Causes of domestic violence and counseling interventions in Brooklyn

Domestic Violence

The research design was to decipher what causes domestic violence and ways to solve the problem in Brooklyn, New York, which is located in the United States of America. A mixed methods approach was used that had both quantitative and qualitative methods. This was done as a means of having open and closed-ended questions. One also used the likert scale to measure depression among survivors of domestic violence and measured progress on how each one applied the necessary skills from counseling sessions. Counseling sessions took place to measure progress of each participant.

The data was collected by means of going to social work organizations in the Brooklyn, New York area. One used email, mail and current clients as participants by having them fill out a consent form and was followed up on a weekly basis upon choosing to consent this study.

The hypothesis used was that each component stressed a discord between the male and female, which rather than treated by psychology, instead developed into an abusive partnership. The second hypothesis was that unlike the theoreticians who chose to place blame in order to find a cause, they determined that potential for abuse did not examine the reality of the situation; consequently, these causes are considered the issue, but that the abuse needs monitored for it become prevented in the future.

Population

The population studied was from that of the Brooklyn Domestic Violence Court. These individuals ranged from that of ages 18 to 65 years. All of them were both males and females from a variety of backgrounds and races, and was at least 100 people total that were interviewed.

Sampling

Sampling that was used is that of convenience. Convenience sampling was important because a person is able to pick and choose whom to become a part of the study at that particular time. However, a select few individuals may behave differently if they are not chosen. The researcher had the ability to decide who gets to have a part in this study, which is why this approach is so important. He or she grasped that maybe more females than males have encountered domestic violence through this approach. Regardless, this enabled to researcher to study participants over a period of one year. They were found in various social work organizations that were prevalent in Brooklyn, New York.

Variables

A number of variables were important to this study. One has to note that the dependent variable is that of domestic violence. However, the independent variables were what make up an entire person, such as black or white. The others were that of religious, which included Protestant or Catholic. Some other factors were that of past abuse and socio-economic level. All of these were of immense strain on the individuals and helped or hindered in the opportunity to become as independent as possible upon exiting the relationship one was in before entering into this particular research project. Furthermore, these are also independent variables, which were cultural conflict, alcohol abuse, poverty, and mental health issues. In order to operationalize these variables, this is considered as well. First, the student observed and became proactive about the abuse issues with alcohol and with domestic violence. Second, cultural conflict was done through observation and role play in order to prevent domestic violence. Third, those that were in poverty were provided free counseling services.

Reliability

Four different forms of reliability were analyzed with this study. They were inter-rater, test-retest, parallel forms and internal consistency. In regards to inter-rater reliability, the researchers avidly used this because of comparing how one participant did over the other, which made it consistent and reliable because of the scores appearing the same between individuals. With test-retest reliability, any researcher would have the capabilities of replicating this study for future use. One needs to note that this makes the research internally consistent for the reliability that occurred with this research. The parallel forms reliability tests were not relevant to this particular subject.

Bias

One needs to note that people were biased throughout the entire research project. Person sensitivity bias occurred when he or she had the ability to view one's answers as good when things are going well; whereas, at times the investigators provided too little credit when everything was going poorly with the study. The same was true when it came to that of using implicit favorites, especially when the Hawthorne Effect occurred. Each participant provided the answers that the investigators wanted to hear, while simultaneously people were favoring one participant over the other.

Ethical Concerns

Many ethical concerns did occur when this study was conducted during the one year time frame. Counselors had to make sure that windows were on their office doors, and that people were not able to hear the conversations while waiting for their session. Not only that, but one had to consider having the opportunity to do the research publicly in order to recruit participants' instead of privately because gossip could have occurred through this entire process. Ethically, the counselor had the opportunity to exploit someone's vulnerability in which to harm others before, during and after therapy

Applications

A person feels empowered knowing that a person's life is getting changed for the positive by breaking the domestic violence cycle. He or she has learned new skills as well as the opportunities in which to pass them on to other survivors of domestic violence. Many organizations developed theories and new skills to help domestic violence survivors who are wanting to empower others through social work programs.