Attrition Study for Battered Women

A recent JBFCS survey found that almost 25 percent of the cases handled by the agency involve hidden domestic violence. To respond to this client population the Center for the Prevention of Family Violence was begun in eight clinics in Brooklyn and Staten Island. Designated staff were intensively trained in specialized techniques for cases involving family violence. While it is recognized that women in crisis, like the suicidal client, cannot and should not wait for service, the program as it is currently structured does not lend itself to immediate intervention, without which battered women drop out.

To help sustain battered women waiting for agency service, a research and demonstration project was approved and funded for one year by the Center for the Study of Social Work Practice. The goal is to determine whether establishing ongoing, daily telephone contact during the period a battered woman remains on the waiting list will decrease attrition prior to the initiation of on-going service. Dr. Janet A. Geller, family violence consultant to JBFCS, is the project director. The project, which will use a sample of 100 women, is targeted to begin in the Fall of 1990.