Informal Help-Seeking in Moments of Acute Danger: Intimate Partner Violence Survivors' Emergency Outreach Efforts and the Forces That Shape Them.

Heightened attention to police brutality has created momentum for alternative, community-based responses to violence, including that inflicted by an intimate partner. But to build effective alternatives, we must know what survivors already do in moments of acute danger when they do not call the police. This study sought to explore these moments from an ecological perspective.

Women's Formal Help-Seeking Before and After Their Abusive Partner Initiates Relationship Violence Treatment.

Intimate partner violence survivors ( = 122) reported on formal help-seeking before and after their male partners enrolled in a Relationship Violence Intervention Program (RVIP). At baseline, only 20% of survivors had ever received domestic abuse (DA) counseling. DA counseling was more common among survivors with more extensive partner abuse exposures, and for black women residing in suburban versus urban communities.

Reflecting and rejuvenating our work, together: One team's consideration of AJCP publications on gender-based violence.

Community psychology has long valued reflexive praxis as a critical part advancing our research and action. In this Virtual Special Issue (VSI), we, a group of community psychologists and gender-based violence (GBV) researchers at many different points in our careers, reflected on GBV publications that have appeared in AJCP. We examine the ways in which community psychology broadly and articles in AJCP more specifically have conceptualized GBV as a sociocultural issue, how GBV intersects with other oppressions and forms of violence, the tension when systems that aspire to support survivors are inequitable and focused on ameliorative change, and the importance of interventions being locally informed and locally driven.

"Isn't There Any Other Way than Calling the Cops?": How Differences in Initiation of Police Intervention Influence Survivor Safety.

As formal crisis responders, police are trained in de-escalation tactics that are expected to mitigate intimate partner violence and promote survivor safety. However, the alignment between expected and actual practice of police intervention varies, especially when the survivor does not initiate the call, police treat the survivor poorly, or provide an undesirable arrest outcome. At best, unsuccessful interventions do not change survivors' risk level, and at worse, elevate their risk of experiencing harm.

Identifying and Responding to the Complex Needs of Domestic Violence Housing Practitioners at the Onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The social, financial, and emotional repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic has left many organizations that support survivors of intimate partner violence questioning how to maintain core services while addressing compounding individual, organizational, and public health issues. Stay-at-home orders and other COVID-19 mitigation strategies have resulted in reduced shelter availability and increased intimate partner violence rates. Coupled with the economic impact of the pandemic, these factors have threatened financial and housing stability.

Ambivalent White Racial Consciousness: Examining Intersectional Reflection and Complexity in Practitioner Graduate Training.

Ambivalent white racial consciousness describes a push towards awareness about racial privilege and a simultaneous pull back from this knowledge into a more comfortable stance of denial. Twenty-nine White community members and undergraduate students participated in focus group discussions on race. Results indicated that participants expressed ambivalent racial consciousness when they talked about: what it means to be White, their non-racial identities, oppression, attributions for racial inequality, and interracial interactions.

Negotiating Participatory Research Processes With Domestic Violence Program Staff to Obtain Ecologically Valid Data.

The choice of research design affects not only internal and external validity but ecological validity as well. Ecological validity refers to the extent to which data are based in and relevant to real-world settings. One way for researchers to maximize the likelihood of achieving ecological validity is to design studies with community partners that use participatory approaches.

Multilevel Risk and Protective Factors for Intimate Partner Violence Among African, Asian, and Latina Immigrant and Refugee Women: Perceptions of Effective Safety Planning Interventions.

Immigrant and refugee women are at high risk for intimate partner violence (IPV) and intimate partner homicide (IPH). Given the growing number of immigrants and refugees in the US and the concerns about IPV and IPH among immigrant and refugee groups, this paper aims to identify survivors and practitioners' perceptions of a) common and culturally specific risk and protective factors for IPV and IPH for immigrant and refugee women and b) areas of safety planning interventions for survivors who are at risk for severe or lethal violence by an intimate partner. Qualitative data for this multi-site study were collected from women and practitioners residing in seven geographically diverse US locations.

The influence of low-barrier and voluntary service policies on survivor empowerment in a domestic violence housing organization.

The purpose of community-based domestic violence crisis housing programs (e.g., shelters) is to provide a safe setting that promotes empowerment for survivors of intimate partner violence.

Understanding How Domestic Violence Shelter Rules May Influence Survivor Empowerment.

Domestic violence shelters have historically gone beyond providing emergency residential space for survivors by assisting in obtaining future housing, employment, health care, child care, or legal services. Domestic violence shelters are expected to operate within an empowerment philosophy, with an understanding that survivors are self-determining, can identify their needs, and know what it takes to meet those needs. Recent research has indicated that, as many shelters have become more rigid in creating rules that survivors must follow to access and retain free temporary housing, the result has been survivors' feelings of disempowerment, the complete opposite of what was originally intended.

Star power: an experiential learning exercise to foster ecological perspectives on power, privilege, and oppression.

The purpose of this article is to describe the utility of Star Power as an experiential learning exercise applied in a community psychology undergraduate course. This exercise simulates systems of power, privilege, and oppression while fostering an ecological perspective that raises students' awareness and knowledge about power differentials within society. The simulation of trading and lawmaking works best with 18 to 35 students and takes approximately 80 minutes to conduct.