Research Spotlight: Ruth E. Fleury-Steiner

Though the immediate disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic have passed, the six-year anniversary of the event’s onset allows medical professionals, community support organizations and researchers to analyze the pandemic’s challenges and better prepare for the future. University of Delaware Associate Professor Ruth E. Fleury-Steiner has taken up this charge in the area of gender-based violence and offers several recommendations based on new research.

“Effective domestic violence advocacy connects victims to services in communities. Unfortunately, disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic are linked to both higher rates of domestic violence and to service disruptions,” said Fleury-Steiner, who studies the interactions between individuals who have experienced gender-based violence and service systems in the College of Education and Human Development’s (CEHD) Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. “So we need to better understand how community services can be resilient in the face of disaster to better support victims.”

In a new study funded by the National Science Foundation, Fleury-Steiner and her UD co-authors Lauren C. Camphausen, Zakariah Robinson, Sarah A. Wells, Susan L. Miller and  Jennifer A. Horney in the Colleges of Health Sciences and Arts and Sciences assess the challenges of the coordinated community response (CCR) systems serving victims of domestic violence in 25 U.S. states and territories during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through interviews with domestic violence coalition leaders, they find that the pandemic uniquely disrupted the infrastructure for service coordination, the continuity of law enforcement and legal systems, the maintenance of evidence-based practices and more.

A closer look at response systems

While domestic violence cases often increase during disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic created a unique set of circumstances that contributed to the rise of such cases.

“Abusive partners often isolate their victims, cutting them off from friends and family. COVID-19 magnified that isolation,” Fleury-Steiner said. “Abusive partners played on victims’ legitimate fears of the virus, by further restricting where victims could go or who they could contact. Reaching out for help was even harder for victims when they could not go out even long enough to make a phone call.”

During this time, CCRs—a whole-system response for victims of domestic violence that depends on partnerships between human and social services agencies, law enforcement, criminal justice and health and mental health systems—had to adapt their services in a new environment.

For example, many agencies lost access to schools, workplaces and other spaces where they often supported victims and their children. Domestic violence agencies quickly and creatively shifted their services to hotels and motels, but coordination of services remained challenging.

“Case management was a lot harder when you have got people spread out through a hotel versus in a congregate living space where you’ve got staff onsite, where you can interact with people,” said one coalition leader in the study.

As the UD study shows, even law enforcement and legal systems broke down at times. Participants in the study reported that, early in the pandemic, police officers sometimes seemed hesitant to visit homes for 911 calls. And, while the number of domestic violence reports increased during the pandemic’s first few months, the number of arrests did not.

The study also illustrates the widespread challenges of transitioning to virtual services. Prior to March 2020, only 10% of domestic violence service providers used videoconferencing. This rapid transition prevented some victims from accessing services and even affected providers’ delivery of evidence-based practices.

“During COVID-19, advocates had to shift on a dime to continue connecting victims to services virtually,” said Fleury-Steiner. “But this was happening while the services that victims needed, like legal support and childcare and financial resources, were also shutting down or struggling to continue operations. So advocates were doing extra work to even figure out what options victims had and how to access them.”

Recommendations and future planning

Given the findings of their study, Fleury-Steiner and her colleagues offer several recommendations for CCRs. An important one is engaging in disaster preparedness workshops that emphasize the ability of partners to operate in altered environments, as well as clear disaster-focused protocols among law enforcement and other agencies.

Fleury-Steiner also recommends federal investment in virtual services, as well as continued partnerships with researchers and practitioners to ensure that these services are evidence-based and meet the needs of the community.

“Systems must ensure that evidence-based best practices are adaptable to virtual environments so the services that keep victims safe can continue to be provided without isolating victims, compromising privacy or limiting access to safety planning, case management or counseling,” said Fleury-Steiner. “Other innovations like hotline chat functions and translation software could increase accessibility to many types of services and be beneficial to other groups during emergencies and disasters in the future. This also highlights the need for agencies to continue coordinating their work, even in disaster contexts.”

“The field of social work also experienced many of the challenges that this research describes and similarly shifted to virtual and telehealth services,” said Raphael Travis, CEHD professor and director of the master of social work program. “With the experience of the pandemic, lessons learned from extreme weather events and similar research in therapeutic interventions during these events, we’re also preparing our graduates to be responsive in providing services across many different environments, both in person and online.”

Support for community members

For members of the Delaware or UD community in need, help is available. The New Castle County Domestic Violence Hotline is 302-762-6110.

Victim Services through the Office of Student Advocacy and Support is also here to confidentially support UD students impacted by sexual violence, dating and domestic violence and/or stalking. UD students can also receive immediate, confidential support through the TimelyCare app.

This research complements the work of UD’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Gender Based Violence and Disaster Research Center, as well as CEHD faculty studying family policies and services.

Article by Jessica Henderson. Photos by Adobe Stock and Kathy F. Atkinson.