Child Abuse and Neglect and Domestic Violence: Collaborative Efforts in the United States

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Author and Speaker

Anita St Onge, Director of Domestic Violence Initiatives at Cutler Institute for Child and Family Policy at the Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine, USA

In the past ten years, there has been an increased focus on issues of conflict between professionals working in the fields of child abuse and neglect and domestic violence. Recognizing the need to work together to better meet the needs of all victims of family violence, there have been numerous efforts to address these conflicts. This presentation will focus on several state and national collaborative efforts taking place in the United States to bring child welfare agencies, domestic violence programmes and courts together to look at issues of policy and practice.

Biography

Anita St. Onge is the Director of Domestic Violence Initiatives at Cutler Institute for Child and Family Policy at the Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine, USA. Anita is currently in New Zealand on a sabbatical to try to gain an understanding of how family violence cases are handled, particularly when child custody is involved. Anita is particularly interested in cases involving custody and access disputes between parents and when there is co-occurrence of intimate partner violence and child abuse.

Anita's area of focus in the US is child abuse and domestic violence. She is an attorney who has worked with abuse and neglect and domestic violence victims for the past 25 years. She has participated in numerous studies looking at the effectiveness of the child protective court systems in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Michigan. She participated as a case reviewer for some of the pilot states as the US Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families was revamping its review of states' compliance with Federal funding requirements. She has conducted case file reviews for the State child welfare agencies in Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Louisiana. For the past six years she has been the Project Director for a Project to look at the effectiveness of programmes funded by the Office on Violence Against Women.