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Agencies detail strategies for handling abuse

Nov 25, 2009 | Andy Steinke | Dells Events

During a panel discussion at Holy Cross Episcopal and United Methodist Church, five local authorities on domestic violence talked about how the violence affects people of all ages.

During the South Central Wisconsin Christian Faith Communities Forum on Domestic Violence Sept. 29, Lake Delton Police Officer Shawn Posewitz, Divine Savior Hospital Emergency Room Director Lori Barto, Westfield School District Social Worker Denise Hank, Adams County Aging Department Director Carol Johnson and Hope House Program Manager LaShawna Vick stressed communication when dealing with domestic violence cases.

Posewitz described the department's procedure for handling these calls, and said state statutes make it easy for officers by eliminating officer discretion.

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He said officers separate the parties involved in a domestic disturbance to get each side's re-telling of what happened. Once that is complete, an officer decides who the predominant aggressor was - not necessarily who started the fight - and arrests them.

At that time, the victim can enact a temporary, 72-hour restraining order against the aggressor.

A man at the forum asked Posewitz what kind of training officers go through to handle domestic cases.

Posewitz said it starts with Wisconsin Department of Training and Standards certification, which every officer needs to become an officer, and said officers take a yearly in-service day for more training.

But the key is, "You have to have a good sense of empathy to figure out what happened, and you can't train that," he said.

Barto said the law mandates some of the actions she takes, too. The hospital must report child and elder abuse, ATV accidents and dog bites, she said.

Detecting and reporting domestic abuse is more difficult, however. These situations are "often uncomfortable for nurses because we are fixers," she said.

The hospital is training the nurses in domestic violence, especially in how to ask the right questions of potential victims.

One red flag, she said nurses look for is how the person accompanying the victim acts. If the person won't leave the victim for one second, not even for procedures like x-rays, then that could be a sign of an abuser.

Hank, as she was preparing for the panel, said she tried to come up with defining characteristics of children who have been abused.

She shared her list, which included apathy, fright, confusion, avoidance and attention-seeking, and determined, "This describes the typical teenager."

The key with children is communication and trust, she said. "If they know they can trust you, they will come and talk to you eventually."

She told a story about a girl who she talked to for more than six months, sometimes at length, sometimes with a passing, "Hi." And then, last fall, "She came in and told me her life story, and it was one of the worst stories I've ever heard. It taught me the importance of keeping contact."

At that point, she said her job was to learn the who, what, where and when about the situation, and if there were any witnesses. She said it was law enforcement's job to figure out the why.

Johnson deals with domestic violence in people older than 60 years old and said there is no one, overwhelming place that she receives calls from. She said she has been tracking her calls for the last five years and they come from pastors, hospitals, assisted living homes, concerned grandchildren and more.

Her job is sometimes difficult because of how lifestyles have changed over the years. She told of an 84-year-old who said she had been abused by her husband for 50 years, because when she was married, the national frame-of-mind was, "the man was the boss."

Vick said her mind frame is simple, "It's our philosophy that no matter what a woman chooses, to go back or not (to her abuser), we are there for them."

But if a victim, which at the Hope House are generally women and children, decides to return to her abuser, the Hope House advocates ready a safety plan for the woman.