Multi-agency collaboration against domestic violence: Learning from a 10-year effort

Robert Lincoln

doi:10.7273/000005916

This dissertation concerning the Spokane Regional Domestic Violence Team is an attempt to address the broad question regarding the use of collaborative processes to address wicked social problems. Can the specialized domestic violence team that putatively emphasizes active collaboration between law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, criminal victim advocates, and treatment providers be successfully implemented, endure, and change the process through which the wicked problem of domestic violence is addressed and cases of criminal offense are adjudicated? Between 1997 and the initiation of this study, the SRDVT's membership has been reconstituted a number of times. This study seeks to capture many perspectives of the coalition and its history by, in part, interviewing all of the present members and as many of the past members as possible of the various member organizations. Special attention has been given to the roles adopted by each of the participating agencies and the character of their relationships over time within the context of the SRDVT collaborative process. The aim of the study is to identify and document lessons learned from this case study with broader applicability to collaborating in anti-domestic violence consortiums generally. This study used the analytical model developed out of the Kellogg Foundation efforts to learn how empowerment, social ties, and synergy, when considered together, form a critical core set of proximal outcomes in the context of the SRDVT's long-term collaborative partnerships. Prior to the development of this experience-based ideal type model, neither the characteristics of the collaborative process nor the leadership and management practices that undergird these characteristics had been studied in relation to the SRDVT. The study used data from a survey administered to approximately 40 past and present members of the Spokane Regional Domestic Violence Team. The population receiving the survey consisted of the policy board members, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and community-based victim advocates. Unlike the majority of evaluations done on collaborative partnerships, which have focused primarily on their impact upon immediate manifest goals, the intent of this survey was to focus on the impact of the collaborative process in achieving those goals. The survey instrument developed on the basis of the experience of the Kellogg Foundation-funded public health collaborative partnerships is designed to measure the processes that achieve three proximal outcomes: individual empowerment, bridging social ties, and synergy.

Multi-agency collaboration against domestic violence: Learning from a 10-year effort

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