Mimi Kim's website Creative Interventions provides an interesting and alternative way of tackling interpersonal violence in the community. Instead of focusing on individualised services and state intervention, the focus is on mobilising the community to take up responsibility in addressing violence.
Education and resources are shifted back to families and communities to address violence at various stages of abuse. A user-friendly tool kit is also made available for free! This for me, is refreshing in a world where some pockets of practitioners tend to keep important knowledges away from others in the interest of maintaining copyright.
Kim’s work inspired me through the demonstration of how narrative ideas of sharing localized knowledges and skills (Morgan, 2000) could be practiced in the context of community work. I experience the work of Creative Interventions (2014) to be one that tapped on latent insider knowledges of persons, and professionals who have experienced abuse. It acknowledges that both hold equal weight in addressing violence in the community. This is an alternative view to my own experiences in working with family violence in Singapore.
Interventions, which may encourage the victim to leave the perpetrator and utilize state intervention to punish the perpetrator, may be seen to be oppressive and disrespectful to people’s experiences. It is a top down approach that may not take into note the intricacies of interpersonal violence, and the need to look at each case from a unique standpoint.
The use of state interventions such as policies and imprisonment to address abuse may further encourage and promote further violence against women (Denborough, 1996). Perpetrators who are usually are placed in a culture that further reinforces oppressive gender attitudes. In my own practice I reflect on how we encourage women to use the personal protection orders they have against their abusive male partners. We do this without knowing whether the actions taken against the perpetrators would contribute towards ending the violence in the long run.
My own personal struggle with the views postulated in the readings is the possibility of making light of abuse and safety issues if we move away from state regulated measures to address interpersonal violence. When working with women who have been abused, my first instinct has always been to ensure safety at all costs, even if it means putting the male perpetrator in prison. The importance of safety within a committed community response is hence emphasized (Denborough, 1996), should we move away from using state interventions when working with perpetrators of abuse.
As a social worker, I had similar struggles in my work. I remember a case where a client initially did not feel that the options I presented to increase her safety were relevant ones. However when work was focused on identifying community support systems, she was able to find solace in a neighborwho herself had experienced interpersonal violence in her past. This neighbour had shared her own story of survival which appeared to resonate with my client's experience. The neihbour proceeded to offere her home as a possible shelter of safety should my client need to evacuate her home. Conversations we had with this neighbour had also opened up alternative ways of engaging my client’s partner, such as engaging other relatives who are close to the perpetrator. I wonder further how such a case could have benefitted from more community oriented interventions to address violence.
The restorative justice model (Smith, 2010) is one I have practiced in the student care centers under the purview of my organization, but I am unsure about its utility and relevance in the context of Singapore. This concern raises another struggle when working with perpetrators who may have committed a “crime”: the expectations for us to make persons answer for the crimes they have committed may sometimes blind us to the need to address the problem of violence at the root sources through social action and education. For the RJ model to be successful, the community has to unite strongly to address the crime.
Where Smith (2010) has proposed alternative community based movements and political action to address violence, Singapore’s progress in this area may still be in the nascent stages. Singapore’s community based movements and organizations are still very much state regulated (Moore, 2000) where the focus is on maintaining the fragile equilibrium of harmony between the main racial groups that make up the local population. In the pursuit of creativity, there may be options to catalyze community engagement and mobilization processes through means such as social media platforms. In Singapore, these means have been influential in disseminating key information to the community.
Principles proffered by Incite! (2001) may present a guide where social workers and other community based professionals should enable vulnerable populations at the intersection of policy planning, analysis, and leadership development.
Another aspect of Kim’s work I admired was how certain principles of collective practice (Denborough, 2008) were demonstrated. Contributions from persons and professionals working with and affected by violence were enabled, with focus on obtaining diverse origins. This information is then made further accessible for free. Such a practice is innovative for a social worker like me who has often looked at social work with interpersonal violence as an esoteric realm under the expert purview of specialized social workers.
As I heard snippets of some of the stories shared in the Stop Violence Everyday (2014) website, I could not help but appreciate the value of insider knowledges. These stories even resonated with me in the context of working with women from a different culture such as Singapore. It highlights the importance of giving a voice to those to the unvoiced. In Singapore especially, family violence is such a taboo that we seldom hear about the experiences of the victims. With confidentiality issues maintained, there should be opportunities for these voices and stories to be heard. I could imagine my clients connecting emotionally, and at the same time feel empowered and encouraged by the stories of survival, as well as the community responses taken to address these issues.
I am brought further to reflect on other community oriented responses that we could take to address other issues such as grief, suicidal ideation, child protection, and so on.
References
Creative Interventions (2014) Resources for everyday people to end violence. Retrieved 4 April, 2014 (http://www.creative-interventions.org/)
Denborough, D. (1996) Beyond the Prison: Gathering Dreams of Freedom. Dulwich Centre Publications.
Denborough, D. (2008) Collective Narrative Practice: Responding to individuals, groups, and communities who have experienced trauma. Dulwich Centre Publications.
Incite! (2001) Critical Resistance Statement: Gender violence and the prison industrial complex. Retrieved April 20, 2014 (http://www.incite-national.org/page/incite-critical-resistance-statement)
Kim, M. (2007) Alternative Interventions to Violence: Creative Interventions. In Yuen, A. & White, C. Conversations about gender, culture, violence & narrative practice. Dulwich Centre Publications.
Moore, R. Q. (2000) Multiracialism and Meritocracy: Singapore’s Approach to Race and Inequality, in Review of Social Economy, 58:3, 339 -360
Morgan, A. (2000) What is Narrative Therapy?: An Easy-to-read Introduction. Dulwich Centre Publications.
Smith, A. (2010) Beyond Restorative Justice: Radical Organizing Against Violence. In Ptacek, J. Violence Against Women. Oxford University Press
Stop Violence Everyday (2014). Storytelling and Organizing Project. Retrieved April 20, 2014. (http://www.stopviolenceeveryday.org/)
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