Lead by dedicated clinical professors and staff from both the law school and medical center, DVI at BMC has evolved from an experimental research-inspired initiative to a well-organized interdisciplinary training and services program.
DVI faculty and staff select a cadre of new student advocates from a large pool of applicants. DVI instructors train these students to work in teams lead by a more experienced advocate, typically an upper-level law student. Teams are placed in the Emergency Department from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday night each week. Students attempt to interview all women admitted to BMC's emergency department regarding their experiences and opinions related to domestic violence and sexual assault. The project presents a unique opportunity for participants to strengthen their interviewing, analytic and writing skills, to learn and practice the client-empowerment model of advocacy, and understand the social context of domestic violence.
Interviews are used to educate participating students and improve the selection, design and delivery of BMC/DVP advocacy services. It also serves to inform the larger domestic violence victim services community. From an educational perspective, the project has two major components. First, it provides our students with training in interviewing, in a context in which there is no immediate need, in most cases, to use the information in a legal setting. This more "open-ended" listening is a skill we seek to develop through all of our clinical opportunities, but the hospital--particularly during evening hours when most other direct services are not available--provides an ideal training ground.
The other educational aspect of the program is the inevitable "cross-training" that occurs when legal and medical professionals work together. As lawyers and lawyers-in-training, domestic violence advocates learn how the emergency departments are managed, how responsibility for patients is assigned, and how medical records are developed. This information proves valuable when the advocate later has direct service responsibility for a client who has been admitted to a hospital on one or more occasions with battering injuries. They also learn about other medical resources available to battered women. The medical staff, on the other hand, have their training in the dynamics of domestic violence reinforced by their contact with legal advocates, and learn more about the legal resources available to battered women. They also learn how to record reported or suspected abuse in the medical record, in a fashion that will make it useful in any subsequent legal proceeding.
The project provides community-based abuse prevention legal advocacy services to domestic violence victims identified in the hospital. Depending on the client's preference, Clients are identified by pre-hospital and hospital medical providers and referred to our project for immediate or follow-up consultation. If a woman comes to the hospital with abuse-related injuries, or otherwise acknowledges that she is in an abusive relationship and would like support, the team leader for the night will work with her team of less experienced students to provide whatever immediate assistance is necessary. Immediate assistance may include safety planning, working with police to effect an arrest of the abuser or to obtain an emergency restraining order, finding her a shelter bed if she is to be discharged from the hospital, and working with medical staff to make sure her medical record documents her abuse. If the patient/client wishes to pursue legal protections or redress, her case will be transferred to the advocacy program at the law school for follow-up. These are women who might never take legal action if there were no supportive advocacy presence at the hospital.