Lesbian Domestic Violence: Service or Silence?
The paper I am proposing to present will report and discuss the findings of s multi-methodological research study completed as a partial fulfilment of bachelor of social work with honours. This study examined the awareness, understanding and responses that human service workers had made in relation to domestic violence in lesbian relationships.
This paper will highlight the key findings of understanding and awareness, policy, advertising/community education and finally ownership of the issue by human service workers and the services they represent. These finding areas will be discussed in regard to their implications for lesbian women accessing services, as the research suggested that human service workers were challenged when it came to the promotion of inclusion.
It is from this point that this paper is extremely relevant to this conference under the group 7 heading of 'Exclusion and Diversity', as it prompts social workers to challenge their current theoretical approaches to the lesbian community. It also addresses notions of difference in social workers interactions with our ever expanding, diverse client groups.
This paper will aim to provide conference participants with an insight to the difficulties and barriers faced by lesbian women experiencing domestic violence, and challenge them to be reflective in the way that diverse groups are addressed within their own practice. It is hoped this paper will provide conference participants with up to date research, evoke reflective thought and contribute to 'reclaiming civil society'.