Abstract
South Asian (SA) immigrants are one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the United States. Due to the stigma associated with domestic violence among SAs, disclosing victimization experiences may be challenging. In circumstances where experiences are disclosed, informal help-seeking through family/friends is utilized more often than formal help-seeking. Therefore, it is essential for friends/family to be empowered to effectively intervene. B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle has been developed as an innovative online intervention for SA community members (informal resources) to provide support to those experiencing abuse. The goal of this intervention is to enhance responsibility and knowledge among bystanders. Utilizing a culturally responsive intervention is an integral step in enriching services provided by practitioners serving immigrants, which we highlight in this practice note.
Domestic violence (DV) is a health concern, globally and locally within the United States. All communities can experience DV; however, immigrant communities may experience it more drastically, given their migration status, relationship with the criminal justice system, and distinctive cultural values (Black et al., 2011; Rai et al., 2020). Several immigrant communities reside in the United States, though South Asian (SA) immigrants are one of the largest and fastest-growing immigrant groups. Currently, there are about 5.4 million SAs in the United States including individuals from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Sri Lanka (South Asian Americans Leading Together, 2019). Due to some shared cultural norms and values, individuals from these communities are often combined as SAs (Murugan et al., 2022; Reddy, 2019).
DV can include physical, sexual, or psychological harm perpetrated on an individual by their current or former partner (Black et al., 2011). Like some other immigrant and nonimmigrant minoritized communities, SA communities are interlaced with values of patriarchy, collectivism, and traditionalism, which can contribute to the ways in which DV manifests in this community (Soglin et al., 2020). Furthermore, given the distinctive role of in-laws in SA households and the power differential among male and female partners in SA cultures, DV can be perpetrated by family members such as in-laws as well (Rai et al., 2022a; Raj et al., 2006). While empirical evidence points to a prevalence rate of 18% to 40%, community-based experts suggest that the prevalence rates are higher (Mahapatra, 2012; Raj & Silverman, 2002). Although men and women can both experience victimization, due to the unequal power structure, and socialization into dependence on the male partner, women are more vulnerable to DV victimization than men (Goel, 2005; Sabri et al., 2018). However, more recent research with SA men has discussed their victimization as well (Rai & Choi, 2021).
Help-Seeking and Bystanders
Safeguarding and upholding family honor or Izzat is integral to the SA culture (Bhandari, 2018; Gill, 2004). Therefore, individuals experiencing DV are often reluctant to seek help in cases of DV victimization. The perceptions of the criminal justice system as not being culturally responsive may also further discourage help-seeking from the police or by calling 911 (Yoshihama et al., 2011; Rai et al., 2022b). Immigrants may fear that calling 911 or the police could lead to deportation or loss of visas, ultimately bringing shame and dishonor to the family (Bhandari, 2018; Yoshihama et al., 2011). Generally speaking, even in cases where help is sought, informal help-seeking from friends and family members is accessed more than formal help-seeking through agencies, police, and/or counselors, and so on (Mahapatra & DiNitto, 2013). However, friends and/or family members who serve as informal help-seeking resources can sometimes advise individuals experiencing violence to continue staying in abusive relationships or to seek help only in case of an extremity (Mahapatra & Rai, 2019; Mahapatra & DiNitto, 2013). Therefore, to better respond to the ongoing issue of DV within the SA community, it is important not only to provide support to individuals experiencing DV, but also to educate and empower bystanders who can provide support. By enhancing the knowledge and response behaviors of bystanders, they can be better prepared to support those individuals who are experiencing DV through mitigation strategies and/or resources. The goal of this practice note is to discuss the initial development of a one-of-a-kind online intervention called B.R.A.K.E. (Bystander Responsibility, Awareness and Knowledge Enhancement), the Cycle for SA community members and its potential implications for practitioners serving these minoritized communities. We are in the process of testing the intervention, therefore, a detailed discussion of the intervention and its effectiveness is currently beyond the scope of this practice note.
Why B.R.A.K.E the Cycle?
B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle is a web-based intervention designed to serve as a hub for all SA community members (bystanders) and not just those who experience DV. The underlying goal of this intervention is to enhance responsibility, awareness, and knowledge of the entire SA community so that the onus of tackling DV is not solely on those who experience it. For several years now, DV conversations have been limited to victims/survivors and abusers, but through this intervention, our goal is to impress upon SA community members the importance of intervening and responding to the social problem that DV is.
Broadly, there are initiatives for DV and violence prevention. Some of these include the Green Dot Project (Edwards, 2006) for bystanders to prevent violence and shift cultural norms across college campuses; sexual violence interventions for college students (McMahon & Banyard, 2012) aimed at enhancing bystanders’ knowledge about intervening, and My Plan (n.d.), a safety plan and danger assessment app for individuals who could be at risk of victimization, among others. Furthermore, a few trainings or awareness modules exist specifically for SA community members aimed at raising awareness around DV. Some of these have been developed by community-based organizations (CBOs) such as Apna Ghar and Sanjeevani 4U, both in Chicago (Personal Communication), among others, and some interventions have also been tailored toward supporting bystanders (Yoshihama et al., 2012). The awareness modules by CBOs are directed toward raising awareness among SA community members, rather than providing an interactive engagement format for SAs, which B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle is designed to do. Similarly, there are apps such as Bright Sky (Bright Sky App, n.d.), developed in the United Kingdom aimed at providing support to victims by undergoing a harm assessment and My Ambar (n.d.), developed in India as a resource directory to support survivors seeking help. To our knowledge, none of these platforms serve as a hub for SA community members to become educated and aware about DV tactics, understand resources that can be shared with those experiencing DV, while also responding to questions for assessing whether they are personally at risk of experiencing DV in the United States, which is another salient aspect of our intervention. Therefore, this intervention can encourage service providers and practitioners utilizing it to steer away from the one-size-fits-all approach.
Development of B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle
B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle has been developed primarily for SA immigrants in the United States, initially in English. As noted above, the target audience is SA bystanders, including friends and family members. The intervention itself consists of 10 interactive scenarios aimed at positively influencing bystanders’ attitudes, encouraging appropriate intervention strategies, and enhancing their knowledge of intervention strategies in case someone experiences DV victimization. The main goal is to empower bystanders to appropriately intervene when witnessing DV; an important subgoal is to deconstruct traditional gender-role norms and attitudes within the SA community that can perpetuate power imbalance and ultimately DV. Developing this intervention began in early 2019 based on the previous works of the authors. It is a culmination of multiple conversations with stakeholders including SA community members, CBOs from Chicago and across the United States, researchers, and technology experts over the past few years regarding the need for a bystander intervention in the SA community.
B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle has been developed as an online intervention to make it available to a diverse group of SA community members, which may not be possible through a face-to-face educational intervention. It is compatible with smartphones, laptops, computers, and tablets. The online format of the intervention makes it accessible and cost-effective. An added advantage of an online intervention is that no external specialists are needed to deliver the intervention, which can be a barrier in implementing interventions (Brignone & Edleson, 2019), given the cost of ensuring fidelity across specialists’ delivery of the intervention (Engel & Schutt, 2013). The format similarly ensures that anonymity is maintained. Anonymity on sensitive topics such as DV can be important because of the taboo attached to this topic (Choi et al., 2017) within the SA community (Yoshihama et al., 2011).
The interactive scenarios within B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle have been built on the premise of intersectionality theory (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 1991) and Berry’s theory of acculturation (Berry, 2007, 2015). These theoretical frameworks help us understand ways in which one’s identity and acculturation pathways inform DV experiences and perceptions. Viewed within the framework of intersectionality theory (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 1991), we argue that DV can be experienced differently based on a variety of factors including gender, immigration-status, class, race, ethnicity, and relationships with systems of power (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 1991). Therefore, the scenarios were built to reflect a variety of abusive tactics across the 10 scenarios (physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, economic abuse, immigration-related, verbal abuse, and in-law abuse) that can surface in SA households. No interventions with immigrants can be complete without accounting for their levels of acculturation. A composite of structural and cultural factors, such as acceptance by the host country, relationships with the legal system, immigration pathways, and individual factors, such as familiarity and comfort with language and culture of American society, can inform adjustment and experiences of DV in the United States (Balgamwalla, 2014; Kapur et al., 2017). For interventions to be effective, it is imperative that they “incorporate the values and perspectives of the focal community” (p. 137, Yoshihama & Tolman, 2015), in this case, the SA community as reflected in the scenarios within our intervention. The scenarios also reflect differing levels of familiarity with U.S. culture. While both these theories can inform the perceptions and experiences of DV among individuals experiencing violence, they can also have a bearing on the ways in which bystanders (friends and/or family members) respond to instances of power-imbalance, differentiate tactics of DV from bad behavior, and call out those perpetrating abusive tactics. Acculturative experiences and identity-related factors such as gender, social class, employment and legal status, generational position, and years spent in the United States can influence ways in which a bystander can intervene in cases of DV that they witness. In addition, the Power and Control Wheel for Immigrants (Futures Without Violence, n.d.) along with the personal and professional experience of the first author were utilized to incorporate the diverse tactics of violence included across the scenarios.
The entire team (AR, NP, and SG) participated in the development of scenarios. AR identifies as an immigrant female of SA origin and a violence scholar. Growing up as a SA and given her practice experience with communities in South Asia and with SAs in the United States, she has an understanding of cultural values, implicit biases, and power differentials in SA households. AR’s lived experiences and positionality prompted her to lead the intervention development. NP identifies as a gay, cisgender, white male who has conducted research with immigrants in the United States and conducts research on various types of family violence, while also having experience with program evaluation. SG identifies as a white, heterosexual cisgender female who has conducted research with immigrants, developed interventions and is also a violence scholar. AR initially wrote up the scenarios using the frameworks and theoretical underpinnings included above and by considering existing vignettes developed for SAs (Dhindsa, 2010; Montgomery, 2009). As they were revised and developed, the scenarios were reviewed multiple times by team members NP and SG. They were finalized once all team members achieved consensus. The use of vignettes allowed us to depict snippets about the ways in which the SA cultural nuances can play out in households and ways in which DV can manifest to provide a well-crafted visual to bystanders.
The 10 interactive scenarios pertain to physical, psychological, verbal, immigration-related, sexual, and in-law related abuse, children witnessing violence, and/or child abuse. Participants assume avatars and, in this form, respond to the scenarios and receive responses as prompts, based on the response option they choose. Existing blogs from CBO websites, policy institutes, and various freely accessible informational resources related to the topic covered in the scenarios are provided to participants at the end of each scenario for deeper reading, to enhance bystanders’ knowledge about DV and appropriate intervention approaches. Overall, the scenarios are positioned like short vignettes through videos and text to depict the diverse tactics of DV in SA households including gaslighting, acting out of jealousy leading to social isolation and perpetration of abuse. Each scenario is unique in the sense that it portrays a distinct circumstance. Given the intersectionality of SA immigrants in the United States, challenges of holding a dependent visa as it relates to employment and being financially independent are also depicted. Ultimately, in-laws occupy a salient position within SA households that enables them to be accomplices to abuse (Soglin et al., 2020), which is also highlighted through the scenarios.
The distinguishing feature of the scenarios is that they encompass numerous ways in which DV can surface in SA households, which the Western definition of DV may not include (such as in-laws abuse, immigration-related abuse). Often the SA culture can be used as a façade to perpetrate abuse, disempowering dependents (Rai & Choi, 2018; Raj et al., 2006; Soglin et al., 2020). While viewing the scenarios, bystanders are provided a series of options about what they might do at different points when violence surfaces such as walking away, intervening by calling 911, intervening by routing the individual experiencing violence to a community-based agency or emotionally comforting them. Upon choosing an option, a prompt appears on the bystanders’ screen describing the implication of their response. A brief description of the scenarios is included below.
Scenario I: Depicts financial and psychological abuse by partner and in-laws, in a Midwestern suburb. The individual experiencing violence is female.
Scenario II: Depicts a female in a suburban community experiencing physical and psychological abuse by partner and in-laws as types of DV.
Scenario III: Depicts psychological and technological abuse in a Southern city. The individual experiencing violence is female.
Scenario IV: Depicts a female experiencing physical abuse and a child witnessing abuse in a movie theater and in the parking lot.
Scenario V: Depicts a female experiencing verbal and immigration-related abuse at a friend’s home.
Scenario VI: Depicts a male experiencing psychological, immigration-related, financial abuse by a female partner and a child witnessing parental violence.
Scenario VII: Depicts technological and psychological abuse as experienced by a white female in an interracial marriage.
Scenario VIII: Depicts sexual and physical abuse, the disclosure of which is at a neighborhood yoga class. The individual experiencing violence is female.
Scenario IX: Depicts physical and sexual abuse along with child abuse and neglect in a rural neighborhood. The individual experiencing violence is female.
Scenario X: Depicts emotional, economic, and immigration-related abuse in a small Southern city. The individual experiencing violence is male.
Practice Implications and Future Directions
Culturally responsive interventions and approaches can enhance participation, which may not be possible when utilizing mainstream interventions that are not culturally sensitive to the focal community (White et al., 2013). Therefore, by incorporating cultural norms, gender-role attitudes, and the lived realities of the SA community, B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle serves as a platform to generate awareness around DV and help-seeking within this community. This one-of-a-kind online intervention is the first one to administer content pertaining to enhancing bystanders’ awareness among SA community members. Allowing participants to go through a series of scenarios aimed at challenging their interpretation of gender norms and violence in households, B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle is an integral step in curbing DV and supporting individuals experiencing violence.
A critical issue as well that B.R.A.K.E. the Cycle has tried to address is that of bystander inaction. As a bystander, doing nothing to assist an individual experiencing violence or abuse may not be appropriate, yet “recognizing that danger for bystanders could be a reason for their inaction is important” (Hamby et al., 2016, p. 99). Intervening could put bystanders at risk for experiencing violence themselves. Recognizing this, the prompts that appear on the bystanders’ screen once the bystander makes a decision about what if any actions to take are aimed at providing an explanation in the context of their response, rather than pointing out a correct versus incorrect response. We believe that this approach enhances the learning experience of the user.
Once the intervention has been completely tested and validated, practitioners will have the opportunity to generate further evidence and use it with community members in any part of the country, thereby impacting more lives and enabling larger proportions of the SA community to participate in DV conversations that are less stigmatized. It can be easily incorporated by SA agencies, by linking it to their agency’s home page. Following the educational curriculum, practitioners could engage with clients to discuss the scenarios in a focus group for awareness generation. The 2021 updates of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics calls upon practitioners to pay attention to the cultural diversity of the clients they serve. Specifically, standard 1.05 (b) states that “(b) Social workers should demonstrate knowledge that guides practice with clients of various cultures and be able to demonstrate skills in the provision of culturally informed services that empower marginalized individuals and groups.” (National Association of Social Workers, 2021; section 1.05). Ethical standards in other Western countries, such as Canada direct social workers to engage in “. . . culturally responsive practice that utilizes an anti-oppressive lens.” (Canadian Association of Social Workers, n.d., second paragraph)
We believe that the B.R.A.K.E, the Cycle’s interactive scenarios enable practitioners to meet these guidelines and better engage with their clients.
As some next steps, we plan to invite feedback from members of our board, and SA community members including CBOs and SA immigrants on the look-and-feel of the website and the interactive videos that have been developed. We will use this feedback to continue further refining the intervention in the hope of making it more relevant and useful to community members, for whom it is intended. Following this, we intend to test the completed website with a larger population of SA community members through a randomized control trial. In addition, even though the intervention was developed for SAs, it lays the foundation for utilizing this type of intervention across other immigrant communities and groups (e.g., Latinx, newly incoming refugee groups such as Afghans) who may be experiencing DV. We hope to translate it into other languages and further develop it to suit the cultural needs of these diverse immigrant communities who could benefit from bystander intervention training.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Andrea Jacobson, Graduate Research Assistant, Loyola University Chicago, School of Social Work for editorial assistance.
Disposition editor: Cristina Mogro-Wilson
Authors’ Note
Please contact the authors for additional information on the scenarios.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The lead author received funding from the Office of Research Services, Loyola University Chicago for the preliminary development of this intervention.
