How to Help With Domestic Violence in Your Community
Reporting acts of violence is often the first step in helping your community deal with domestic violence. Do your part by making an effort to understand and recognize the cycle of violence. By raising your level of awareness and the awareness of the community, you can help change public perception of masculinity and promote non-violent ways to express authority and settle conflicts. Reach out to the community to share in organizational activities to increase awareness and accountability for battered women.
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Instructions
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Remind all citizens and victims that domestic violence is illegal and not a private matter. The best way to help with domestic violence in your community is to report acts of violence.
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Recognize the cycle of violence. Domestic violence organizations attempt to teach communities to recognize the cycle of violence. This cycle has four phases: incident, tension building, making-up and calm. Once the cycle has gone through all four phases, it begins again. An abusive incident, whatever the form, is the initiating incident. This is followed by anger, more abuse, lack of communication and attempts by the abused victim to keep the abuser calm. This leads to the make-up stage, when the abuser is apologetic, blames the victim for the abusive actions or even denies that any abuse took place. In the final phase, the victim hopes that the violence is over and the abuser often behaves like the abuse never took place.
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Raise your personal level of awareness -- about steps to take to change public perception of domestic violence -- and share this with the community. In a 2000 report (see Resources), writers presented steps toward a moral community, one of which addressed masculinity and public perception of masculinity. Being selective about movies, television programs and other media is a way to share in this community awareness. Share also in the effort to understand and promote nonviolent methods and expressions of authority and settling conflicts.
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Reach out to the community. Educate the community by investigating domestic violence agencies or organizations in your area and sharing the information you find. Some communities have organizations that arrange for work groups to deal with different tasks related to domestic violence issues. Such tasks might include researching legal issues, finding adequate places to shelter abused women or services to help battered women to recover from domestic abuse. Intervention programs work with the legal system to increase accountability for justice for battered women to see that charges against abusers are taken seriously.
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References
Resources
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