It is estimated that 7 million children live in households in which severe parental intimate partner violence (IPV) is occurring and that well over 150,000 marriage dissolutions involve child witnesses to parental IPV in the US each year. Children who are exposed to parental IPV are at increased risk of internalizing problems, externalizing behavior problems, post-traumatic stress disorder, concurrent child maltreatment (CM), and other adverse outcomes compared to children living in households without parental IPV. Importantly, especially from a primary prevention standpoint, exposure to parental IPV during childhood and being a victim of CM are the strongest known predictors of perpetration of and victimization by an intimate partner in adulthood. The totality of these findings points to the critical need for ensuring the fulfillment of legal protections awarded in the context of marriage dissolution for IPV victims and their children. One potential intervention for improving the safety and future well-being of IPV victims and their children is to award greater protections in child custody and visitation plans to lessen children's continued exposure to parental IPV, conflict and concurrent CM. Results from a parent study show that attorney representation of the IPV victim resulted in greater legal protections being awarded in child custody and visitation orders. Despite the widespread use of and call for greater protections in child custody matters involving a parent with a history of IPV perpetration, we know of no studies that have examined whether legal representation of the IPV victim and the legal protections awarded in child custody and visitation result in lower rates of abuse following marriage dissolution from an abusive partner. The proposed study was designed to address this critical gap in IPV research by accomplishing the following specific aims: 1. Evaluate if the rates of post-marriage dissolution IPV and CM are lower for families in which the IPV victim was legally represented than those in which the IPV victim was unrepresented, propensity score matched counterparts. 2. Assess specific conditions of child custody and visitation orders for their association with lower rates of post-dissolution IPV and CM independent of legal representation status of the IPV victim in marriage dissolution proceedings. 3. Examine specific conditions of child custody and visitation orders for their effect in mediating the relationship between legal representation of the IPV victim in dissolution proceedings and post-dissolution IPV and CM.
The proposed study seeks to examine the use of legal interventions that are widely applied in child custody actions among families with a history of parental, male-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) that have not yet been shown to truly lessen post-divorce rates of IPV or child maltreatment (CM). This study will assess the impact of legal representation of IPV victims in marriage dissolutions and the specific legal protections awarded in child custody and visitation orders for their impact on rates of subsequent abuse in these families.
