Bulletin Index/

Redefining Policy Making

1. What’s Policy Got to Do with It?

2. Making Waves

3. The Power of Citizen Engagement to Influence Research and Policy

4. The Process is the Product: Redefining Policy Making

Taking Action to Influence Policy

5. The Mice That Roared: Using Feminist Principles in Research to Influence Policy

6. Promoting Women’s Health through Public Consultation

7. What Would 250 Women Say...

Policy for Rural Women

8. Policy from the Ground Up: Rural Services for Survivors of Women Abuse

9. Seeking a Seat at the Policy Table: Farm Women and the Impact of Program Cuts

Policy from the Ground Up: Rural Services for Survivors of Women Abuse

An abused woman living on a farm who has no vehicle to travel into the city and no money for gas or the bus doesn’t stand much of a chance of getting into town for a counselling appointment, or of getting into an overcrowded urban shelter. In Humboldt and the surrounding area where the research study, Domestic Violence and the Experiences of Rural Women in East Central Saskatchewan (2000), took place, the only staffed shelter is over 100 kilometers away, a Family Protection Worker comes only when reports are made and phone calls to the RCMP after office hours and on weekends are routed through Regina.

Until the study was done, Mental Health Services, the focus of services for survivors of woman abuse in the area, was using screening protocols to diagnose symptoms such as depression or anxiety, rather than investigating possible underlying causes of distress such as violence. The 19 rural women who participated in the study reported that they had remained with abusive men for years and that the decision to do so had been influenced by a lack of information about abuse and a lack of information about, and access to, adequate support services. These women had been subject to psychological and verbal abuse that ranged from name calling to death threats, and physical abuse from pushing to vicious beatings that resulted in hospitalization, yet the silence and lack of support around them contributed to their belief that the abuse was normal and their fault. Consequently, when they approached support services for help, they did not disclose abuse.

An important finding of the research study was that the detection of woman abuse was determined by chance, a lucky encounter with a worker who was informed and empathic about violence, rather than by service protocols that ensured effective screening and care. This and other service-related findings of the study have resulted in policy changes that have been swift and significant:

1. New service protocols have been instituted at Mental Health Services to consistently and directly screen for violence and to ensure prompt, priority care for victims of woman abuse.
   
   
2. Partners for Rural Family Support (PRFS), the antiviolence committee that spearheaded the study, has applied for funding for two new services, a Woman’s Advocate and a Rural Family Centre. A third service, a facilitator for a Children Who Witness Violence Support Group, will be supported by a donation.
   
   
3. The agencies and individuals that belong to PRFS, including women who have been abused, have become public educators on woman abuse in the region, making the issue more visible.
   
   
4. Greater collaboration between agencies in PRFS is being undertaken to facilitate earlier detection of violence.

New Service Protocols

Women in the study concurred that counseling was by far their most pressing need, yet confusion about the mandate of Mental Health Services (MHS) and long waits for appointments, in one case up to two months, were usual. Counselors at MHS, as well as police, clergy, doctors and social service workers often failed to recognize signs of abuse or ask women directly if they had experienced abuse. “We used to see women only through their symptoms,” Deborah Bryson Sarauer, a social worker at MHS and coinvestigator of the research study, says. “We taught women about coping with anxiety through breathing exercises, for example, and did not investigate possible causes.” Since the study, MHS considers the individual within the context of the family system and her whole situation. “We have a different worldview,” Bryson Sarauer says. “We are no longer the experts, the women are.” Even before the research was completed, MHS responded by instituting new service protocols:

1. Clients are asked about violence during intake calls, especially if they request couples therapy.
   
   
2. If abuse is revealed in couple counseling, therapy with the couple is terminated, the woman’s safety is discussed and the abuser is asked if he is willing to address his problem. (Referral to the Alternatives program in Saskatoon is the only resource for abusive men.)
   
   
3. Women who have survived violence do not have to wait for counseling appointments.
   
   
4. Workers now use an administrative criteria code to denote “survivor of domestic abuse” as the primary reason a client is seeking help, rather than a diagnostic code for mental illness from the DSM IV.
   
   
5. The staff team at MHS recognizes that woman abuse cases take more time. Support for counselors who work in this area is provided at staff meetings, and through clinical and administrative supervision.

New Services

A woman in the process of leaving an abusive relationship is under considerable stress. At the same time she must deal with new and complex information and unfamiliar legal and social services procedures. Study participants suggested that an advocate to help guide them through the process of leaving their partners would have been a great help. Partners for Rural Family Support has applied for a Women’s Advocate position for the region to help meet this need. A Rural Family Support Centre, where women and families could find information and have someone to talk to about abuse, parenting, health and other issues important to rural families was another idea arising from the study. PFRS has applied for funding to set up the two services but it’s not yet known if either proposal will be successful.

Most of the children of the women in the study had witnessed their mother’s abuse, and most had been verbally abused themselves. School age children had access to some counseling through school, but a significant service gap that women identified was programming for pre-school children. Mothers had difficulty finding information about abuse in parenting books to help them deal with the behavioural problems their children were exhibiting. Using a donation provided by a charity, Partners for Rural Family Support will be hiring facilitators to work with elementary and high school students who have witnessed abuse. To date, no funding has been found to help pre-school children.

Public Education

Dissemination of the research findings through the media has resulted in a significant increase in requests for public speaking about woman abuse. One survivor is currently writing an article for the local newspaper; the investigators and participants have made public presentations to the Saskatchewan Medical Association, the medical school at the University of Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Women’s Secretariat conference, Homecare Services, homecare nurses at a community college and the media. Local and national media have reported on the study, including the local newspaper, The Humboldt Journal, which reproduced all 13 recommendations of the study, and the national agricultural paper, The Western Producer, which ran an article entitled “Work continues after rural abuse study,” and focussed on the funding proposals for the Rural Family Centre and the Woman’s Advocate. The local Catholic Women’s League paper, The Prairie Messenger, published two articles on the study, one of which stressed the need for high school curriculum about family violence. Local and national CBC radio also picked up the story. “With all this attention focussed on woman abuse,” Bryson Sarauer says, “what is truly amazing is that not one person in the community has denied that a problem exists.”

A Model of Collaboration

Diane Martz, coinvestigator of the study, says that, “From the outset, we wanted the research to be action-oriented. I was searching for a model that would bring together any agency that might potentially interact with a survivor of woman abuse to develop protocols and take action together.” This model has manifested in Partners for Rural Family Support. Although PRFS existed before the research was done, it has become a vehicle for the intersectoral collaboration recommended by the study and has grown from a committee into a non-profit association, attracting more agencies and individuals. Now, 50% of its members are survivors of woman abuse. Collaboration within PRFS and between front-line agencies was facilitated by the research study, and by a provincial accreditation process that was taking place at the same time, providing opportunities for discussion about woman abuse and gaps in services. This increased collaboration may help make the early detection of violence more possible. Mental Health Services, for example, now works more closely with a dental health educator, checking evidence of abuse and neglect in children’s teeth. Presentations to a prenatal class about changes in the family, including the possibility of abuse when a baby enters the picture, consultation with home care services and a public health nurse all expand the scope for the prevention and detection of abuse. “In rural communities where services are so scarce,” Bryson Sarauer says, “it’s even more important for us to band together to make an impact.”

By putting into practice the hard-won knowledge of the study’s participants, and by building on the strengths of close-knit rural communities, Mental Health Services and Partners for Rural Family Support are creating policy from the ground up to more effectively detect, prevent and treat woman abuse. Yet the problem of providing a much higher level of support to rural survivors remains. Social services, health districts and legal aid services in east central Saskatchewan all have different boundary lines, requiring women to travel over an area of two to three hundred kilometres. “In a city, services are centralized,” Diane Martz points out. “And there are more agencies to refer survivors to, and more agencies to fill gaps or take overflow.” “Mental Health Services in Humboldt is a rural agency,”Bryson Sarauer adds, “which means that we have a very broad mandate but a small staff.” Martz and Bryson Sarauer agree that the strategies that have arisen from their research study are making a difference, but the rural problem of woman abuse will continue to require innovations in rural services as well as region-wide reform.

For a copy of the full report, visit the Provincial Association of Transition Houses, Saskatchewan at www.hotpeachpages.org/paths/rural or contact:
Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence
56 The Promenade, Winnipeg, Manitoba  Canada  R3B 3H9
Tel: (204) 982-6630  Fax: (204) 982-6637
Web Site: www.pwhce.ca  E-mail: pwhce@uwinnipeg.ca

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