Coordinated Community Responses to Domestic Violence in Six Communities: Beyond the Justice System. Features of the Coordination

A great deal of coordination takes place in San Francisco through the work of the various committees. As previously noted, the community has a long tradition of collaboration and forming coordinating groups to address particular domestic violence issues. The Domestic Violence and Justice Committee is one example of a group formed to address a specific problem. In California, police officers can contact a judge 24 hours a day to issue an immediate emergency protection order (EPO) at the scene of a domestic violence incident. However, in 1993 only about 3 EPOs were issued each month. To increase the use of EPOs, the FUND, together with the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation (SNLAF), initiated the Domestic Violence and Justice Committee with representatives from law enforcement agencies, the courts and Consortium members. The committee worked with police and the Courts on this issue, and by 1996 the number of EPOs issued had risen to over 100 per month. The Committee has subsequently shifted its focus to address issues around California's new stalking law.

The Domestic Violence Consortium was created with a broader objective to coordinate services and avoid unnecessary duplication. The Consortium currently has 15 members that include the key providers of shelter, legal assistance, transitional housing and crisis and counseling services to battered women and men, and 2 associate members who work with batterers. The Consortium's membership criteria require that an agency be a nonprofit organization operating in San Francisco for at least two years, and that the agency, or at least part of the agency's programs, must have a primary focus on serving battered adults and their children. The agency also must support the missions and values of the Consortium and have a philosophy that approaches domestic violence as a societal problem rather than an individual problem. While these criteria include most agencies who provide services specifically for domestic violence, other community agencies, like community centers, who serve battered women and men but whose primary focus is not domestic violence are excluded by these criteria.

While the Consortium laid the foundation for its members to develop funding priorities for the city money and marriage license fees, the effects of this arrangement extend beyond these funding sources. In one instance, California recently appropriated state money for domestic violence, but specified that the funds must be used by shelters. Since the Consortium had already created a structure for member agencies to address funding issues, the shelters partnered with other Consortium agencies to give these agencies access to the funding as well. For example, one shelter subcontracted part of its state grant to a legal services agency to provide legal assistance to the shelter's clients.

The San Francisco community provides other examples of ways to share resources and consolidate services. At one time, all 3 shelters in the community operated separate 24 hour crisis hotlines. To minimize duplication of this service, the shelters contracted with another organization to operate a single hotline during the night and weekends with the shelters sharing the cost of this service. In another example, three legal services agencies established and co- manage the Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic to help battered women obtain restraining orders and other legal assistance.

Given the diversity of San Francisco's population, agencies have worked together to improve services for specific groups. Within the Asian community, over 40 different languages are spoken. The Asian Women's Shelter has a multi-lingual capability and acts as a resource for other community agencies. When a woman speaking an Asian language calls one of the city's domestic violence hotlines, the call is transferred to Asian Women's Shelter staff who determine the language being spoken and locate an interpreter to work with the woman.

A recent venture between the FUND and the Mission Police Station targets the Hispanic community, which often underreports domestic violence due to cultural factors and language barriers. The FUND's Community Access and Advocacy Unit is collocated with the Mission Police Station in a predominantly Hispanic community. The program's three bilingual Spanish- speaking staff review police reports on domestic violence incidents and follow-up with the victim to encourage her to come in for assistance. The program offers crisis intervention and counseling services to these women as well as to women who have not filed police reports but who come into the station seeking help.

In general, the domestic violence community and criminal justice agencies have developed cooperative working relationships and undertaken a number of collaborative efforts over the years. It is the FUND's philosophy to involve the targeted agency(ies), in addition to domestic violence advocates and agencies, in their institutional change efforts. As a result, law enforcement and domestic violence agencies have served together on a number of committees, including the Domestic Violence and Justice Committee and the Family Violence Council, and have jointly developed solutions to problems in the domestic violence response. The Courts are the weakest link in the criminal justice system's response to domestic violence in San Francisco, according to several respondents. To date, the Courts have played a lesser role in the coordinated response than the community's other criminal justice agencies.

There has been a considerable amount of education and training across the various agencies. For example, the FUND developed training programs and during the 1980s trained all members of the San Francisco Police Department in domestic violence. Police have also trained Consortium members and other community agencies on the role of the police in domestic violence. Today, the FUND chairs the Domestic Violence and Justice Committee which is training all of the command staff of the police department. Domestic violence training is a regular part of recruit and advanced officers' training programs.

The cooperative relationship between the domestic violence advocates and the criminal justice agencies may be due, in part, to the historical relationship between the Family Violence Prevention Fund and law enforcement agencies. In San Francisco, direct victim advocacy services were developed by an independent group from within, rather than outside of, the criminal justice system. In this respect, the advocacy model adopted by San Francisco differs from that used in many other communities. Although the Family Violence Project (the precursor to the FUND) was located within the DA's Office, steps were taken from the beginning to ensure that the program remained community-based and had some autonomy. For example, the Family Violence Project was funded as a separate line item in the District Attorney's budget and governed by policies defining its primary role as victim advocacy, rather than a part of the prosecution. In addition, the Family Violence Project was part of the FUND's broader work that maintained other staff and programs outside of the District Attorney's office.

Another important feature of this advocacy model is the Family Violence Project's ability to maintain the confidentiality of its clients. Information that the Family Violence Project staff obtain from victims remains confidential and is not shared with the prosecution or defense. Many people view this as a good policy because it allows victims to discuss issues freely with an advocate without fear that the information will be used in court. On the other hand, some people acknowledged that it takes time to build trust between advocates and prosecutors who may sometimes have conflicting goals. The Family Violence Project and the prosecutors in the domestic violence unit work closely, even though the advocates do not share confidential information about the cases with the prosecutors.

Recently, law enforcement agencies have become more specialized which has affected their response to domestic violence and their interactions with other agencies. The police department's domestic violence unit now investigates all domestic violence cases. The unit has 13 investigators and assigns priority to cases in which the perpetrator is on probation or parole for a prior domestic violence offense or has a substantial number of prior arrests for domestic violence.

Several people noted that in the past few years, the police response to domestic violence has improved in San Francisco, with officers being better trained and more sensitive to these cases. In addition, the special unit provides an easily-identified place within the Department for other agencies and the public to contact about domestic violence issues. The unit's commanding officer has set protocol that other agencies should contact her directly with questions or problems related to domestic violence. The biggest constraint for the unit has been limited resources, including office space and staff, rather than resistance from within the Department.

The joint effort of the FUND's advocacy program and the Mission police station provides an example of successful collaboration between service providers and police. Program staff of the Community Access and Advocacy Unit work quite closely with officers in the Mission police station. For example, when officers feel that a victim in a particular case needs assistance, they will often bring this to the attention of program staff. Program staff also provide feedback to officers informally through discussions about problems or issues with the way a particular case was handled by the police. As officers have seen how the program can make a difference in their work, they have grown to accept the program more. One person reported that the officers are proud of the program and brag to other Districts about it. The program has also enhanced the police relationship with the community by bringing people into the police station who have not previously had positive interactions with the police.

The specialized unit planned for the probation department will consist of six probation officers to handle all felony and misdemeanor domestic violence probation cases. Since the unit will not increase the level of supervision for domestic violence cases, no additional resources are required to form the unit. The unit aims to ensure consistency in the way the cases are handled, as the specialized staff become more familiar with the laws, resources and programs available for domestic violence.

The probation department is one of the few agencies to have contact with both the victim and the batterer, and thus the unit is in a unique position to assess the whole situation and work with both parties. Through its involvement with victims, the probation department sometimes makes referrals to domestic violence services like the Family Violence Project, legal services and shelters. The department also interacts frequently with batterer intervention programs. State law requires the department to certify batterer intervention programs, and in California, participation by offenders is mandated for 52 weeks. To be certified, a program submits an application to the department which then interviews and visits the program. The probation department also has ongoing communication with batterer intervention programs to monitor probationers' compliance. One person felt that the special unit will improve this communication as probation officers become more knowledgeable about the programs and program staff know who to contact about problems.

There are two batterer intervention providers in San Francisco, and both provide ongoing 52-week programs consisting of 2 hours per week, based on the curriculum from the Duluth model. Offenders pay for each session on a sliding fee scale, and these fees cover the entire budgets for both agencies. The programs strongly encourage clients to continue to attend weekly meetings after completing the program. As one provider said "when they go back to their community, they will only find reinforcement for their old behavior."

San Francisco's response to domestic violence has been strengthened by recent institutional changes within the health care community. For example, San Francisco General Hospital has developed and implemented changes in its policies for addressing domestic violence. As a pilot site for the FUND's health care project, a multidisciplinary team from the hospital received resource materials, technical assistance and training from the FUND. The team, which included administrators, doctors, nurses, social workers, and a local domestic violence advocate, used these as a basis to formulate a response policy for the hospital and to develop a packet of materials for staff to use in responding to domestic violence cases. The emergency room was the first hospital department to train staff and adopt the new protocol. All emergency room staff, including paramedics, nurses, doctors, social workers, interpreters, clerks and security officers, have been trained in the new procedures. Training and use of these protocol are beginning to occur in eight other hospital departments as well.

Public health clinics in San Francisco are also beginning to develop domestic violence policies using the FUND's materials as a starting point. However, there are several differences between the services provided by public health clinics and emergency rooms, which may influence the features of the public health clinic's protocol. While the emergency room usually sees only the victim of domestic violence, both battered women and their batterers may seek care from public health clinics. Also, the emergency room typically sees the victim only one-time and the victims usually have specific injuries caused by domestic violence. Public health clinics, on the other hand, provide primary care for a wider range of conditions related to abuse such as depression, abdominal pains, chronic headaches, or other stress-related disorders. Public health clinic staff must take these differences into account in developing their protocol. However, like San Francisco General Hospital, the public health clinics have assembled multidisciplinary teams to develop the protocol which will assign different responsibilities to various staff within the clinic.

The San Francisco Family Violence Council has developed county-recommended domestic violence protocol and training guidelines which have been endorsed by the major city leadership and health organizations. These protocol and guidelines will be distributed to all hospitals, clinics and physicians in the San Francisco community in October 1996.

Other community agencies interact to some extent with domestic violence service providers, although they historically have not been part of the established domestic violence network. For example, one shelter does outreach to churches, temples, English as a second language (ESL) programs, and health clinics to discuss domestic violence and the shelter's services, based on the assumption that face-to-face contact with these providers was important in building relationships. The shelter has also established an informal relationship with a transitional housing program in the community that used to deny services to non-English speaking people. The shelter advocated for its clients with this program and has had some success in overcoming this problem. Although interactions between domestic violence organizations and other community agencies have traditionally been somewhat limited, the Family Violence Council draws its membership from a broad base and may increase dialogue between these groups.

The community's response to domestic violence is affected by shortages of services in some areas, particularly transitional housing and mental health. There are two transitional housing programs for battered women and their children after they leave emergency shelter. However, these two programs, both of which are Consortium members, are insufficient to serve all women needing services. Many respondents felt that the severe shortage of transitional housing limits the options for battered women leaving emergency shelter.

It has recently become more difficult for battered women to obtain mental health services due to the shift to managed care for publicly-funded health services. Public mental health agencies can no longer accept clients who are referred directly by the shelter or who request services themselves. Instead, a "gatekeeper", who is usually an individual's primary care provider, must refer the person for mental health services. These providers often do not have extensive experience with domestic violence and may be reluctant to make referrals for mental health services presumably because they do not perceive the benefits of these services in domestic violence cases. In addition, there are often financial disincentives for primary care providers in managed care plans to refer to speciality care, which may further limit access for mental health services. The shelters have developed their own mental health service components and provide counseling services. However, women who need services beyond what the shelter can provide experience a long wait. Public mental health services remain part of the domestic violence network; one community mental health agency that runs a program specifically for victims of physical or sexual abuse is a member of the Consortium.

Recently, the FUND has shifted its focus to mobilizing community rather than institutional responses to domestic violence, as reflected by some of their current efforts. For example, one project is training ten monolingual Spanish-speaking women about domestic violence issues and the services available at the Mission Police Station. The goal of this project is to "get the word out" about these issues and services to the Hispanic community. The FUND has another project within the Filipino community which seeks to reframe cultural norms and develop culturally- appropriate messages that mobilize members of the Filipino community to take action against domestic violence.

The well-established and long-term relationships between the various agencies in the San Francisco community foster a great deal of informal coordination as well. Since many of the agency staff have served on committees together, they are comfortable raising issues informally.

A number of people reported that they typically rely on informal means to obtain services, or to identify and address problems. One person described the informal networking as "... so institutionalized that it just happens because people don't think to do things another way."