Florida Department of Children and Families: Domestic Violence
The mission of the Florida Department’s Domestic Violence Program is to contribute to creating the safe environments for the victims of domestic violence while focusing on building the partnership relations with different community’s organizations in order to guarantee the provision of the services as a system (Florida Department of Children and Families, 2014).
The program works to provide a range of services for the adult victims of domestic violence. The proposed services also include assistance for children. The program offers such services as the day-and-night support and hotline for the victims of domestic violence and different types of crisis intervention services.
Those persons who need the emergency shelter, as well as daycare, can receive support in the crisis centers. The next stage is counseling and case management. The program’s professionals also work in the field of education, life skills training, and provision of legal assistance (Florida Department of Children and Families, 2014).
The provided information is significant for health care workers because they can cooperate with the centers and receive updated information about the issue and rates of domestic violence within the definite community.
Florida Department of Children and Families works with many centers and organizations to overcome the problem of domestic violence, and health care workers should orient in the sphere of assistance provided for victims of domestic violence while basing on the facts presented by the centers (Florida Department of Children and Families, 2014).
Health care workers should improve their approaches to working with victims of domestic violence while proposing the medical and psychological care with references to the information received in the discussed centers.
CDC- Preventing Violence: Intimate Partner Violence: Definitions
The intimate partner violence can be discussed as the situation of doing harm by one of the partners in relation to the other one. The definitions which are important to be mentioned in relation to intimate partner violence describe the violence types, and they are physical violence, sexual violence, threats of physical and sexual violence, and psychological violence.
Referring to the definition of physical violence, it is important to note that this type of violence is associated with causing harm and physical injury of different intensity. That is why, all the situations of using the physical force against the other partner can be discussed as the physical violence (CDC- Preventing Violence, 2013).
Sexual violence is observed when the partner uses physical force to realize the intention without paying attention to the person’s will; when the partner involves the other person in the sexual act without his or her understanding of the situation; when the sexual contact is abusive for the partner.
Threats of violence include words and violent activities to demonstrate the desire to cause them physical harm. Psychological violence is observed when the victim is abused emotionally, prevented from doing something or from satisfying basic needs. The victim can be humiliated and embarrassed, and the signs of the psychological trauma are observed (CDC- Preventing Violence, 2013).
The discussed definitions are significant because they provide the formulation of the behaviors and activities which can be considered as the types of intimate partner violence. The proposed definitions can be used to monitor the change of the situation within the sphere and to control the development of the trends associated with the issue of intimate partner violence.
These definitions are also important to affect the development of the prevention and intervention strategies to cope with the cases of domestic violence (CDC- Preventing Violence, 2013).
Florida’s Statute for Reporting Abuse
Florida Statute 39.201 can be discussed as relevant in relation to health care workers because they can play a significant role in reporting the situations of abusing, neglecting, and abandoning children. The statute provides the guidelines on how to report on the situations when the fact of abusing the child is known or suspected.
While reporting on the problem, health care workers should state their names in the conversation with the hotline staff representatives. This fact allows discussing the credibility of the received information in spite of the fact that all the reports should be checked by the department, and the concrete guidelines should be sent to the county’s sheriffs in the cases determined in the statute (Florida’s Statute for Reporting Abuse, 2014).
The discussed statute is closely associated with the activities of the health care workers because the procedures described in it can be effectively used to decrease the future potential risks of abusing and neglecting children. Much attention should be paid to the fact that all the categories of children, as well as offenders, are discussed in the statute, and health care workers should report on the age of the victim and offender while providing the information to the hotline staff (Florida’s Statute for Reporting Abuse, 2014).
All the information provided by qualified health care workers is necessary to conduct the effective investigations with references to the facts and data provided in the reports.
References
CDC- Preventing Violence: Intimate Partner Violence: Definitions. (2013). Web.
Florida Department of Children and Families: Domestic Violence. (2014). Web.
Florida’s Statute for Reporting Abuse. (2014). Web.