Addressing the Complexities of Family and Relationship Violence
Difficult Reunions: Working with Families to Overcome Abuse
Most of the time 14-year-old Donovan [not his real name] would only see his father if he managed to stay up late. Almost every night his father, a single parent, would drink at the casino where he worked, stumble home after midnight, and sleep until late in the afternoon. He would go back to work before Donovan came home from school and do it all over again. Some days his father wouldn’t make it to work. He would take out his frustrations on Donovan, punching him for the slightest offenses.
Brian Nelson, director of Covenant House, a Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) grantee in Atlantic City, New Jersey, comes in contact daily with young people like Donovan who run away and end up living under the boardwalk because their parents abuse or neglect them. Indeed, 68 percent of Covenant House clients report some type of childhood physical abuse.
Nationwide, a quarter or more of youth served by FYSB’s Basic Center and Transitional Living Programs report abuse and neglect at home.
Staff in federally funded youth shelters deal with the real life people behind these statistics daily. Required to reunify youth with their families whenever possible, staff members must determine what circumstances would allow for a child who has been abused to safely return home. Making that call can be one of the hardest decisions a youth worker or social services worker has to make.
According to data from FYSB’s Runaway and Homeless Youth Management Information System, or RHYMIS, youth from abusive households reunify with their families less often than do their peers from nonviolent homes. These young people may be safer in transitional living programs or may be candidates for emancipation.
Still, studies in social work show that youth who return to their families are better off than those who leave shelters for other living arrangements. For instance, they do better in school, both academically and socially.
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