departments. In some places, workers must wait 24 hours for the
background information.
In at least one community, Families First and CPS workers use law
enforcement officers to help address the issue of domestic violence in their
families. In Traverse City, all serious child abuse investigations are
conducted jointly by both the child abuse police detective and CPS. In families
where a woman remains in a violent relationship, CPS or Families First staff
visit the family with a police officer to explain to the perpetrator the legal
consequences of his criminal actions other than the removal of the child(ren).
Traverse City also has community police officers working out of eight elementary
schools in the city. Information flows freely among CPS, child abuse police
officers, patrol officers responding to domestic violence calls, community
police officers, and the schools to determine whether a child is living in a
violent home and how that environment may be impacting the child.
Judicial System
The court system in Michigan comprises the circuit court, which handles
felony cases, child custody, PPOs, and divorce cases; the district court, which
handles misdemeanors and preliminary hearings for felony cases; and the probate
court, which handles child abuse, neglect, and juvenile delinquency cases. In
Detroit a recorder's court handles the felony trials for crimes committed in the
city of Detroit.
Conflicts frequently occur among the visitation orders, personal protection
orders, and custody orders issued by these courts. Parental visitation rights
are granted based on the best interest of the child, and domestic violence is
one factor that can be considered in making the determination. Unfortunately,
families with multiple issues are often involved in several courts, and not all
of the relevant information may be presented to each judge. One judge cited a
serious physical abuse case affecting three children that involved four
different judges. There is no single resource for judges to refer to that
records orders from multiple courts, nor is there a formal mechanism for
reporting orders to other courts. As a result, inter-court communication varies
by county.
One of the factors facilitating communication appears to be the size of the
county, with smaller counties reporting greater communication. A probate court
judge in a small, urban county reported that judges routinely call one another
to determine if actions are being taken in one court that may affect decisions
in another. In other counties, however, conflicts regarding the hierarchy of
judges and their orders were reported.
Domestic violence is included in an annual training conference for judges
and court officers. Despite the mandatory status of this session, counties
report different attendance rates. A Wayne County judge was concerned with the
lack of information judges exhibited on domestic violence issues, while in Kent
County a probate judge stated that the judges in that county were well-informed
about the issue and routinely attended training sessions at both the state and
county levels.
Efforts are currently underway in Michigan to begin thinking about how to
restructure the court system to facilitate greater communication on cases
involving the same family. Legislation was recently introduced to implement a
unified family court system in the state, and pilot projects are currently being
developed. Interestingly, in Ann Arbor (a pilot site for a new family court
system), there was a great deal of disagreement over where within the court
system domestic violence cases should be prosecuted. The domestic violence
community felt strongly that the inclusion of domestic violence in the family
court would diminish its significance as a crime.
Prosecutor's Office
In Wayne County, the Prosecutor's Office has a dedicated unit that handles
both child abuse and neglect cases and domestic violence cases. Initially, six
prosecutors handled only child abuse cases. In 1994 (almost simultaneous with
the collaboration between Families First and the DVPTB), the unit added six more
attorneys to handle domestic violence cases. The combined focus of this unit
means that the attorneys frequently operate in all three court systems, which
heightens the chances of discovering conflicting court orders. Prosecutors
attempt to make sure that "no contact" orders are heard in the
juvenile court. Victim-witness staff do most of the tracking of orders for the
active cases in the office.
Substance Abuse Treatment
Alcoholism was identified by state administrators as the largest substance
abuse problem in the child welfare caseload. In partnership with four other
agencies, the Domestic Violence Project in Ann Arbor provides drug and alcohol
treatment for survivors who are addicted to alcohol or other drugs. Women with
substance abuse issues can move into the shelter, and information and
assessments are provided for all clients of the Domestic Violence Project/Safe
House. In addition, there is a general lack of batterers programs or substance
abuse programs that work on both issues.
Outcome and Evaluation Issues
Although an evaluation of the collaboration between Families First and the
DVPTB has not been conducted, discussions are underway. The exact design of the
evaluation has not been determined. Currently, a more extensive follow up has
been conducted for 25 Families First families who received services through the
collaboration. All of the families reported feeling safer as a result of these
services. Referrals to other community resources had been made. In one county,
all of the 20 families served by the collaboration have remained intact,
although it was not determined whether the women remained apart from their
former batterers.
The goal of the Families First/Domestic Violence Demonstration Project is to
empower women to make informed choices. An evaluation will need to translate
that goal into measurable outcomes or indicators. Possible measures that
Michigan is considering include an increase in the use of personal protection
orders, the existence of safety plans, the level of depression of the women,
whether social networks have increased, and whether women feel safer and feel
that they have more options. These measures help show whether a family is
better off, regardless of whether the woman chooses to remain with or return to
the batterer. For example, some women choose to return to their batterer
because it is the safest thing for them to do at the time. Effective
interventions will help obtain the best outcome for a particular family.
Michigan administrators would like to measure whether the collaboration has
enabled families to meet their particular goal, rather than measure how many
families have reached a specific outcome without taking into account whether
that outcome is appropriate for their situation.
Another interesting question for an evaluation would be whether Families
First and similar intensive family preservation models in other states are a
more effective intervention for families affected by domestic violence than
traditional child welfare services. The same question exists for the
effectiveness of family preservation for all risk factors. But once training on
domestic violence has been fully implemented, it may be that intensive in-home
work is more or less effective in addressing the issue of domestic violence than
other issues.
Conclusions
Michigan's efforts to address the overlap between domestic violence and
child abuse began at the state level with strong support from top
administrators. Explicit decisions were made to focus on the state's intensive
family preservation model. Families First provided an ideal starting point to
address domestic violence for several reasons. Families First counselors
working intensively in the homes of their clients uncovered domestic violence in
many families and recognized that without proper tools and knowledge they were
placing themselves and the children they were meant to protect in greater
danger. The domestic violence community was also more philosophically
comfortable working with the child welfare system through the empowerment-based
model of family preservation.
Administrators have taken the task of training very seriously. With the
help of the Family Violence Prevention Fund they have developed an extensive
curriculum for family preservation workers. Those workers who have received
training report very favorably on its usefulness in the field. For family
preservation workers spending 10 to 20 hours a week in a family's home, training
in domestic violence is critical both for safety reasons and to be able to work
effectively with the family on all of its protective issues.
The Families First model appears ideally suited to working with women and
their children who are in or recovering from an abusive relationship. The model
is voluntary, and even in CPS cases where the threat of a child's removal
hovers, Families First workers separate themselves from that threat. The model
focuses on strengths within the family and empowering the family to use those
strengths to change.
The Families First/Domestic Violence Demonstration Project expands the pool
of eligible families for this service to some who lie outside the child welfare
system. Michigan has chosen to serve these families through this mechanism
rather than by expanding the definition of child abuse in order to serve
children affected by domestic violence. These families are in need of services
and might otherwise end up in the system without any intervention. Other states
and communities are also beginning to grapple with the question of how to reach
these children before the violence escalates to the point of CPS involvement.
Some of these places are beginning to use threat of harm or emotional abuse
allegations to bring families into the child welfare system. Michigan's
Families First demonstration project is one alternative for other states to
consider as a means of reaching these families.
At the same time, the Families First collaboration has not fostered linkages
between domestic violence programs and CPS in local communities. Families First
counselors who work directly in the shelter do not tend to communicate regularly
with traditional Families First or CPS workers. In other communities, positive
and mutually beneficial relationships have developed between all Families First
staff and the shelter, but CPS remains uninvolved.
Michigan recognizes that efforts to link domestic violence and child abuse through Families First represent only a beginning. Efforts to develop a training curriculum and to implement policy changes for CPS workers are underway. The strength of commitment to the issue is strong at all levels of the Family Independence Agency. The state stresses the importance of institutionalizing training and developing a substantive curriculum so that all staff can acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to work effectively with families facing domestic violence.
Notes:
1. This site visit was conducted in April-May 1996. Frances Gragg of Westat is a co-author of this chapter.
2. The probate court is responsible for handling child abuse and neglect cases, as well as juvenile delinquency cases.
3. Families First is based on HomeBuilders, a model program of intensive family preservation services established in Tacoma, Washington in 1974.
4. The state funds over 50 percent of the Families First program.
5. The two Detroit shelters now refer families to a Families First program located in Detroit because of the expansion in 1996.
6. Although the DVPTB lies within the same agency (FIA) as CPS and Families First, many of its members are not state employees and bring to the table a variety of perspectives.