Lauren Bennett Cattaneo, Ph.D. Associate Professor, George Mason University

1. RISK ASSESSMENT AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE: BRIDGING RESEARCH AND PRACTICEWEBINAR FOR THE BATTERED WOMEN’S JUSTICE PROJECTMAY 18, 2011 Lauren Bennett Cattaneo, Ph.D. Associate Professor, George Mason University

2. My overarching perspective • As a researcher • On the field of intimate partner violence

3. Why risk assessment? • Limitations on resources • Need for appropriate response • Time-limited nature of contact with potential victims • Relevance across multiple contexts • Need to connect research to practice

4. Overview of presentation • 3 areas of research on risk assessment in IPV • Key findings • Key gaps • Where to go from here

5. Sources of information about IPV risk

6. What we do and don’t know about risk assessment instruments KEY FINDINGS:INSTRUMENTS PREDICT MODERATELY WELL – BETTER THAN CHANCE. Goodman, Dutton & Bennett (2000) Roehl and colleagues (2005) Yang, Wong & Coid (2010)

7. What we do and don’t know about risk assessment instruments • KEY GAPS IN OUR KNOWLEDGE: • Studies over-rely on official reports of repeat violence as opposed to victim reports (Bennett Cattaneo & Goodman, 2005 review). • Focus on prediction is of limited relevance to practice: • Quantifying risk does not tell you what a specific person will do. • Focus of practice is prevention, not prediction. • Are instruments helpful to victims? To practitioners? • How can we integrate prediction into risk management?

8. What we do and don’t know about victims’ assessment of their own risk

9. KEY FINDINGS • Victims assess their own risk all the time. • Victim assessments add above and beyond risk factors and risk assessment instruments in predicting future violence (Bennett Cattaneo & Goodman, 2003; Bennett, Goodman & Dutton, 2000; Weisz, Tolman & Saunders, 2000; Heckert & Gondolf, 2004). • Victims do not exhibit any consistent type of bias in their predictions, and are moderately accurate.

10. Method • 246 women seeking help for IPV at shelter, civil or criminal court • 5 follow-up interviews over 18 months • At intake measured assessment of risk & all predictors. • At 18 months asked if risks were realized • Two questions: • How accurate are participants in predicting repeat abuse? • What predicts level of accuracy?

11. Q 1: No pessimistic or optimistic bias, and more likely to be right than wrong Bennett Cattaneo, Bell, Goodman & Dutton, 2007; Bell, Bennett Cattaneo, Goodman & Dutton, 2007

12. KEY GAPS • What is the nature of risk assessment among IPV survivors who do not seek help? • How can we best include victim expertise in assessments of risk of physical abuse? • How are their perceptions influenced by input from other sources? Over time? • How can we best include victim conceptions of risk that are broader than physical abuse? (Davies, Lyon & Monti-Catania, 1998)

13. What we do and don’t know about professional assessments of risk • KEY FINDINGS • The problem of expert judgment (Westen & Weinberger, 2004) • No evidence they add to predictive accuracy of instruments (Williams & Houghton, 2004) • Comparable to victims, but draw on different information

14. Bennett Cattaneo (2007) Method • 169 women who presented at court following arrest of current or former partner • 5 victim advocates who interviewed them to assist in criminal case, to identify needs and to conduct safety planning • Both victims and advocates rated the likelihood of continued abuse of any kind on scale of 1-10 • Follow-up with participants three months later

15. Bennett Cattaneo (2007) findings • Assessments of both victims and advocates were moderately correlated with continued abuse, but different factors influenced their risk assessments. • Victims: more symptoms of PTSD; batterer more generally violent; not living with the batterer at the time of the offense; higher level of psychological abuse. • Advocates: greater level of drug use by the batterer; victim and the batterer had children in common; greater levels of physical violence and psychological abuse.

16. What we do and don’t know about professional assessments of risk • KEY FINDINGS (2) • The problem of expert judgment (Westen & Weinberger, 2004) • No evidence they add to predictive accuracy of instruments • Comparable to victims, but draw on different information • The practice landscape is not well understood

17. Method & ResultsBennett Cattaneo & Chapman (in press) • Interviewed 13 local practitioners about risk assessment practices • Very few participants used any standardized approach • Many expected structure would be disempowering • Almost no information about what victims gained about risk assessment practices

18. KEY GAPS • Is it true that more structure is disempowering? • How do professional assessments of risk affect victim thinking? Behavior? • How can professional expertise best be integrated into the risk management process?

19. Where we go from here 1Risk prediction versus management • Much research that is not practice-applicable (Bennett Cattaneo & Goodman, 2007) • Need to shift focus from prediction to management: What are the chances violence will occur? versus Under what circumstances might violence occur, and how might we change them? • Need to identify dynamic causal factors of violence

20. Where we go from here 2How should we use instruments? • We have learned that HOW matters as much (or more) than WHAT • How do our assessments, and the way we conduct those assessments, influence ONGOING victim decision making? • Viewing our contributions as one stop on a long journey • Need to develop best practices that pulls prediction into management, and gives victim voice

21. Where we go from here 3How can we be survivor-centered & use our expertise? • Moving back toward survivor-centered practice • Risk assessment has little connection to what is offered the victim, or to what we know is helpful • Don’t want to throw out baby with bathwater • Need to develop best practices that pulls prediction into management, gives victim voice, and integrates advocate expertise. • Need to innovate and evaluate with these outcomes in mind.

22. Empowerment process model Bennett Cattaneo & Chapman (2010)

23. Define or redefine meaningful, power-orientedGOALS and objectives SOCIAL CONTEXT Self-efficacy Observe and reflect on IMPACT of actions in relation to goal achievement knowledge competence Carry out ACTIONS toward goal achievement SOCIAL CONTEXT

24. References Bennett, L., Goodman, L., & Dutton, M.A. (2000). Risk assessment among batterers arrested for domestic assault: The salience of psychological abuse. Violence against Women, 16(11), 1190-1203. Bennett Cattaneo, L. (2007). Contributors to assessments of risk in intimate partner violence: How victims and professionals differ. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(1), 57-75. Bennett Cattaneo, L., Bell, M.E., Goodman, L.A. & Dutton, M.A. (2007). Intimate partner violence victims’ accuracy in assessing their risk of re-abuse. Journal of Family Violence, 22(6), 429-440. Bennett Cattaneo, L. & *Chapman, A.R. (in press). Risk assessment with victims of intimate partner violence: Investigating the gap between research and practice. Violence Against Women.   Bennett Cattaneo & *Chapman, A.R. (2010). The process of empowerment: A model for use in research and practice. American Psychologist, 65(7), 646-659. Bennett Cattaneo, L. & Goodman, L.A. (2009). New directions in IPV risk assessment: An empowerment approach to risk management. (Reprinted book chapter). Family and Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly, 18, 55-72. Bennett Cattaneo, L. and Goodman, L.A. (2005). Risk factors for reabuse in intimate partner violence: A cross-disciplinary critical review. Trauma, Violence and Abuse: A Review Journal, 6, 141-175.  Bennett Cattaneo, L. and Goodman, L.A. (2003). Victim-reported risk factors for continued abusive behavior: Assessing the dangerousness of arrested batterers.Journal of Community Psychology, 31(4), 1-21.

25. References (2) Davies, Lyon and Monti-Catania (1998) Safety planning with battered women: Complex lives, difficult choices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Goodman, L.A., Dutton, M.A., & Bennett, L. (2000). Predicting repeat abuse among arrested batterers: Use of the Danger Assessment Scale in the Criminal Justice System.Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15, 1, 63-72. Heckert, D.A. & Gondolf, E.D. (2004). Battered women’s perception of risk versus risk factors and instruments in predicting repeat reassault. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 19, 778-800. Roehl, J., O’Sullivan, C., Webster, D., & Campbell, J. (2005). Intimate partner violence risk assessment validation study, final report (Document No. 209731). Washington DC: National Institute of Justice. Weisz, A. N., Tolman, R. M. & Saunders, D. G. (2000). Assessing the risk of severe violence: The importance of survivors’ predictions. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15, 75-90. Westen, D. & Weinberger, J. (2004). When clinical description becomes statistical prediction. American Psychologist, 59(7) 595-613. Williams, K.R. & Houghton, A.B. (2004). Assessing the risk of domestic violence reoffending: A validation study. Law and Human Behavior, 28(4), 437-455. Yang, M., Wong, S.C. & Coid, J. (2010). The efficacy of violence prediction: A meta-analytic comparison of nie risk assessment tools. Psychological Bulletin, 136(5), 740-767.