Top

BMC Women's Health

Published in:

Open Access 01-12-2023 | COVID-19 | Research

“Our services are not the same”: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on care interactions in women’s shelters

Authors: Caitlin Burd, Isobel McLean, Jennifer C. D. MacGregor, Tara Mantler, Jill Veenendaal, C. Nadine Wathen

Published in: BMC Women's Health | Issue 1/2023

Abstract

Background

Guidelines and regulations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly impacted the health care sector. We explore these impacts in the gender-based violence (GBV) services sector and, more specifically, in the context of women’s shelters.

Methods

Using an interpretive description and integrated knowledge mobilization approach, we interviewed 8 women’s shelter clients, 26 staff, and conducted focus groups with 24 Executive Directors.

Results

We found that pandemic responses challenged longstanding values that guide work in women’s shelters, specifically feminist and anti-oppressive practices. Physical distancing, masking, and closure of communal spaces intended to slow or stop the spread of the novel coronavirus created barriers to the provision of care, made it difficult to maintain or create positive connections with and among women and children, and re-traumatized some women and children. Despite these challenges, staff and leaders were creative in their attempts to provide quality care, though these efforts, including workarounds, were not without their own challenges.

Conclusions

This research highlights the need to tailor crisis response to sector-specific realities that support service values and standards of care.

United Nations. COVID-19 global gender response tracker: global fact sheet version 3. 2021. https://data.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/documents/Publications/Global%20Factsheet_Version%20203_Nov%202021_final.pdf. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

UN Women. Measuring the shadow pandemic: violence against women during COVID-19 [Internet]. New York: UN Women. ; 2021. https://data.unwomen.org/publications/vaw-rga. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

Bacchus LJ, Ranganathan M, Watts C, Devries K. Recent intimate partner violence against women and health: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies. BMJ Open. 2018;8:e019995. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019995.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Wood L, Baumler E, Voth Schrag R, Guillot-Wright S, Hairston D, Temple J, Torres E. Don’t know where to go for help”: safety and economic needs among violence survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic. J Fam Violence. 2021;37:959–67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-020-00240-7.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Peterman A, Potts A, O’Donnell M, Thompson K, Shah N, Oertelt-Prigione S, van Gelder N. Pandemics and violence against women and children. CGD Working Paper 528. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development; 2020. https://cgdev.org/sites/default/files/pandemics-and-vawg-april2.pdf. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

Roesch E, Amin A, Gupta J, Garcia-Moreno C. Violence against women during covid-19 pandemic restrictions. BMJ. 2020;369:m1712. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1712.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Trudell AL, Whitmore E. Pandemic meets pandemic: understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on gender-based violence services and survivors in Canada. Ottawa and London, ON: Ending Violence Association of Canada and Anova; 2020. http://www.anovafuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Full-Report.pdf. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

Kaukinen C. When stay-at-home orders leave victims unsafe at home: exploring the risk and consequences of intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. Am J Crim Justice. 2020;45:668–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09533-5.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

MacGregor JCD, Burd C, Mantler T, McLean I, Veenendaal J, Rodger S, Wathen CN, the Violence Against Women Services in a Pandemic Research Team. Experiences of women accessing outreach services in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic: a brief report. J Fam Viol. 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-022-00398-2.CrossRef

10.

Viero A, Barbara G, Montisci M, Kustermann K, Cattaneo C. Violence against women in the Covid-19 pandemic: a review of the literature and a call for shared strategies to tackle health and social emergencies. Forensic Sci Int. 2021;319:110650. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2020.110650.CrossRefPubMed

11.

Women’s Shelters Canada. Special issue: the impact of COVID-19 on VAW shelters and transition houses. In: Shelter Voices. Women’s Shelters Canada. 2020 Nov. http://endvaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Shelter-Voices-2020-2.pdf. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

12.

Bucerius SM, Roberts BWR, Jones DJ. The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on domestic violence and child abuse. J Community Saf Well Being. 2021;6(2):75–9. https://doi.org/10.35502/jcswb.204.CrossRef

13.

Carrington K, Morley C, Warren S, Harris B, Vitis L, Ball M, Clarke J, Ryan J. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on domestic and family violence services and clients: QUT Centre for Justice research report. Brisbane, AUS: QUT Centre for Justice; 2020. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/206624/1/72848410.pdf. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

14.

Burnett C, Ford-Gilboe M, Berman H, Ward-Griffin C, Wathen CN. The day to day reality of delivering shelter services to women in the context of system and policy demands. J Soc Serv Res. 2016;42(4):1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/01488376.2016.1153562.CrossRef

15.

Williams EE, Arant KR, Leifer VP, Balcom MC, Levy-Carrick NC, Lewis-O’Connor A, Katz JN. Provider perspectives on the provision of safe, equitable, trauma-informed care for intimate partner violence survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study. BMC Women’s Health. 2021;21(315):1–11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-021-01460-9.CrossRef

16.

Eaton AA, Stephens DP, Ruvalcaba Y, Banks J. Sundari Foundation Inc. A culture of care: how Lotus House Women’s Shelter heals program participants through genuineness, space, high expectations, dignity, individualized attention, and community. J Community Psychol. 2021;50:1793–815. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22579.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

17.

Ontario Shelter Research Project. An evaluation of shelters as service navigation hubs for abused women. Ontario, CA: Ontario Trillium Foundation. ; 2012. https://www.fims.uwo.ca/docs/default-source/fims-homepage-and-grad-bulletin-documents/ontario_shelter_study.pdf. Accessed 25 Aug 2022.

18.

Bowstead JC. Spaces of safety and more-than-safety in women’s refuges in England. Gend Place Cult. 2019;26(1):75–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1541871.CrossRef

19.

Rutledge K. Rules, restrictions and resident empowerment in domestic violence shelter design: an exploration and response [master’s thesis on the internet]. Florida: Florida State University; 2015. https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu%3A253132. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

20.

Rutledge K. Victims of domestic violence experiencing homelessness: Their perceptions and needs influencing architectural support. Tallahassee: Design Resources for Homelessness An Online Knowledge Solution; 2017. http://designresourcesforhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/FINAL1-VDV_8_2017.pdf. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

21.

McLean I, Wathen CN, The Violence Against Women Services in a Pandemic Research Team. Planning shelter service spaces and structures for resilience: a spatial analysis of women’s shelters during COVID-19. Int J Homelessness. 2021;2(1):1–12. https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/ijoh/article/view/13627/11562.CrossRef

22.

Mantler T, Veenendaal J, Wathen CN. Exploring the use of hotels as alternative housing by domestic violence shelters during COVID-19. Int J Homelessness. 2021;1(1):32–49. https://doi.org/10.5206/ijoh.2021.1.13642.CrossRef

23.

Quinlan A, Singh R. COVID-19 and the paradox of visibility: domestic violence and feminist caring labor in canadian shelters. Fem Stud. 2020;46(3):572–82. https://doi.org/10.1353/fem.2020.0018.CrossRef

24.

Harris RM, Wathen CN, Lynch R. Assessing performance in shelters for abused women: can ‘caring citizenship’ be measured in ‘value for money’ accountability regimes? Int J of Public Admin. 2014;37(11):737–46.CrossRef

25.

Sevenhuijsen S. The place of care: the relevance of the feminist ethic of care for social policy. Fem Theory. 2003;4(2):179–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/14647001030042006.CrossRef

26.

Kidd A. Therapists facing masks: a qualitative study of the nature of relationships between masks and relational depth. Couns Psychother Res. 2022;1–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/capr.12517.

27.

Ravi KE, Rai A, Voth Schrag R. Survivors’ experiences of intimate partner violence and shelter utilization during COVID-19. J Fam Violence. 2021;37:979–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-021-00300-6.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

28.

Wathen CN, Burd C, MacGregor JCD, Veenendaal J, McLean I, Mantler T, The Violence Against Women Services in a Pandemic Research Team. We’re so limited with what we actually can do if we follow all the rules”: a qualitative study of the impact of COVID-19 public health protocols on violence against women services. BMC Public Health. 2022;22(1175):1–14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13550-w.CrossRef

29.

Wathen CN, Mantler T. Trauma- and violence-informed care: orienting intimate partner violence interventions to equity. Curr Epidemiol Rep. 2022;9:233–44. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40471-022-00307-7.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

30.

Tseng E, Freed D, Engel K, Ristenpart T, Dell N. A digital safety dilemma: analysis of computer-mediated computer security interventions for intimate partner violence during COVID-19. In: CHI ‘21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems; 2021 May 8–13; Yokohama, Japan. New York, NY, USA: ACM; 2021. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445589.

31.

Garcia R, Henderson C, Randell K, Villaveces A, Katz A, Abioye F, et al. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on intimate partner violence advocates and agencies. J Fam Violence. 2021;37(6):893–906. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-021-00337-7.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

32.

Burd C, MacGregor JCD, Ford-Gilboe M, Mantler T, McLean I, Veenendaal J, Wathen CN, the Violence Against Women Services in a Pandemic Research Team. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on staff in violence against women services. Violence Against Women. 2022;1–23. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012221117595.

33.

Thorne S. Interpretive description: qualitative research for applied practice. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge; 2016.CrossRef

34.

Thorne S, Kirkham SR, Flynn-Magee KO. The analytic challenge in interpretive description. Int J Qual Methods. 2004;3(1):1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690400300101.CrossRef

35.

Kothari A, Wathen CN. A critical second look at integrated knowledge translation. Health Policy. 2013;109:189–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2012.11.004.CrossRef

36.

Kothari A, Wathen CN. Integrated knowledge translation: digging deeper, moving forward. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2017;71:619–23. https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2016-208490.CrossRefPubMed

37.

Quirkos 2.4.1 [computer software]. 2020. https://www.quirkos.com/.

38.

Goodman LA, Fauci JE, Sullivan CM, DiGiovanni CD, Wilson JM. Domestic violence survivors’ empowerment and mental health: exploring the role of alliance with advocates. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2016;86(3):286–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000137.CrossRefPubMed

39.

Goodhand M. Runaway wives and rogue feminists: the origins of the women’s shelter movement in Canada. Toronto: Fernwood; 2017.

40.

Wathen CN, Harris RM, Ford-Gilboe M, Hansen M, for the Ontario Shelter Research Project. What counts? A mixed-methods study to inform evaluation of shelters for abused women. Violence Against Women. 2015;21(1):125–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801214564077.CrossRefPubMed

41.

Mantler T, Wathen CN, Burd C, MacGregor JCD, McLean I, Veenendaal J, The Violence Against Women Services in a Pandemic Research Team. Navigating multiple pandemics: a critical analysis of the impact of COVID-19 policy responses on gender-based violence services. Crit Soc Policy. 2022;1–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/02610183221088461.

42.

Violence Against Women Services in a Pandemic. Gender, trauma & violence knowledge incubator @Western. 2022. https://gtvincubator.uwo.ca/vawservicespandemic/. Accessed 5 Jul 2022.

Title: “Our services are not the same”: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on care interactions in women’s shelters
Authors: Caitlin Burd
Isobel McLean
Jennifer C. D. MacGregor
Tara Mantler
Jill Veenendaal
C. Nadine Wathen
Publication date: 01-12-2023
Publisher: BioMed Central
Keywords: COVID-19
Care
Public Health
Published in: BMC Women's Health / Issue 1/2023
Electronic ISSN: 1472-6874
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-023-02541-7

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

Springer Medicine

“Our services are not the same”: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on care interactions in women’s shelters

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 1/2023

Patients with endometriosis may experience worse clinical manifestations and therapeutic outcomes during COVID-19 in western China- a case series comparative analysis

The long non-coding RNA BBOX1 antisense RNA 1 is upregulated in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and suppresses the role of microRNA-19b in the proliferation of ovarian granulose cells

Gender differences in the acceptance of wife-beating: evidence from 30 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

Clinical analysis of 312 patients with stage IB1-IIA2 cervical squamous cell carcinoma and research on the influencing factors of postoperative recurrence

“I stretch them out as long as possible:” U.S. women’s experiences of menstrual product insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic

Household food insecurity, family size and their interactions on depression prevalence among teenage pregnant girls in Ghana, a population based cluster survey