Author: Anne P. DePrince, PhD

by Anne P. DePrince  & Leslie Hasche

Community-coordinated responses and multidisciplinary teams have become common responses to domestic violence and sexual assault across the United States. These approaches focus on collaboration across community (e.g., shelters and legal advocacy programs) and criminal justice (e.g., prosecuting attorney and police) agencies to respond to victimization.[1]

More recently, multidisciplinary teams have evolved for responding to older adult maltreatment. Unfortunately, relatively less research has been available on the impact of such team responses to older adult maltreatment, leaving communities without data to inform their efforts.

In collaboration with the Denver Forensic Collaborative for At-Risk Adults (DFC) and graduate student researchers from the TSS Group, we set out to test the impact of multidisciplinary team response to older adult maltreatment.

Denver’s multidisciplinary team brings together representatives from criminal justice offices (police, prosecution), city government offices (e.g., environmental health, housing), Adult Protective Services, as well as medical, mental health and community-based organizations. Together, the team discusses cases and collaborates to put together an action plan for individual cases. Action plans might include a victim advocate calling the older adult to offer services; a police officer and Adult Protective Services caseworker visiting the older adult’s home together; or a referral to environmental health for an inspection of a home.

To test the impact of Denver’s multidisciplinary response to older adult maltreatment, this research compared cases that were discussed by the team in person to those that weren’t. The cases that weren’t discussed by the team in person still got attention from agencies across Denver that serve older adults. The difference was in whether the team met together to discuss and make a plan for the case.

Our research focused on outcomes for cases of alleged abuse, neglect, and/or financial exploitation that involved an older adult over age 60 and a perpetrator in a position of trust, such as a caregiver or family member. The majority of cases had come to the attention of law enforcement through a police report.

Next, we asked victim advocates to describes cases and outcomes. We discovered that cases reviewed by the multidisciplinary team had a better prognosis than other cases. In particular, the advocates thought the older adults were less likely to need their offices’ services in the future. Victim advocates also reported higher across-agency coordination as well as engagement with more types of services for the cases reviewed by the DFC relative to other cases. However, criminal justice advocates tended not to have any more contact with older adults just a few months later. This make sense because most cases were not prosecuted, but raises questions about how multidisciplinary teams can engage with older adult victims over time.

These findings, recently publishedin the Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect, are in line with the larger literature on community-coordinated responses.

This project also highlighted unique challenges faced by older adults who are victims of abuse, neglect, and/or exploitation.

For example, we found that older adults with allegations of abuse reported to law enforcement were facing considerable mental health challenges and unmet service needs. When taking into account that the most common abusers were family members or close others, the study results point to the need to coordinate across criminal justice, mental health, and aging service sectors to mitigate abuse and unsafe environments as early as possible.

Bottom Line:

In the face of limited resources, many communities are likely to involve multidisciplinary teams in response to cases that have already come to the attention of the police. Our research suggests that this is a good investment of resources, helping teams to collaborate to serve older adult victims.

However, our work also suggests that older adults who come to the attention to multidisciplinary teams through police reports already face significant mental health challenges and service barriers. Therefore, communities may also want to consider resources that allow teams to play a role in prevention as well as in longer-term follow-up of older adult victims.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Institute of Justice [Grant #2013-MU-CX-0032]. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or the official position of the National Institute of Justice or any other organization.

Thank you to the Denver Forensic Collaborative for At-Risk Adults for their collaboration to make this work possible, particularly Denver City Attorney’s Office (especially Linda Loflin Pettit), Denver District Attorney’s Office (especially Maro Casparian), Denver Human Services-Adult Protective Services and Denver Police Department; and the Traumatic Stress Studies Group. 

[1] e.g., Allen, Bybee, & Sullivan, 2004; Fanslow & Robinson, 2010; Goodman & Epstein, 2005; Klevens, Baker, Shelley, & Ingram, 2008; DePrince, Belknap et al., 2012; DePrince, Labus, Belknap, Buckingham, & Gover, 2012).

by Anne P. DePrince & Julie M. Olomi

With more than half of campus sexual assaults occurring during the Fall, much of schools’ policy attention in the latter half of 2019 was probably focused on handling internal Title IX investigations. However, when sexual assaults are also reported to the police, campuses must also be prepared to navigate co-occurring Title IX and criminal investigations.

In co-occurring investigations, two separate and often-complex sets of procedures unfold. Campuses and law enforcement agencies each have their own legal obligations, timelines for investigations, and even language. Campuses talk about complainants, police about victims, and advocates talk about survivors. Criminal investigations and prosecutions can take months or even years. Campuses must take immediate action, with the exception of allowances for brief delays related to time-sensitive law enforcement activity, such as executing a search warrant to preserve evidence prior not campus notification of the respondent.

Evidence collected in the criminal justice investigation can enhance the Title IX investigation, giving investigators access to information they may not otherwise have. However, navigating co-occurring investigations can leave schools, police, and prosecutors feeling like they are working at cross-purposes, making things harder for everyone involved. Such complexities and frustration along with lack of support from administrations can add to the pressures that have driven alarming turnover in Title IX office nationally. But, how should campuses and criminal justice agencies prepare for co-occurring investigations?

Title IX and Co-Occurring Investigations

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education issued a “Dear Colleague” letter that outlined schools’ obligations to conduct investigations of sexual harassment and violence reports. Because what constitutes a Title IX violation may differ from a crime, the letter laid out expectations that schools would conduct their own investigations, separate from any criminal investigations. Further, schools were instructed not to wait for criminal matters to conclude before responding.

To promote collaboration and coordination between higher education institutions and law enforcement, the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault issued a guidance in 2015 for preventing and responding to campus sexual assault. The advice focused on the what, encouraging schools and law enforcement to collaborate, communicate, and meet their respective obligations. The puzzle was in how campuses and criminal justice agencies would do so.

The Trump administration has since rolled back the Obama-era advisements as well as proposed new Title IX rules that have yet to be finalized. Regardless of new rules, though, campuses will still need to be prepared for co-occurring investigations, particularly as states start taking matters into their own hands. For example, Colorado passed SB19-007 in 2019, which among other things, provides guidance to campuses on how to conduct investigations – from codifying confidentiality for campus-based victim advocates to addressing how questions are asked.

How Did One Community Work Together?

Over more than a year, we observed a multidisciplinary team charged with improving co-occurring investigations. We tracked and catalogued what they talked about during monthly meetings. We interviewed individual team members about their perceptions of the team’s efforts and impact. And we learned several things that can help campuses.

The team involved professionals from campus, criminal justice, and community-based agencies in a single jurisdiction across diverse roles – such as detectives, prosecutors, advocates, Title IX investigators, campus safety directors, and lawyers.

Their charge to improve co-occurring investigations began with a focus on developing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that could clear define roles and processes during a co-occurring investigation. Therefore, we suspected their meeting time would largely focus on developing new procedures together. Instead, we discovered that they invested twice as much discussion on explaining existing procedures to one other than hashing out new procedures. This revealed the reality that the procedures at their home institutions were complex and nuanced, requiring them to invest time in explaining approaches to each other.

Team members spent most of their meeting time building relationships by sharing information, educating each other, and problem solving. For example, the group often diverged from pre-set agenda items to respond to problems that emerged in their discussion. They were learning in real-time, sometimes about identifying potential obstacles before they became actual problems in any particular co-occurring investigation. In other instances, the particular ways that one campus and law enforcement addressed an investigation issue let campuses learn before that same issue arose on their campuses.

Individual team members told us that being part of the multidisciplinary team helped them do their jobs better at their home institutions. For example, when a problem arose in real time during an investigation, they knew who to call at other institutions and had trusted relationships to leverage. Not surprisingly, team members valued having diverse membership from across institutions to build networks that could help them respond effectively during investigations.

Supervisor and institutional buy-in was critical for team members. Some team members faced hurdles to participating in terms of skeptical supervisors and administrators who did not seem to value or understand the importance of investing time in the multidisciplinary team. Yes, the team members themselves saw ways that being part of the multidisciplinary team could help them better respond on their campuses.

As Campuses Move Forward

Schools, police, and prosecutors do not lack for procedures to do their jobs. However, they do not necessarily know each other’s procedures in enough detail to be effective during co-occurring investigations. In the community we studied, building capacity to navigate co-occurring sexual assault investigations took time and relationships to meet the promise of information sharing and learning together.

Regular meetings of a multidisciplinary team gave campuses a chance to build networks that they could draw on when they faced real-time challenges during co-occurring investigations. The team also created a local opportunity for ongoing learning and professional development at a time when campuses may have limited funds to send investigators to external trainings.

Co-occurring investigations are inevitable. Multidisciplinary teams promise to help campus and criminal justice agencies clarify roles in the face of complexity (such as through the development of MOUs) and advance learning to improve investigation processes. However, institutional and supervisor buy-in are needed to support campus staff – from Title IX offices to campus safety and advocates – to be part of multidisciplinary teams with their criminal justice and community counterparts. Research from our team and others points to the potential return on investment as multidisciplinary teams help individuals do their jobs better.

Want to know more? Check out a journal article describing this research here. 

On any given day, our team is doing research the connections between different forms of interpersonal trauma and a range of outcomes, from service use to distress. This approach was on display at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) in Boston earlier this month, where our team presented research related to domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse and refugee stress. 

If you couldn’t join us in Boston, we’re bringing our work to you! Graduate student team members share summaries of the key findings they presented at the meeting along with links to posters below.

Domestic Violence and Dependence in the Victim-Offender Relationship

Naomi Wright described,”This study found that some women who experience intimate partner abuse depend on the offender, while others do not. These differences in dependence were important to identify, because they related to women’s outcomes.”

Older Adults’ Service Needs after Maltreatment Allegations

Julie Olomi summarized, “Our study sought to better understand the service needs and related barriers of maltreated older adults. We found that the majority of older adult participants expressed needing more help than currently received, including transportation, housing, food, household assistance, and medical and mental health care and that barriers to service used were ranged from logistical (e.g. did not know specific services existed) to psychological (e.g. experiencing shame at the thought of needing services).“

Domestic Violence, Social Support, and Help Seeking

Maria-Ernestina Christl described, “We found that women’s perceptions of how much social support they had was linked with the number of help seeking behaviors (like going to the police, seeking counseling, or contacting a victim’s advocate) they engaged in after an incident of intimate partner violence, depending on the severity of the incident. For example, if women reported that they had high social support and the incident was more severe, they engaged in fewer help seeking behaviors than women who experienced a less severe incident of intimate partner violence and also reported high levels of social support.”

Domestic Violence and Traumatic Stress Symptoms

Adi Rosenthal noted, “Previous research shows that post-traumatic appraisals (or feelings) such as alienation, shame, or betrayal are associated with higher post-trauma distress among women exposed to trauma. In the current study, we found that scores on a measure of cognitive abilities seemed to affect that relationship — for women with higher scores, the relationship between appraisals and post-trauma symptoms was buffered.”

Protective Factors among Refugee Caregivers

Julie Olomi presented on this “systematic review to synthesize evidence about protective factors that may support refugee caregivers’ mental health and well-being. Our review identified 11 categories of protective factors that were organized into three overarching domains: 1) social support, 2) structural supports, and 3) cognitive strategies. We concluded that the field is now ready more research on fathers, culturally-specific protective factors, and experimental designs to test the efficacy of promoting caregiver well-being via the identified protective factors.”

The results of research made possible by many Denver-area partners just got a national spotlight in my new piece in The Conversation.

 

Screen shot from The Conversation. Click to read the article.

 

Please take look at the article to read about:

• The impact of coordinated responses to domestic violence on victim-survivor well-being;
• New findings that offer a window into how multidisciplinary teams approach coordinating responses. This new research looked specifically at  co-occurring Title IX and criminal justice investigations following campus sexual assault reports;
• Recently published findings on the links between community-based responses after sexual assault and reports to law enforcement.

Thank you for partnering to make this research possible! And for sharing The Conversation article with your networks!