A letter from our Safe and Stable Families Director, Jamie Perez.

For many years, our Domestic Violence Program has been the flagship program of the Safe & Stable Families Project.

Housed primarily in the Safe Families Office in the Fulton County Courthouse, the program provides survivors support and advocacy through the temporary protective order (TPO) process. This means access to social workers and legal advice and representation in their TPO and related family law matters.

This isn’t a change in terms of the program’s operation, but it is a big change in the way we talk about this issue.

Those of you familiar with the program may have started to notice a shift in the way we’ve been talking about it lately. We’re now referring to it as our Intimate Partner Abuse (IPA) Program—a shift that allows us to talk about abuse in a broader sense.

This isn’t a change in terms of the program’s operation, but it is a big change in the way we talk about this issue.

The term ‘domestic violence’ evokes a very specific image: that of someone being physically attacked by an intimate partner. When we hear ‘domestic violence’, we think first and foremost of a physical attack. But violence and abuse can go far beyond a physical altercation.

The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) defines domestic violence as a pattern of coercive, controlling behavior, which can include physical abuse, emotional or psychological abuse, sexual abuse, or financial abuse.

[Recommended reading: What It Feel Like to Date Someone Who Only Wants to Control You]

Many survivors of abuse don’t consider themselves to be victims of domestic violence because they aren’t being physically harmed. By using the phrase “intimate partner abuse” instead of “domestic violence” to refer to the behavior included in the definition above, we hope to convey the multidimensional nature of abusive behavior. We’ll be using this term in all of our communications from now on.

 By using the phrase “intimate partner abuse” instead of “domestic violence”, we hope to convey the multidimensional nature of abusive behavior.

It’s worth noting that not every form of abuse warrants a protective order. But patterns of coercion and control are often an extremely dangerous dynamic, and taking the warning signs seriously can be lifesaving.

We want to speak more openly about the breadth of behaviors that constitute abuse, starting by changing the way to refer to it. In turn, we hope that survivors and other members of the community will be able to recognize that non-physical behaviors, such as berating, name-calling, shouting, demeaning, controlling, threatening, and other similar actions are in fact abusive and are not okay.

We hope that by opening up the conversation, survivors know their concerns are absolutely valid, and that we’re here to help every step of the way.

Sincerely,

Want to read other Letters From Leadership? They are an easy way to find out what drives us here at AVLF. You can find them all here.