Domestic abuse can have a lasting impact on the wellbeing and academic trajectories of not just adults but children as well, according to a new report from student parent success organization Generation Hope.
Marlee Breakstone
The report, "Student Parents and Intimate Partner Violence" lays out research from various sources on the extent and effects of domestic violence on survivors, student parents, and children. The publication was released at the tail end of October, which was Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) – also known as domestic abuse or violence – is defined by the United Nations as a pattern of behavior in a relationship to gain or maintain power and control over a partner, with the abuse potentially including harmful physical, sexual, emotional, economic, digital, or psychological actions or threats.
"This is an issue that parenting college students are facing across the country,” said Nicole Lynn Lewis, founder and CEO of Generation Hope. “And so little is known about IPV when it comes to student parents."
According to the report, IPV often – but not always – follows a four-stage cycle of violence and abuse, wherein the abuser induces fears, perpetrates abuse, attempt to reconcile and/or downplay their actions, and enter a phase of calm or ‘normalcy’ before starting the pattern all over again.
Girls and young women are particularly vulnerable, the report noted, with women ages 18-24 most commonly abused by an intimate partner. This kind of abuse is prominent, with 1 out of 3 women and 1 out of 4 men facing it in their lives, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Among Generation Hope’s own Scholars, the teen parents the organization helps support, 40 of almost 200 in the D.C. metro region and Greater New Orleans area told staff that they have witnessed or experienced intimate partner, family, or sexual violence, the report noted.
