Author(s): Madison Shaw, Isabelle Tomita
Mentor(s): Hand, Social Work
The objective for the scoping review and interviews was to understand risk factors for adults with disabilities facing IPV and sexual violence and any barriers they may face, along with any known solutions for addressing these barriers. Two databases were used to search for peer-reviewed articles based on primary data or articles that promoted theory. A thematic analysis was completed to find key themes within the articles. Nine articles were reviewed for the scoping review, resulting in five themes of: (a) vulnerability to victimization, (b) stereotypical perceptions of disabilities, (c) equal treatment and barriers, (d) abuse by perpetrators, and (e) individuality, intersectionality, and multifaceted experiences. The findings indicated a further need for research into the disability community and their experiences with IPV and sexual violence, especially with men, along with establishing better practice by professionals to cater to the unique needs of people with disabilities.
Slide 1: Hi everybody, my name is Madison and my research partner for this project is Ella, and this summer we were part of the Summer Team Impact Project that was researching barriers that certain communities face in Fairfax County when accessing domestic and sexual violence services. The specific community that we chose to focus on was the disability community.
Slide 2: The objective of our research this summer was to better understand why, in the context of sexual and domestic violence, adults with disabilities are targeted more than adults without disabilities, and to employ the use of an integrative social ecological trauma-informed and intersectional framework to better understand the ways they may relate to barriers to prevention, and potential solutions for addressing any identified barriers.
Slide 3: Research has demonstrated an urgent need to understand why adults disabilities experience sexual and domestic violence at a disproportionate rate compared to adults without disabilities, and effective prevention and intervention methods. Nevertheless, to address such demonstrated need, our research focuses on three questions. Number one: what is known about intersecting factors relating to risks for sexual and domestic violence among adults with disabilities? Number two: What may prevent adults with disabilities from seeking sexual and domestic violence services? And, finally, number three: in addition, what is known about solutions for addressing any such identified barriers?
Slide 4: The search criteria for our scoping review included both peer-reviewed and academic articles, gray sources for prevalent data which was mainly on the statistics of people with disabilities and the rates of IPV and sexual violence, along with articles that advance theory about certain risk factors the population faces. Then, our excluded criteria included articles talking about children, articles that were not based on primary research unless they were the gray sources or the articles promoting theory, any articles that talked about other crimes committed against people with disabilities, and any articles that were outdated or talked about disabilities in a harmful way which were mostly seen in some articles from the 80s. We used two databases for our search that are listed on the slide, and the search terms are included in the table. Then, we also used 50 exclusion terms in our search to limit the amount of articles coming up, and most of those words included other countries or words relating to medicine or drug abuse. Then, from this were able to include nine articles in the results section of our manuscript along with multiple others that weren’t peer-reviewed that we used in the introduction, background, and discussion sections.
Slide 5: For the coding process, we used thematic analysis to come up with codes that were taken from either the results, discussion, or conclusion parts of our screened in articles. We came up with 131 codes that were broken down into 15 second cycle codes, and from those 15 codes we created five themes that summarize the main ideas of the articles that are listed on the slide. The first one of vulnerability to victimization was mentioned in every article about how people with disabilities are targeted more for IPV and sexual violence. There’s general risk factors that contribute to this such as isolation, lower socioeconomic status, and being financially dependent. But there’s also more specific ones to the disability community such as having more difficulty leaving a relationship and being viewed as more susceptible by perpetrators. For the second one of stereotypical perceptions, many people view people with disabilities as fully reliant on others or believe the myth that they are seen as undesirable and won’t be a victim of sexual violence. There’s also the issue of people’s behavior that shows ableism with many not realizing that their views or behaviors may be seen as degrading. Another theme identified through the thematic analysis was equal treatment and barriers which focuses on barriers preventing adults with disabilities from accessing adequate and proper care and services. It included general barriers to equal care and services such as one’s economic and employment status as well as things more specific to the disability community such as language and communication barriers, difficulty talking about a perpetrator on who the victim is dependent, and social desirability bias. A fourth prevalent theme that came up during coding was the types of abuse by the perpetrator which focuses on the individual’s relationship with the perpetrator and intimate partner, personal care assistant, non familial person, acquaintance, or friend and the type of abuse experience such as severe abuse, covert abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse. Finally, the last theme that came up during coding was individuality, intersectionality, and multifaceted experiences. Such a theme essentially focuses on autonomy and ableism as well as heterogeneity and disabilities. It also focuses on how the intersectionality between disability and other social statuses such as one’s gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status might make adults with disabilities susceptible to victimization.
Slide 6: The demographics for my three interviews were three females, two of which were middle aged, and one who was older. From these interviews, they all had amazing insight into the disability community from their life experiences, but I included some of their main points on the slide. One topic that was brought up multiple times is how people with disabilities, but more specifically intellectual and developmental disabilities are infantilized by others and seen as childlike, when in reality, they are capable of making their own decisions. This infantilization creates lower societal expectations of people with disabilities instead of recognizing individual strengths. Everybody, including those with disabilities have the right to self-determination which ties in the importance of them being taught how to establish healthy boundaries and understanding that they are not responsible to consistently please people even if it may be an authority figure in their life. One myth that was mentioned in the interviews was the idea sexual violence occurs mostly from strangers and that it also isn’t common in the area of Fairfax. Because of this, better awareness is needed on recognizing the signs of abuse especially for people who work with these vulnerable populations such as people with disabilities.
Slide 7: Thank you so much for watching our presentation. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us.
Slide 2: The objective of our research this summer was to better understand why, in the context of sexual and domestic violence, adults with disabilities are targeted more than adults without disabilities, and to employ the use of an integrative social ecological trauma-informed and intersectional framework to better understand the ways they may relate to barriers to prevention, and potential solutions for addressing any identified barriers.
Slide 3: Research has demonstrated an urgent need to understand why adults disabilities experience sexual and domestic violence at a disproportionate rate compared to adults without disabilities, and effective prevention and intervention methods. Nevertheless, to address such demonstrated need, our research focuses on three questions. Number one: what is known about intersecting factors relating to risks for sexual and domestic violence among adults with disabilities? Number two: What may prevent adults with disabilities from seeking sexual and domestic violence services? And, finally, number three: in addition, what is known about solutions for addressing any such identified barriers?
Slide 4: The search criteria for our scoping review included both peer-reviewed and academic articles, gray sources for prevalent data which was mainly on the statistics of people with disabilities and the rates of IPV and sexual violence, along with articles that advance theory about certain risk factors the population faces. Then, our excluded criteria included articles talking about children, articles that were not based on primary research unless they were the gray sources or the articles promoting theory, any articles that talked about other crimes committed against people with disabilities, and any articles that were outdated or talked about disabilities in a harmful way which were mostly seen in some articles from the 80s. We used two databases for our search that are listed on the slide, and the search terms are included in the table. Then, we also used 50 exclusion terms in our search to limit the amount of articles coming up, and most of those words included other countries or words relating to medicine or drug abuse. Then, from this were able to include nine articles in the results section of our manuscript along with multiple others that weren’t peer-reviewed that we used in the introduction, background, and discussion sections.
Slide 5: For the coding process, we used thematic analysis to come up with codes that were taken from either the results, discussion, or conclusion parts of our screened in articles. We came up with 131 codes that were broken down into 15 second cycle codes, and from those 15 codes we created five themes that summarize the main ideas of the articles that are listed on the slide. The first one of vulnerability to victimization was mentioned in every article about how people with disabilities are targeted more for IPV and sexual violence. There’s general risk factors that contribute to this such as isolation, lower socioeconomic status, and being financially dependent. But there’s also more specific ones to the disability community such as having more difficulty leaving a relationship and being viewed as more susceptible by perpetrators. For the second one of stereotypical perceptions, many people view people with disabilities as fully reliant on others or believe the myth that they are seen as undesirable and won’t be a victim of sexual violence. There’s also the issue of people’s behavior that shows ableism with many not realizing that their views or behaviors may be seen as degrading. Another theme identified through the thematic analysis was equal treatment and barriers which focuses on barriers preventing adults with disabilities from accessing adequate and proper care and services. It included general barriers to equal care and services such as one’s economic and employment status as well as things more specific to the disability community such as language and communication barriers, difficulty talking about a perpetrator on who the victim is dependent, and social desirability bias. A fourth prevalent theme that came up during coding was the types of abuse by the perpetrator which focuses on the individual’s relationship with the perpetrator and intimate partner, personal care assistant, non familial person, acquaintance, or friend and the type of abuse experience such as severe abuse, covert abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse. Finally, the last theme that came up during coding was individuality, intersectionality, and multifaceted experiences. Such a theme essentially focuses on autonomy and ableism as well as heterogeneity and disabilities. It also focuses on how the intersectionality between disability and other social statuses such as one’s gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status might make adults with disabilities susceptible to victimization.
Slide 6: The demographics for my three interviews were three females, two of which were middle aged, and one who was older. From these interviews, they all had amazing insight into the disability community from their life experiences, but I included some of their main points on the slide. One topic that was brought up multiple times is how people with disabilities, but more specifically intellectual and developmental disabilities are infantilized by others and seen as childlike, when in reality, they are capable of making their own decisions. This infantilization creates lower societal expectations of people with disabilities instead of recognizing individual strengths. Everybody, including those with disabilities have the right to self-determination which ties in the importance of them being taught how to establish healthy boundaries and understanding that they are not responsible to consistently please people even if it may be an authority figure in their life. One myth that was mentioned in the interviews was the idea sexual violence occurs mostly from strangers and that it also isn’t common in the area of Fairfax. Because of this, better awareness is needed on recognizing the signs of abuse especially for people who work with these vulnerable populations such as people with disabilities.
Slide 7: Thank you so much for watching our presentation. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us.
2 replies on “Summer Team Impact Project”
Thank you both for choosing such an important topic! It’s vital to establish how some of the misconceptions about people with disabilities make them more vulnerable to experiencing violence or abuse. Do you know how Fairfax County services plan to evaluate and use the results from this project- outreach, trainings, etc.?
Congratulations, Madison and Isabelle! The presentation is well structured. Your research demonstrates the urgent need to understand what adults with disabilities experience in the context of sexual and domestic violence. With the essential findings from your interview, are you interested in continuing your project to explore more collaborative ideas on prevention and intervention efforts?