The “Break U.P.” campaign is a resilience-building program targeting women aged 19-34 years old living in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.) vulnerable to or affected by intimate partner violence. Intimate partner violence (IPV) refers to aggressive or abusive behaviors that are perpetrated within the context of a romantic or sexual relationship (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2021). IPV includes physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and psychological aggression or intimidation (CDC, 2021). The unfortunate reality is that IPV is common and affects millions of Americans each year (CDC, 2021; Smith et al., 2015); thirty-three percent of women and 10% of men report lifetime IPV (Smith et al., 2015). IPV is a critical public health problem with lasting and costly effects: psychological and somatic conditions, many of which are chronic and debilitating; higher risk for at-risk behaviors such as substance abuse and high-risk sex; and a lifetime economic cost totaling over $3.6 trillion due to injuries, lost productivity from work, and costs in criminal justice (CDC, 2021).
In the state of Michigan, IPV disproportionately impacts girls and women compared to boys and men, with 21% of women reporting lifetime IPV (Michigan Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Steering Committee [MDSVPSC], n.d.). Populations between the ages of 15-34 years old showed greatest prevalence of IPV (MDSVPSC, n.d.). Notwithstanding, under-reporting of violence at the hands of past and current partners does make quantifying and characterizing this public health issue a challenge (MDSVPSC, n.d.; CDC, 2021). According to Peek-Asa et al. (2011), women living in rural and isolated areas have reported higher prevalence of IPV compared to women living in urban areas. This disparity is exacerbated by poor access to IPV resources (Peek-Asa et al., 2011).
Utilizing the CDC’s Social-Ecological Model (2022), the "Break U.P." campaign is a multi-level resilience-building intervention targeting survivors of IPV. It is the goal of this campaign to provide rural women education and resources in identifying, preventing, and healing from intimate partner violence; it is explicitly not this campaign’s goal to convey shame-based or stigmatizing advice. Campaign messages will bring to the forefront themes around awareness of abusive relationship dynamics, stereotypical beliefs about victims and perpetrators, and internalized social scripts about relationships (Storer et al., 2021). This will impact the target population at the individual level. At the relationship level, the intervention will provide family-centered prevention programs to prevent the negative effects of inter-generational trauma and cyclic violence. Peer programs will be utilized as well to promote social engagement and cohesion. At the community level there will be advocacy for improved access to IPV resources through churches and schools, with churches being the access point for program materials and training. The decision to recruit churches as a point of access for this campaign was supported by literature review; Youngson et al. (2021) highlighted the importance of rural cultural values in contributing to susceptibility to intimate partner violence among rural women. Values such as religiosity and patriarchy are intimately tied to church organizational beliefs and may impact women of faith within their congregations, suggesting these women may be more vulnerable to intimate partner violence or its antecedents. As such, engagement from churches and its prominent stakeholders is imperative for campaign implementation. At the societal level, this intervention will include promoting protective societal norms, greater educational and employment opportunities, and more equitable access to valuable healthcare resources. In Bakaitytė et al. (2021), it was suggested that access to psychological resources is a critical ingredient for post-traumatic recovery and growth among IPV survivors. However, there is a shortage of psychiatric resources available to women in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and, according to Bernson and colleagues (2021), primary care providers report feeling unequipped and under resourced in meeting the mental health needs of this population; these findings suggest that a resilience-building program targeting women IPV survivors in the Upper Peninsula needs to address issues of access and limited resources. As such, it is this program’s aim to partner with local churches and high schools throughout the Upper Peninsula to not only equip women with resilience-building strategies for surviving IPV, but to mobilize and advocate for expansion of resources to mental health services and critical access services.
References:
Bakaitytė, A., Kaniušonytė, G., & Žukauskienė, R. (2021). Posttraumatic Growth, Centrality of Event, Trauma Symptoms and Resilience: Profiles of Women Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence. Journal of interpersonal violence, 8862605211050110. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605211050110
Bernson, J., Hedderich, P., & Wendling, A. L. (2021). Examining Access to Psychiatric Care in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. PRiMER (Leawood, Kan.), 5, 44. https://doi.org/10.22454/PRiMER.2021.501713
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Intimate partner violence: fast facts. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cdc.gov/violencepr...olence/fastfact.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2022). The Social-Ecological Model. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.cdc.gov/violencepr...ecologicalmodel.html
Michigan Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention Steering Committee. (n.d.) Preventing Intimate and Sexual Violence in Michigan 2010-2015. https://www.michigan.gov/-/med...418b96500a776294070e
Peek-Asa, C., Wallis, A., Harland, K., Beyer, K., Dickey, P., & Saftlas, A. (2011). Rural disparity in domestic violence prevalence and access to resources. Journal of women's health (2002), 20(11), 1743–1749. https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2011.2891
Rollero, C., & Speranza, F. (2020). Intimate Partner Violence and Resilience: The Experience of Women in Mother-Child Assisted Living Centers. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(22), 8318. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17228318
Smith, S. G., Zhang, X., Basile, K. C. (2015). National intimate partner and sexual violence survey (NISVS): 2015 Data Brief. https://www.cdc.gov/violencepr...015data-brief508.pdf
Storer, H. L., Rodriguez, M., & Franklin, R. (2021). "Leaving Was a Process, Not an Event": The Lived Experience of Dating and Domestic Violence in 140 Characters. Journal of interpersonal violence, 36(11-12), NP6553–NP6580. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605188163250. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-021-00248-7
Youngson, N., Saxton, M., Jaffe, P. G., Chiodo, D., Dawson, M., & Straatman, A. L. (2021). Challenges in Risk Assessment with Rural Domestic Violence Victims: Implications for Practice. Journal of family violence, 36(5), 537–55
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