Abstract
As anti-domestic violence and abuse (DV/A) practitioners and researchers living in the United States (Lisa), Australia (Patricia), and the United Kingdom (Kim), we were delighted to be invited to collaborate on guest co-editing the first Qualitative Social Work Special Issue on DV/A. As practitioner-researchers with diverse practice and research areas including understanding and addressing women’s use of force (Lisa), children’s participation in DV/A research (Patricia), and child protection-involved mothers (Kim), we were excited to bring our decades of collective knowledge to this endeavor in ways that, we hoped, would uplift the experiences of those who have endured intimate harm, the practitioners addressing the harm, and researchers engaging rigorous qualitative methods in the DV/A inquiry process. We were also keenly aware that our positionalities — white cisgender women — would shape this journey, along with our commitment to critical feminist social work theory that challenges power imbalances, while examining how power operates through an intersectional lens (Crenshaw, 1991; Goodkind et al., 2021). As Chandra Mohanty (1991) points out, “Feminist scholarly practices (whether reading, writing, critical, or textual) are inscribed in relations of power – relations which they counter, resist, or even perhaps implicitly support. There can, of course, be no apolitical scholarship” (p. 53). With this recognition we were intentional in how we defined DV/A, centered qualitative social work scholarship and social work practitioners, embarked upon this journey, and fashioned the final product.
Defining domestic violence and abuse
Domestic violence and abuse (DV/A) is a constellation of patterned behaviors, actions, and events that occur across time and space that may or may not include physical violence. It is deeply dependent upon relationship context and culture [see Collins' (2009) matrix of domination; Richie's (2012) violence matrix; and Yoshihama's (2005) web of intimate partner violence in the patriarchal clan system]. Coercive control (Stark, 2007) is the cornerstone of DV/A, with the coercively controlling person tailoring the abuse in ways meant to make the coercively controlled “feel crazy” (Sweet, 2019) in their personal life and across institutional contacts. An ongoing analysis of DV/A is integral to understanding intimate harm as it is ever-changing. Experiencing DV/A can gradually erode a person's autonomy and personal liberty and often leaves those causing harm with limited access to effective anti-DV/A interventions. Yes, this harm can be inflicted by anyone on to anyone, but it is women who are most likely to be abused or killed by the men they partner or live with (UNODC and UN Women, 2024). Furthermore, the intimate and institutional consequences of DV/A are more severe for women marginalized by diverse racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, and Indigenous identities; income inequality; pregnancy; class; age; immigration and documentation status; and those who violate society's expectations of “appropriate” womanhood (Richie, 1996). This Special Issue aims to acknowledge the barriers and responses to seeking and receiving DV/A support. It is also meant to draw attention to promising social work practices as well as qualitative research methods and outcomes that can both ameliorate the harm and facilitate liberation.
Centering qualitative social work scholarship and social work practitioners
As noted earlier, we recognize feminist social work scholarship as inherently political. Therefore, we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge the timing of this Special Issue that is being published amid authoritarianism’s global spread (see Lewis-Burke Assoc., 2025). Simultaneously, social work as a profession is under threat (see Shapiro, 2026). It is clear to us as anti-domestic violence social work practitioners and researchers that the actions of those in power around the world too often replicate the intimate harms highlighted throughout these pages. Therefore, it is our intention that this Special Issue be one more act of resistance in pursuit of liberation and shared power by bringing visibility to DV/A in ways that promote understanding, resilience, healing, and repair. This Special Issue is also a vivid reminder of the tenacity and dedication of the social work practitioners whose work directly and indirectly incorporates an understanding of DV/A and what is needed to address the harm and support those involved. Social workers courageously change lives every day in the most complex and difficult circumstances imaginable. We dedicate this Special Issue to them and those with whom they work.
The journey
As Special Issue guest co-editors, we embarked upon this journey in 2024 through regular conversations over Zoom. For Lisa and Kim, this often-meant late Monday evenings and for Patricia it meant very early Tuesday mornings. While navigating time-zones, practice and academic demands, and family needs, we embraced the process. In fact, our conversations and collaboration became a kind of respite from everything else going on in our lives. It was a welcome space of sharing and creative energy. Our first concrete task was to draft a call for papers (CfP) that integrated our broad anti-DV/A expertise and encouraged practitioners and scholars to submit contributions in April 2025 exploring experiences across the life course, innovations in healing and repair, and qualitative research methods. 2 We hoped the Special Issue CfP would inspire submissions from around the world that highlighted the extent of DV/A, innovative qualitative methods, and social work practices and research that encouraged healing and repair. We were inspired by the range of submissions that brought attention to a variety of practice and research approaches.
Every stage of this process has been a pleasure. As guest co-editors we are thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their time, insight, and guidance. We are grateful to Dr Lisa Morriss, QSW’s co-editor, whose brilliance and kindness radiated throughout this collaboration. She did the often-invisible work of communicating with authors and relaying that information to us, and vice versa. And our deep appreciation to Sam, QSW’s administrative genius who worked magic behind the scenes.
The final product
It is our honor to feature 15 articles and three New Voices pieces for this Special Issue. The authors engaged in a rigorous peer-review process, responding over multiple months to detailed anonymous reviewer feedback, guest co-editor suggestions, and support. We approached the final stage of this process, this Editorial, through co-editor-author collaboration. Each co-editor wrote a draft summary for 6 to 7 manuscripts. Dr Lisa Morriss then shared those summaries with the authors for their feedback. The authors responded by offering approval or edits. This approach uplifted author autonomy. We organized the articles into three broad areas: Domestic Violence and Abuse Harms Experienced, Barriers to Seeking and Receiving Support, and Assessment and Intervention Responses. Their summaries follow below. As you read these pages, we encourage you to consider how the work may translate to your community’s needs and research practices. We hope they will inspire continued innovation for practitioners and researchers as well as collaborations between the two.
In solidarity,
Lisa, Patricia and Kim
Domestic Violence and Abuse Harms Experienced
We begin this Special Issue with Shu Yang’s New Voices piece, Expanding the Spiderweb Metaphor: A Practice-Informed Reflection on Coercive Control. By doing so we are intentionally anchoring this Special Issue in the recognition that coercive control incorporates a constellation of tools used by abusive partners to strategically diminish survivors’ lives and undermine their autonomy. We view Yang’s Spiderweb metaphor as a powerful conceptual tool for social work practice and research. The metaphor incorporates and builds upon earlier tools (e.g., Pence, McDonnell and Paymar’s DAIP Power and Control Wheel) carefully detailing how an abusive partner uses often invisible coercively controlling tactics in ways that are ongoing, non-linear, cumulative, and structurally entrapping for the coercively controlled person. Drawing on Larance’s (2025) arrest web concept, the Spiderweb metaphor details multiple dimensions including web structure and stickiness, the coercively controlling person’s adaptive strategies, resistance and strand cutting processes, and the survivors’ gendered non-linear process of disentanglement and return. Yang’s web powerfully details how the coercively controlling person shifts and reconfigures their context-specific web in response to the coercively controlled person’s resistance. This tool can support practitioners and researchers across settings as they explain and explore how coercive tactics can be leveraged by one person to control another in ways that intentionally and strategically diminish the coercively controlled person’s sense of self, autonomy, and institutional options. The tool brings necessary attention to how family, friends, and legal systems actors may cause web “vibrations” that unintentionally alert the coercively controlling person to adjust their tactics. This unintentional collusion acts to further entangle the controlled person’s liberties.
Ami Goulden, Jullye Ponsoni, Victoria Lewis, Israt Jahan Lipa, and Stephanie Baird’s “I survived him. He did everything he could to destroy me” brings attention to gender-based violence experienced by women in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada who identified as having developmental and physical disabilities, neurodivergence, chronic illness, and mental health conditions. The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 12 women and 1 Two-Spirit person recruited from community-based organizations. Goulden et al. then analyzed the interview transcripts using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith et al., 1999). Their process aimed to center participants’ experiences while contributing a deeper understanding of the intersectional relationship between disability, gender, and violence. Among their findings was that abusive partners weaponized disability against the participants and the harm was reinforced through ableism, patriarchy, and institutional neglect. This work highlights how DV/A can silence disabled women, and the importance of social workers in counteracting that silence. The authors call on social work practitioners to expand services to account for the unique experiences of disabled women. This means understanding distinct forms of harm disabled women endure as well as the interlocking and overlapping intersections of ableism, patriarchy, and other forms of oppression.
In Yu-Ju Yen, Hsiu-Fen Lin, Shih-Ying Cheng, and Pei-Ling Wang’s “Aging and Intimate Partner Violence: A Qualitative Study of older Taiwanese women” the authors explore the DV/A survivorship experiences of Taiwanese women 65 and older. Using interpretive phenomenological analysis of 13 women’s in-depth interview transcripts, Yen and colleagues bring visibility to the women’s early adulthood DV/A experiences and the different types of DV/A they continued to encounter later in their lives. By using a lifespan approach, the authors bring attention to how the women’s abusive partners used transitional life events – such as retirement, illness, and children leaving home – to change how they coercively controlled the Taiwanese women. Integrating aspects of the Power and Control Wheel (Shepard and Pence, 1999), the patriarchal clan system web (Yoshihama, 2005), and coercive control (Stark, 2007), the authors created the Coercive Control of IPV Against Older Taiwanese Women Diagram, a tool that will advance social work practice and research addressing DV/A for work with diverse women over their life course. The authors’ life span view of Taiwanese women’s experiences brings necessary context to the devastation of DV/A as well as survivors’ strengths and resilience.
Barriers to Seeking and Receiving Support
In Roxanna Ast and Zan Haggerty’s “Unveiling support gaps and systemic barriers: A thematic network analysis of LGBTQ + survivors’ experiences with intimate partner violence”, the authors explore the lived experiences of 30 LGBTQ + survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) living in the United States. Using reflexive thematic analysis and network analysis, the authors bring much needed attention to the lived experiences of LGBTQ + people who have survived IPV. The authors identified a range of themes including lack of recognition and understanding of abuse, limited support networks, economic dependency, lack of media representation, and inaccessible crisis supports. This research addresses a gap in the literature by highlighting the complexities of IPV in LGBTQ + relationships, with survivors disclosing difficulties identifying forms of IPV in their relationships. Findings also reveal the gaps in service provision for LGBTQ + survivors and the need for broad systemic reform focused on prevention strategies, increasing access to comprehensive crisis services, and expanding support networks. Ast and Haggerty emphasize the need for training and education across service sectors that specifically highlights the lived experience of IPV in LGBTQ + relationships. Ast and Haggerty emphasize the need for training and education across service sectors that specifically highlights the lived experience of IPV in LGBTQ + relationships. In particular for LGBTQ + survivors of the global majority and those in rural or under-resourced areas.
“Barriers to Sexual and Reproductive Health Care for Women Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence” by Meredith Bagwell-Gray, Megan Drovetta and Areej Fatima, addresses a critical limitation by centring survivors’ accounts of how partner coercion, personal shame, resource scarcity, and systemic failures block access to essential sexual and reproductive health services. Drawing on two complementary studies: a qualitative descriptive study and a pilot group-based intervention. The authors used constructivist grounded coding across interviews and intervention discussions to identify four core themes: (1) partner control which limited survivors accessing services, (2) cognitive/affective barriers of shame and fear, (3) resource constraints including uninsured, transport, housing, and (4) health system/provider barriers which produce service gaps (Charmaz, 2006). Nonetheless, survivors continue to navigate these challenges to access services to meet their needs. The paper encourages trauma-informed, reproductive-justice framed practice, which includes screening for reproductive coercion, IPV specific training for providers, wraparound support, and advocating for policy that protects funding and access to insurance. It calls for strategies that reduce structural barriers and a focus on diverse survivor populations.
Rachel Garthe, Apoorva Nag, Chloé McMurray, Emily Strickland, and Samantha Dickens’ “Navigating the Complexities of Help-Seeking: Amplifying the Voices of Marginalized Survivors of Domestic Violence” details findings from the authors’ midwestern United States-based needs assessment. Forty-six diverse DV/A survivors participated in 13 focus groups exploring the participants’ experiences with intimate partner violence and how they sought help to address that harm. Through reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006; 2020) of focus group transcripts, the authors found high rates of DV/A prevalence. They also identified the survivors’ process of seeking and attaining help and the barriers they encountered. This work informs social work practitioners’ efforts to meet survivors’ needs by highlighting what the participants needed the most when they sought help to address DV/A. This work reminds readers that it is crucial for practitioners and researchers to center survivor voices when developing and tailoring DV/A services as well as the pivotal role advocates play in guiding the help-seeking process. Furthermore, survivor-informed systems-level coordination among services must be intentional and ongoing.
Vithya Murugan, Terri L. Weaver, and Michaela Jones’ “The Life Course of Domestic Violence Services: A Qualitative Analysis of the Incongruence of Contemporary Services for Meeting the Needs of Black Women Survivors” presents findings from their qualitative research with IPV service providers in a Midwestern U.S. city. 18 service providers participated in semi-structured interviews that explored the influence of macro-level factors on their work including, structural racism, the Black Lives Matter Movement, the Battered Women’s Movement, and Chronosystem-level factors (see Bronfenbrenner, 1994) on service availability, access and the cultural responsiveness of IPV services for Black women who have survived IPV. Using thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) the authors identify several themes that influence IPV service provision for Black women who have survived IPV. For example, racial stereotypes which minimize the lived experiences of Black women, the criminal legal system is the default service but is unsafe or difficult to access, oppressive traditional advocacy systems, and the burdens disproportionately carried by Black advocates. Murugan, Weaver and Jones suggest collaborative approaches to research, for IPV services to center the lived experiences of Black service providers who are simultaneously navigating their own oppression, and to support Black representation in program leadership positions.
In “Navigating Power Imbalances in Research with Children and Young People in Shelters for Domestic Violence”, Michèle Frenette and Simon Lapierre detail the methodological and theoretical decisions Michèle made in her doctoral research to intentionally reduce researcher-participant power inequities. Frenette’s ethnographic field work, including observations and participation in DV shelter activities, took place over a 6-month period across two shelters in Quebec, Canada and involved children and young people aged from infancy to 17 years. The authors powerfully draw on feminist care theory (Brannelly and Barnes, 2022) and principles of intervention in shelters (Côté, 2017), to highlight how play, adopting what Mandell (2003) refers to as a “least adult” posture, incorporating a child-centered approach, and supporting the children’s mothers were vital to gaining a deep understanding of children and young people’s DV shelter experiences. Frenette and Lapierre’s work provides critical insight into research decision-making, researcher strategies navigating power imbalances when researching children and young people living in a DV shelter, and considerations around centering the participants’ experiences. This work is a powerful reminder that by investing time in non-hierarchical relationship building through a feminist ethics of care, ethnographic researchers are uniquely positioned to deeply understand and bring attention to the experiences of the least powerful.
Kim Detjen’s New Voices article, “Hope for Change
Assessment and Intervention Responses
In “A Framework for Sexual and Reproductive Health Assessment in Intimate Partner Violence Agencies,” Jessica Grace and Nada Elias-Lambert address a critical gap in IPV service provision by highlighting the need for sexual and reproductive health screening and assessments’ inclusion in agencies supporting IPV survivors. Survivors may have been exposed to reproductive coercion so it is crucial that all services they may be in contact with offer holistic assessment and support. The authors used a constructivist grounded theory approach to explore perspectives on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) assessment within IPV settings and draw on focus groups and interviews with 17 survivors and 12 service providers in the southwestern United States. Through iterative coding and thematic analysis, three key themes emerged: (1) survivor outlook, (2) existing SRH practices, and (3) recommendations for assessment tools. The findings reveal a disconnect between survivors, who prefer providers to initiate SRH conversations, and providers, who often hesitate due to concerns about retraumatization and lack of training. Both groups identified urgent SRH needs and emphasized the importance of trauma-informed approaches. The authors propose a survivor and provided-informed phased framework that includes brief screening at intake, comprehensive assessment, and long-term educational support. Their recommendations highlight the need for provider training, resource integration, and collaboration with healthcare systems, offering holistic IPV services.
In Improving Mental Health Therapy for People Who Have Experienced IPV and Housing Instability: Advice from Survivors, Kristie Thomas, Leah Malo, and Isaac Rogers explore the critical intersection of mental health intervention, DV/A, and housing for diverse DV/A survivors in the mid-Atlantic U.S. The study centers DV/A survivor voices in better understanding how mental health providers can improve outreach and therapeutic responses to survivors who have experienced unstable housing. Using descriptive qualitative methodology (Kim et al., 2017), the authors interviewed 21 DV/A survivors of diverse identities in mental health treatment and 3 mental health therapists with Master’s in Social Work degrees who had provided therapy. Interview data analysis included qualitative content analysis (Kim et al., 2017). Thomas, Malo and Rogers identified a range of participants’ advice for DV/A survivors and mental health therapists. Their work highlights the importance of survivor-centered or survivor-defined practice (Bender, 2017), in mental health services as well as the need for ongoing survivor-centered research. Their research outcomes bring attention to multiple issues including the need for survivor-centered approaches in social work practice, yet the dearth of training on DV/A for Master’s level social work practitioners. Furthermore, social workers’ negative attitudes regarding people experiencing housing instability may also shape their approach to intervention. Peer-mentoring is among their recommendations for supporting survivors in mental health therapy who would then have opportunities to learn from those who have completed therapy.
Kylie E. Evans’s “Fostering resilience through natural mentorship: Experiences of young women exposed to intimate partner violence” addresses a notable gap in qualitative work on how emerging adult women who witnessed parental IPV develop and sustain healthy, non-violent romantic relationships. Using purposive sampling, Evans interviewed 13 women ages 18–21 who self-reported childhood exposure to parental IPV and current or past non-violent dating relationships. Employing interpretative phenomenological analysis of semi-structured Zoom interviews, the study identifies four core elements of relational resilience: resisting parental patterns, identifying relationship essentials, prioritising independence, and persevering (Crist and Tanner, 2003; Pietkiewicz and Smith, 2012). The study highlights how natural mentors, such as aunts, grandparents, teachers, sisters, cousins, and peers, serve as role models who provide support and care. Practice implications include supporting the development of the ‘therapeutic web’ for young women, which is their natural network of caring and supportive adults. It encourages further exploration of natural mentors and the therapeutic web as possible mechanisms in supporting young adult women who have been exposed to parental IPV.
Shambika Raut, Yeliani Flores, Cecilia Mengo, Tiara Kinsey-Dadzie, and Hannah Steinke’s “Resilience among Immigrant Women Who Experience Intimate Partner Violence: Service Providers’ Perspectives”, explores the definitions, sources, barriers, and resilience pathways of immigrant and refugee women (IRW) from the perspectives of 19 service providers in the Midwestern U.S. Ungar’s (2011) socio-ecological model for understanding resilience guided the inquiry. Raut et al. analyzed interview transcripts through a process of Rapid and Rigorous Qualitative Data Analysis (RADaR) (Watkins, 2017) and thematic analysis (Nowell et al., 2017). Themes show the “multifaceted nature” and “non-linear” path to resilience for IRW as well as the influence of personal or individual aspects and intersecting broader factors, such as cultural and community strengths, resources and systems of support. Service providers provide insights into the resilience, strength and determination among IRW. This research has broad implications for policy, research and service providers. For practitioners, findings include the importance of trauma-informed and culturally responsive supports for IRW who experience IPV and the need for outreach services, bilingual advocates and training in cultural humility.
In Heidi Rueda, Qihao Zhan, M. Candace Christensen and Patricia Newman’s “I felt represented”: Incorporating Latino youth’s perspectives into theatre for dating violence prevention”, the authors center cultural relevance and innovation in youth partner violence prevention. Ninety-five Latino youth from rural and urban areas in the Midwest U.S. reviewed a 20-min play, as “playwrights” in focus-groups, assessing the play and its relationship to their dating experiences and cultural values. Through this process, young people explored their cultural values and how they can affect dating experiences, help-seeking and help-offering behaviors. A key message for readers, both practitioners and researchers, is the value of applied theatre and community-based participatory research with young people in the design of creative and culturally relevant dating violence prevention programs. The participation of Latino youth in this research provided an opportunity for raising their awareness about teen dating violence and, in turn, readers’ awareness. Critical reflection on the feedback provided by the participants on cultural influences, gender expectations and help-seeking deepens our understanding and knowledge of their lived experiences and how it may inform social work practice.
Sherise McKinney and Katie Schultz’ “Understanding Culturally Honoring Services with Native American Survivors of Violence” addresses a critical gap in research focused on interventions with Native American survivors of violence and related crimes. The authors used a community-engaged research approach to explore practitioners’ interventions with Native and non-Native women in the midwestern U.S. who had histories of domestic and sexual violence survivorship. Using an iterative reflective thematic analysis process, McKinney and Schultz analyzed and coded transcripts from in-depth interviews with 19 practitioners. They then discussed their analysis with their community partner, advocates, and study participants. Drawing on their professional identities, research data, and community collaborations, the authors define culturally grounded and trauma informed culturally honoring services (CHs) along four themes. Additionally, they offer a conceptual model for its overlap with culturally safe practices and trauma-informed services. Their recommendations for practice include considerations regarding how Native advocates’ personal experiences may shape their use of CHS with clients and necessary organizational supports. This work provides essential insight into how practitioners own experiences shape implementation of trauma-informed approaches for diverse violence affected populations.
In “Victims or perpetrators? Young mothers who survived intimate partner violence and their involvement with the child welfare system in Ontario”, Rasnat Chowdhury, Megha Goel, Ami Goulden, Florence Wong, Janice Appiah and Bryn King explore the gap in the literature by addressing the experiences of how young mothers experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) navigate their involvement with the child welfare system (CSW) in Ontario, Canada. Drawing on interpretative phenomenological analysis (Pietkiewize and Smith, 2014; Smith, 2009; Smith et al., 1999), the authors analysed in-depth semi-structured interviews with 10 young mothers (mean age 25.7), who were involved with the child welfare system and reported experiencing IPV. The authors identified three themes, which include, abusive ex-partners threatening to report the women to the child welfare system, young mothers being scrutinised and blamed for the abuse, and prior care experience increasing the young women’s vulnerability to IPV and involvement with CWS. These findings highlight the importance of trauma informed approaches that support child protection-involved mothers and their children, practitioners undertaking robust assessment of referrals, particularly those made by the ex-partner, as well as ensuring appropriate support is given to those who have lived in out of home care.
Margaret Kertesz, Lisa Young Larance, and Jasmin Isobe’s “Seeds of Healing from + SHIFT: An Antiviolence Program for Women” brings attention to the groupwork antiviolence intervention experiences of women in Victoria, Australia, often with DV/A survivorship histories, who are systems identified as having harmed their partners. Through thematic analysis of 21 women’s interview transcripts the authors identified four aspects of +SHIFT’s impact on the women’s awareness of alternative perspectives and behaviors promoting healthier relationships, and their healing. The four themes include (1) program philosophy and curriculum components, (2) co-facilitated group structure, process and interactions, (3) shared peer experiences and peer support, and (4) connecting curriculum content, life experience and personal accountability. These “seeds of healing” gained from their + SHIFT contact, helped the women feel supported and more peace as they explored viable non-violent behavioral and relational choices. These findings provide important insights for practitioners creating contextual, trauma-informed interventions for systems-involved women with DV/A survivorship histories. Its extended view, beyond the victim-offender binary (Larance, 2024; Larance et al., 2022), of serving women who have survived and used force is a critical contribution to social work practice and research literatures.
In the final New Voices piece, Hanoria’s “Back Inside the Stories: A Poetic Approach to Reflexivity, Lived Experience and Doing Qualitative Research” addresses a timely gap in methods literature by arguing for poetic inquiry as an ethical, embodied mode of reflexivity for lived-experience researchers working on intimate partner violence. This piece offers a methodological and reflexive intervention in which the author draws on her doctoral narrative interviews and her own survivor-researcher positioning to demonstrate how poetic form brings about the back and forth between being immersed in the stories and having distance from them (Faulkner, 2019). Hanoria asserts that using poetic inquiry as both a method and a way to represent research, can carry the deep emotional layers of narrative work. It brings attention to the ethical and emotional effort involved in studying lived experiences (Furman et al., 2012). The author advocates for greater institutional support, guidance, and recognition for those engaged in practitioner research. The paper invites researchers and practitioners to view creative, trauma-informed approaches as robust, ethical, and directly applicable methods within social work research.
