Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2023, Social Work

Domestic violence is a prevalent issue with extensive impacts. For some, abuse greatly threatens immediate safety and survivors are forced to flee their homes to seek refuge in domestic violence shelters. These shelters address immediate environmental, social, and emotional concerns, helping guide survivors through recovery. Like all people, survivors encompass a wide range of intersecting identities and backgrounds, inevitably making their recovery experience individualized. In particular, mother-survivors staying in domestic violence shelters face unique challenges as restrictions are placed on them which make parenting more difficult and in turn hinder parts of their recovery. Through qualitative interviews conducted with mother-survivors and staff members of domestic violence shelters, this study examines the unique challenges and strengths of mothers recovering from abuse in a domestic violence shelter. Findings reveal that the shelter supervision and discipline policies inhibit the recovery of mother-survivors. Despite these struggles with child-related policies, however, findings also show that motherhood is an important source of strength in recovery for survivors. Recommendations include promoting survivor-centered, trauma-informed care in shelters, being sympathetic and flexible when communicating and enforcing parenting policies, continuously building up a mother-survivor's self-image, and, if possible, expanding interventions and programming to address the specific needs of mother-survivors.

Committee: Rebekah Crawford (Advisor) Subjects: Social Work

PHD, Kent State University, 2013, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Sociology and Criminology

Abusive relationships often minimize and devalue women's identities on a regular basis, leaving them with a diminished self-concept. As a result, domestic violence shelters have been recognized as sites of identity repair and construction, as well as an emergency refuge for women and their children. However, shelters are microcosms of the larger society, and the inequality and bureaucracy that exist in society are often replicated in the shelter community. It is within these complex communities that shelter residents and staff construct and maintain their identities. My research takes a symbolic interactionist approach to explore identity building and maintenance within domestic violence shelters, and considers how the delicate balance between ideology and practice, in addition to inequalities that exist within the shelter environment, influence identity construction. More specifically, I consider (1) How do inequalities of sex and gender, sexuality, class, and race and ethnicity, affect identity formation? (2) How does the balance between feminist ideology and the structure of formal organizations affect identity formation? (3) How does identity construction take place within the shelter setting? Which identities are constructed, and why? How are the identities constructed by shelter staff different from those of the residents? and (4) How do women in shelters manage stigmatized identities? Using a grounded theory approach, my data was collected at a domestic violence shelter in Ohio, where I engaged in participant observation for a period of three and a half years and interviewed 31 residents and 15 staff members. I found that while domestic violence shelters are sites of identity repair, the presence of inequality and the difficult balance between feminist ideology and practice influenced identity construction not only for residents, but for staff members as well. However, the type of interactions that occurred largely influenced the identities that were constru (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Clare Stacey Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Kathryn Feltey Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Tiffany Taylor Ph.D. (Committee Member); Claire Drauker-Burke Ph.D. (Committee Member); John Updegraff Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology