Professional Teamwork and Family Court Outcomes in Domestic Violence Court

Chelsey Wisehart, Brigid Moynihan Author

08/04/2020 Added

17 Plays

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Higher levels of teamwork among court professionals may show increased service participation among families. This is a virtual submission of the project in place of an in-person symposium presentation.

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[00:00:01.242]Professional Teamwork and Family Court
[00:00:03.722]Outcomes in Domestic Violence Court
[00:00:06.072]by Chelsey Wisehart and Brigid Moynihan
[00:00:08.522]Higher levels of teamwork among
[00:00:10.602]court professionals may show increased service
[00:00:13.402]participation among families.
[00:00:15.232]Witnessing domestic violence is a common traumatic
[00:00:18.322]experience for children in the U.S., and therapeutic
[00:00:21.282]juvenile domestic violence courts have set out to
[00:00:24.522]use an interdisciplinary approach to this issue
[00:00:28.132]incorporating both collaboration and rehabilitation.
[00:00:33.533]These courts attempt to keep families together to
[00:00:36.423]the extent that it is safe for them. This is based on
[00:00:39.353]research that shows maintaining the family, or
[00:00:42.153]reunifying them as soon as it is safe leads to better
[00:00:45.212]developmental outcomes for the children, as
[00:00:47.872]opposed to automatically removing the children
[00:00:50.742]from the home and keeping them removed.
[00:00:53.466]Research in the medical field has shown that
[00:00:56.076]collaboration and quality teamwork results in
[00:00:58.846]increased patient satisfaction, acceptance of
[00:01:01.516]treatment, and improved health outcomes.
[00:01:05.426]We are hoping to find that teamwork in the child
[00:01:08.236]welfare setting will have a similar effect resulting in
[00:01:11.177]increased participation in services by parents,
[00:01:14.897]faster case progression and closure,
[00:01:17.807]and increased likelihood of reunification.
[00:01:21.807]We used two sources of information for our
[00:01:24.377]analysis, the first being Case Files reviews
[00:01:28.637]collected from the Lancaster county JUSTICE
[00:01:31.897]system. There were 68 cases analyzed total, 59%
[00:01:36.857]of which were on the Domestic Violence (DV)
[00:01:38.747]Track. Cases were content coded for parent
[00:01:42.627]participation in services as well as presence and
[00:01:45.307]date of important case milestones.
[00:01:49.307]The second source of information came from
[00:01:51.945]surveys completed by professionals involved in the
[00:01:54.905]DV court each month. There were 57 surveys total
[00:01:58.905]that were completed by 18 professionals, including
[00:02:02.145]16 attorneys and 2 caseworkers. On average each
[00:02:06.145]professional completed 3 surveys over the course
[00:02:09.105]of 9 months. The survey presented statements
[00:02:13.105]such as “the entire team was present at meetings”
[00:02:17.105]and asked participants to rate how frequently the
[00:02:22.177]statement was true in the last month. These
[00:02:25.727]responses were used to create mean presence
[00:02:28.447]and team function scores. We then matched the
[00:02:31.257]18 most recent surveys with the cases the
[00:02:33.717]professionals were assigned to and created a
[00:02:37.327]single mean teamwork score for all the
[00:02:40.517]professionals on each case.
[00:02:43.817]We found a trending positive relationship between
[00:02:47.137]mean teamwork for the case and parent
[00:02:49.557]participation in services. This is consistent with our
[00:02:52.547]research questions and with research in the
[00:02:55.177]medical setting. These findings contribute to
[00:02:58.449]evidence that teamwork among professionals may
[00:03:01.399]be connected to increased participation in the case
[00:03:04.429]by parents. However, we were not able to fully
[00:03:08.169]examine the effect of teamwork on case
[00:03:09.699]progression and rates of reunification due to the
[00:03:13.699]implementation of the therapeutic DV Track in
[00:03:17.699]Lancaster County being quite recent. Also, we did
[00:03:21.699]not find statistically significant evidence of the
[00:03:24.909]relationship between teamwork and participation in
[00:03:28.279]order to say that there is a relationship, but there
[00:03:32.279]is a promising trend that points to likely significant
[00:03:35.969]findings with a larger sample.
[00:03:37.879]One limitation of our study is the very recent
[00:03:41.879]introduction of the DV Track, meaning case
[00:03:44.529]progression and reunification is difficult to
[00:03:47.149]measure. Another is the imbalance of attorneys vs.
[00:03:50.139]case workers surveyed, and some reliance on self-
[00:03:53.069]report data. Our future directions include continued
[00:03:57.069]analysis of case progressions and reunification as
[00:04:01.069]the DV Track has been implemented for a longer
[00:04:03.979]period of time. Also, qualitative analysis of the
[00:04:08.295]parent’s opinions of the impact teamwork has on
[00:04:11.205]their case will provide further insight into
[00:04:13.725]the process and value of DV Court.
[00:04:17.725]We would just like to say thank you to the University
[00:04:21.725]of of Nebraska – Lincoln UCARE program,
[00:04:24.225]the Lancaster County Domestic Violence Juvenile
[00:04:27.075]Court Track for allowing this project, and to the
[00:04:29.855]team at the Nebraska Research Project for
[00:04:32.385]Vulnerable Young Children for all their support.
[00:04:35.485]Thank you Kelli Hauptman, Jamie Bahm, Sammi
[00:04:38.295]Burns, Cassie Roberts, and Maddie DeVeney.

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Professional Teamwork and Family Court Outcomes in Domestic Violence Court

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