Addressing the Complexities of Family and Relationship Violence

Inside Addressing the Complexities of Family and Relationship Violence Difficult Reunions: Working with Families to Overcome Abuse Family Violence Encompasses Wide Spectrum of Experiences Youth Workers’ Patience, Open Minds Get Youth to Talk About Family Violence What’s Love Got to Do With It? Stemming Relationship Abuse among Street Youth Using Culture to Say, ‘Violence Is Never Okay’ Who to Call

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Family Violence Encompasses Wide Spectrum of Experiences

“Family violence” can include everything from cursing and verbal and emotional abuse to hitting and slapping to more extreme forms of physical and sexual abuse. The term can also refer to physical neglect: a young person left alone in an apartment for days or denied medical care by parents or caregivers.

Experts define the word “family” broadly in this usage. The perpetrator may not necessarily share a biological bond with the young person. Rather, he or she might be someone who lives in the same household with the youth, has a close, familial or dating relationship with him or her, or takes care of the young person.

“Youth workers have to be alert to the diversity of the exposures, and not have a stereotype that family violence is just one thing,” says David Finkelhor, professor of sociology and director of several research centers at the University of New Hampshire. For instance, he says, young people might have witnessed violence or emotional abuse between adults or among siblings, or they may have experienced it themselves.

Victimized youth may also perpetuate a cycle of violence. “Even when youth have been victims or witnesses, they may also be perpetrators,” Finkelhor says.

Among youth served by runaway and homeless youth programs funded by the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB), emotional abuse may be much more common than the physical or sexual kind, says Stan Chappell, FYSB’s director of research and evaluation. Adam Kleinmeulman’s experience backs that up.

Kleinmeulman is a crisis counselor and therapist at Child, Inc., a FYSB grantee in Wilmington, Delaware. “A lot of times it’s not so much physical, but it’s a combination of emotional with a little bit of physical,” he says, describing many of his clients as “emotionally tired.” As examples of emotional abuse, he cites cursing, making degrading remarks, and punishing in passive aggressive ways.

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