How can communities help families unlearn negative patterns and replace violent relationships with healthy ones?
If interventions focus only on the primary abuser, especially as dysfunctional interaction becomes entrenched, there is little chance of preventing the abuse cycle. A key reason is that dysfunctional families tend to interact minimally with their community. Yet parents, children and extended family, as well as the surrounding community, all have a part in the healing and prevention cycle—not only in the detection and prevention of current abuse, but also with an eye toward strengthening the social fabric that contributes to the mental and physical health of future generations. The levels of violent family dysfunction reported by global agencies suggest a need to address families and communities as a whole with the aim of restoring secure attachments, functional relationships, and family and community resilience. This is often attempted through family training and support programs (such as improving new-parent competence), school-based programs, and community awareness campaigns—including those increasingly being implemented in the workplace.
Barnett, Miller-Perrin and Perrin of Pepperdine remark on the irony that “a teenager cannot legally drive an automobile without first receiving appropriate training and passing a test to obtain a license, but the same teenager can become a parent without any interference from the state. No doubt it has to be this way,” they acknowledge, “but the fact remains that many who assume the role of parent are not adequately prepared to do so.”
For this reason, and because it is in adolescence that children tend to form their first “real” intimate ties, many scholars strongly support school-based programs for teaching the importance of nonviolent relationships.
And while home-based programs tend to address child abuse more