The following resources and strategies address how to engage families who have experienced domestic violence, including case planning, family group conferencing, and team decision-making, including State and local examples.
Engaging Fathers
Futures Without Violence, Promising Futures (2016)
Explores ways to engage violent fathers and lists questions for domestic violence and child welfare professionals to ask themselves. The resource also includes strategies for working with these men.
Episode 16: Family Group Decision-Making: Implementing the Family Group Conference [Podcast]
Child Welfare Information Gateway (2017)
Offers a podcast on using Family Group Decision Making to engage families exploring a model developed by the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect.
Guide for Engaging and Supporting Parents Affected by Domestic Violence (PDF - 1,710 KB)
Blumenfeld (2016)
National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health
Presents guidelines for supporting parents affected by domestic violence and offers strategies for engagement with these parents and ways to enhance parenting. Suggestions on how to work with families experiencing domestic violence are also included.
How Can Domestic Violence Programs Partner With Home Visiting Programs to Better Support Survivors and Their Children?
Hood & Kelly (2019)
National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, VAWnet
Explores how domestic violence programs and home visiting services can work together as a way to reach and engage families involved with child welfare to try to prevent domestic violence and/or help survivors heal from trauma.
Opportunities for Progress: Better Serving Families With Domestic Violence Through the Family First Prevention Services Act (PDF - 3,369 KB)
Center for the Study of Social Policy (2019)
Explains the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, which created new opportunities for domestic violence and child welfare agencies to work together to serve and engage families. This paper outlines challenges to this partnership and highlights best practices for supporting children and families involved in child welfare and domestic violence services.
Promising Futures: Best Practices for Serving Children, Youth, and Parents Experiencing Domestic Violence
Futures Without Violence (2016)
Presents general information and statistics about the effects of domestic violence on children and families and outlines guidelines for enhancing our services for children and youth. The website offers tools to assist programs in revisiting their policies and practices to better support the mother-child relationship and interventions for children and youth. A section on parenting by violent men is also included.
Promising Practices and Model Programs: Trauma-Informed Approaches to Working With Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence and Other Trauma (PDF - 420 KB)
Phillips, Lyon, Fabri, & Warshaw (2015)
National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health
Presents results from interviews with leaders of domestic violence programs about trauma-informed practices used to engage survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Some examples of the trauma-informed approach include support groups, counseling services, emotional safety planning, creative arts therapy, and wellness programs.
SAFeR Worksheets
Battered Women’s Justice Project (2020)
Explains the SAFeR approach to decision making in intimate partner violence (IPV) related family law matters. It consists of four parts: (1) screening for IPV; (2) assessing the full nature and context of IPV; (3) focusing on the effects of IPV; and (4) responding to IPV in all recommendations, decisions, and interventions.
Supporting Children, Parents, and Caregivers Impacted by Domestic Violence
National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma and Mental Health (2019)
Provides information for domestic violence and child welfare professionals and others on how to engage children and families impacted by domestic violence. The website includes links to a 2014 webinar series on trauma-informed services for children and adult survivors of domestic violence and additional tip sheets and resources, including one for engaging teens and one for children and youth.
State and local examples
Domestic Violence in Child Welfare (PDF - 555 KB)
Virginia Department of Social Services (2015)
Presents Virginia's manual for dealing with cases of domestic violence within child welfare, which addresses family meetings on page 24 and discusses questions to ask during the meetings, how to act when perpetrators are present, safety during meetings, and more.
Domestic Violence Resource Guide (PDF - 1,567 KB)
Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (2018)
Offers a resource guide for child welfare professionals in Texas working on domestic violence cases and includes a section on engagement. The engagement section begins on page 3 and highlights engaging several populations, including children, adult survivors, and the person using violence.
Engaging Families Affected by Domestic Violence [Webinar]
The Family and Children's Resource Program (2019)
Presents a webinar from North Carolina on how child welfare professionals can identify and engage batterers and how to create effective family service agreements with families impacted by domestic violence.
Intimate Partner Violence Practice Guide (PDF - 674 KB)
Connecticut Department of Children and Families (2018)
Provides guidance for child welfare professionals in Connecticut working on domestic violence cases and includes a section on family engagement on page 22. The section describes family engagement as a family-centered, strengths-based approach to working with families and lists ways to partner with the nonoffending parent and keys to listening to children.