Factors influencing interdisciplinary team member agreement with social worker assessments of domestic violence incidents in the United States Air Force
Abstract
This study tested four hypotheses related to the propensity of
interdisciplinary team members to agree with clinical social workers in their
assessment of alleged spousal abuse incidents. Domestic violence intervention in
the United States Air Force (USAF) involves social work evaluation of all
suspected cases of spousal maltreatment. Following these assessments, a team of
professionals (social work, law enforcement, legal, clergy, health care, family
specialists, and military command representatives) entitled the Family
Maltreatment Case Management Team (FMCMT) is convened to hear the
specifics of the social work evaluation. Decisions are then made regarding
whether the incident meets the criteria for abusive behavior (case substantiation);
and if so, what services will be provided for the family members (case
management). Literature review in the areas of family violence, military social
work, group dynamics, group decision-making processes, and interdisciplinary
team approaches revealed no prior studies having been conducted on the USAF
FMCMT process. One hundred sixty-seven FMCMT members from twenty-two
USAF installations completed survey materials to test whether factors such as
provision of the social work recommendation, professional affiliation, disciplinary
orientation, or task-related experience were predictive of agreement with social
worker case assessments. The use of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis
method for three of the independent variables (providing versus withholding the
social work recommendation, offender-control versus victim-services
membership type, and task-related experience level) found only the provision of
the social work assessment to be statistically significant (p = .000). However, the
modest effect size found suggests the social work influence over team member
decision-making did not appear excessive. Standard multiple regression and
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the fourth independent variable
consisting of the professional disciplines that comprise the FMCMT. None of the
individual professions were found to differ significantly related to agreement with
the social work case assessment. Demographic variables such as age, gender,
ethnicity, marital status, and military status were controlled for in an attempt to
clarify the relationship between the dependent and independent variables.
Implications for policy and practice are discussed, and suggestions for future
research are given.
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