Abstract
Interpersonal violence, especially domestic violence, increased at least three times during the first 2 years into the pandemic. High stress already existed in these homes, and fears of death from an unknown virus only escalated the danger. Most psychologists were not trained to work with battered women and other trauma victim/survivors. About 20 of the original 90 who volunteered to participate with Charles Figley’s Task Force on COVID joined the Interpersonal Violence (IPV) and began looking for ways to help mental health professionals help their clients/patients reduce stress to lower the risk of violence. In this chapter we describe some of the innovative ways we provided the necessary support and taught new skills through the use of social media. For battered women we had to find ways to help without relying on the police, courts, or shelters which were closed. When the race riots erupted after the George Floyd murder, we adapted our skills to assist there. Technology helped us reach those in other countries as well as in the USA as we posted ways to deal with the pandemic. We were able to produce weekly roundtables viewed by as many as 600 in some weeks. A novel format was used whereby topics were introduced by one or two members with expertise and then the rest of the experts discussed how they handled them. Viewers were able to join in through Facebook at that time or view the hour-long presentations later. Diversity was interwoven throughout the presentations including cultural issues raised by the global participants.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Pandemic Providers |
Subtitle of host publication | Psychologists Respond to Covid |
Publisher | Springer International Publishing |
Pages | 37-50 |
Number of pages | 14 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9783031275807 |
ISBN (Print) | 9783031275791 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Jan 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.
Keywords
- Culture
- Domestic violence
- Global
- Interpersonal violence
- Roundtable
- Social media
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Psychology