Enacting Entangled Practice: Interagency Collaboration in Domestic and Family Violence Work

Abstract

Interagency collaboration in domestic and family violence (DFV) work is generally assumed to be good practice. This article questions this assumption, suggesting caution in adopting an uncritical pro-collaboration stance, arguing the need to trace the effects of working together on victims/survivors. Employing an innovative sociomaterial approach, this ethnographic study of interagency practice unravels its complexity, showing that not all ways of working together serve the interests of victims/survivors equally. Conceptualizing interagency DFV work as two distinctive, yet entangled, modes of collaboration, the findings have important implications for interagency DFV practice and policy.

Keywords

domestic and family violence interagency collaboration sociomateriality

Introduction

Globally, it is estimated that one in three women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at the hands of a male partner (World Health Organization, 2013). In some parts of the world, the estimates are much higher. In Australia, one woman a week is killed by a violent partner or ex-partner, with domestic homicides accounting for almost half of all murders, many of these being murders of children (Australian Institute of Criminology, 2015). These are shocking statistics, but perhaps more shocking is the fact that these figures have not improved significantly over the past two decades. The complexity and apparent intractability of domestic and family violence (DFV) have thus led to its framing as one of an increasing number of 21st-century “wicked” problems (see Healey, Humphreys, & Wilcox, 2013; Kearns & Coen, 2014; Stanley & Humphreys, 2014). Interagency working (variously conceptualized as coordination, integration, and, more generally, collaboration) has become a preeminent response to this problem.

However, while interagency collaboration has “attained policy status as good practice” (Murray & Powell, 2011, p. 128) in DFV work, insufficient attention has been paid to how pro-collaboration policy plays out in practice, and with what effects for victims/survivors. While there is evidence of positive outcomes of some types interagency work for victims/survivors (see Banks, Dutch, & Wang, 2008; Healey, Frere, Ross, & Humphreys, 2009; Hester & Westmarland, 2005), research also suggests that well-intentioned interagency efforts do not always result in good outcomes for victims/survivors (see Postmus & Ah Hahn, 2007; Valentine & Hilferty, 2011; Visher, Harrell, Newmark, & Yahner, 2008). These mixed and inconclusive results demonstrate that interagency working “is not inherently a good thing” (Statham & Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2011, p. 4). The study on which this article is based examines this apparent contradiction, seeking to answer the following research questions:

Research Question 1: How is interagency DFV work enacted in practice?

Research Question 2: What are the effects of these enactments in relation to victims/survivors?

This research explores how it is that interagency processes and tools can sometimes constrain professional judgment in complex casework (Hood, 2014) and result in less than optimal outcomes for victims/survivors. Adopting Hood’s (2014) suggestion to take “a closer look at complexity as a phenomenon in its own right, rather than a convenient metaphor of difficulty” (Hood, 2014, p. 28), the study problematizes interagency DFV practice.

First, I explain the conceptual framework and methodology, clarifying key analytical concepts and providing details of the overall study design. Then, I discuss the analytic process and the findings that emerged, illustrating this through examination of one of several interagency practices investigated in the research. The article concludes with a brief discussion of implications for policy and practice in interagency DFV working.

Conceptual Framework, Methodology, and Study Design

Adopting a practice-based (Gherardi, 2000, 2008, 2012) sociomaterial (Fenwick, Edwards, & Sawchuk, 2011) perspective, the study took a fresh theoretical and methodological approach to researching interagency DFV work. Conceptual resources provided by actor-network theory (ANT; Callon, 1986; Latour, 1986, 1993) enabled the analysis to shed new light on how this complex work is enacted in practice, with variable effects for victims/survivors.

What a Practice-Based Approach Provides

The value of practice-based studies, Gherardi (2012) argues, is that they foreground connections and relationships, providing a theoretical lens through which to view practice as more than merely the procedural application of knowledge. In Gherardi’s (2008) terms, practice is an “in-between concept akin to ‘knowing while doing’, between ‘habit’ and ‘action’, between ‘production’ and ‘reproduction’” (Gherardi, 2008, p. 523), a collective activity that is developed by doing and relating, as well as by thinking. Moreover, Gherardi argues that using a practice-based approach to research illuminates how new practices may emerge at the boundaries between professions and organizations and how “new knowledge may be produced and sustained (or hampered) by different forms of organising” (Gherardi, 2009, p. 355). Such an approach to researching professional practice is particularly applicable to a study of interagency DFV working, because it accounts for, and makes visible, the many occasions when decisions are made by practitioners based on their collective and diverse practice wisdom and intimate knowledge of their local context.

What a Sociomaterial Perspective Highlights

Weaving through the “practice turn” (Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina, & Von Savigny, 2001) in social theory, discussed above, there has been a corresponding “sociomaterial turn” in studies of professional practice (Fenwick et al., 2011). Much of the earlier research on professional practice, including interprofessional and interagency practice, paid relatively little attention to materiality or to how the personal/social/material dimensions of practice relate to each other. Indeed, in many accounts while participation and communication are foregrounded, “artefacts and other material aspects of practice remain theoretically in the background” (Zukas & Kilminster, 2012, p. 203).

While the theoretical origins and historical roots of sociomaterial approaches vary, Fenwick et al. (2011) suggest that there are some broadly common themes and conceptual resources. First, they enable a relational account of practice, focusing on the connections among entities through which actions happen. Second, they decenter the individual human as the only source of agency. Third, they engage productively with diversity and multiplicity, recognizing complex systems, overlapping activities, and ambiguous practices. Fourth, they disrupt notions of context as fixed, understanding it as always moving, partial, and constitutive of action. These themes are highly relevant to a study of interagency collaboration in the networked, technology-mediated, and fluid world of 21st-century workplaces.

Moreover, attending to the sociomaterial invites consideration of the materially mediated and embodied dimension of practice, affirming that it is both inherently material and social (Orlikowski & Scott, 2010). Viewing practice through a sociomaterial prism thus enables a view of how material arrangements become entwined in and form part of everyday work (Fenwick, Nerland, & Jensen, 2012; Nicolini, Mengis, & Swan, 2012). Noting how practice involves non-animate actors, not just as background or contextual features, Zukas and Kilminster (2012) make the assertion that material artefacts are in fact “centrally implicated in practice” (Zukas & Kilminster, 2012, p. 200).

What ANT Offers

As noted by Fenwick et al. (2011), several theories have been advanced within the sociomaterial tradition. One of these is ANT. Gherardi (2000) identifies ANT as one of the strands of research that she calls “practice-based theorising” (Gherardi, 2000, p. 212) because it contributes to the ongoing conversation about the continuity between knowing and doing. It does this by illustrating “how knowing is enacted in sociomaterial networks of human and non-human actants” (Gherardi, 2012, p. 200).

Emerging from post-structuralism in the early work of Bruno Latour (1986), Michel Callon (1986), and John Law (1992), ANT views relationships between things, concepts, and people as potentially transient and in flux, in a constant process of making and remaking themselves and needing to be repeatedly “performed” to prevent dissolution. In the constantly changing and highly contested environment of interagency DFV work, ANT provides what Nicolini (2011) calls a “powerful theory/method package” (p. 1394) with which to unravel and analyze practice.

Key Concepts

The following key ANT concepts are central to the analysis and discussion that follows:

“Actors” in ANT terms are simply “entities that do things” (Latour, 1992, p. 241), “whatever acts or shifts action” (Latour, 1992, p. 259) in a way that makes a difference. These entities may be people or things.

“Actor-networks” (Latour, 1992, 2005) are understood in ANT as precarious gatherings of actors, diverse and heterogeneous webs brought together and linked through performing certain functions. They are unstable and in a constant state of becoming (and unbecoming) and so demand continual maintenance.

“Translation” (Callon, 1986) is the core concept of ANT and refers to a process in which network elements are changed or transformed, “the active process of establishing relationships that induce multiple entities to co-exist” (Nicolini, 2011, p. 605). In this article, I employ the key ANT concept of “translation” as “a way to think about how things come to be and how they change” (Fenwick & Edwards, 2010, p. 5) and to make visible the agency of the actors involved in working together in responding to DFV.

“Enrollment” (Callon, 1986) is one of the four “moments” or stages of translation as elaborated by Callon. It refers to a process in which various actors enlist other actors into their networks and define their roles through a series of “multilateral negotiations” (Callon, 1986, p. 211). In this article, I use “enrollment” as an analytic device to examine the interagency practice of integrated case coordination, showing how various actors were successfully enrolled (or resisted enrollment) either into each other’s networks or into the emerging interagency network.

Study Design

The study adopted a field method described as praxiographic (Mol, 2002), that is, it was an ethnographic study of practice. As Mol (2002) notes, broadening the focus of investigation beyond the “ethno,” or human, participants leaves open “who or what the actor is” (p. 143). This draws attention to the more-than-human aspects of working together, consistent with the sociomaterial perspective outlined above.

The fieldwork took place over 6 months in an outer metropolitan suburb of Sydney, Australia, where a local integrated DFV response had been operating for many years. The main data generation methods were focused workplace observations (including shadowing practitioners) and semi-structured interviews. I also examined key documents and artefacts with a view to understanding them as nonhuman actors in the participating networks. These nonhuman actors included victim support and referral cards, police intake forms, risk factor checklists, court orders, case files, case plans, spreadsheets, electronic databases, interagency protocols, multiagency agreements, and memoranda of understanding.

Twenty-one field visits, each of half to a full day, generated 186 pages of field notes and a further 135 pages of transcription of 20 interviews and 17 meetings, in which 21 frontline practitioners and 15 operational managers, from a broad range of local services, participated. Agencies represented included large government bodies (police, child protection, corrective services, and health), as well as small community-based and nongovernment organizations (a DFV specialist casework service, a women’s refuge, a relationship counselling organization, and a women’s and children’s advocacy and support service).

Analytic Process and Findings

As practice was the entry point to the world of interagency DFV working, the analysis began with scrutiny of each interagency practice observed. This involved taking a magnifying glass to the points of intersection between things and people and taking up Latour’s advice to “follow the actors” (Latour, 2005, pp. 12, 68).

From initial analysis, multiple actor-networks emerged, and prominent features began to coalesce in relation to each of the interagency practices examined. Further analysis resulted in these features aligning in clusters of qualities that began to characterize two distinct, yet overlapping, modes of practice, enacted in and through two different types of actor-networks.

To illustrate the analytic process, and demonstrate how the study findings emerged, I now discuss the interagency practice of integrated case coordination which was one of several interagency practices examined in the study. Using two case vignettes as empirical reference points, I trace the terrain on which multiple practices and what I am calling practice multiple were enacted, as two entwined modes of working together in interagency DFV collaboration.

Integrated Case Coordination

In the context of this study, the practice of integrated case coordination entailed local service providers meeting together monthly, as per their locally agreed interagency protocol. In this meeting, they discussed and took responsibility for managing different aspects of case plans of local high-risk DFV offenders.

The integrated case coordination meetings took place at the local police station and lasted 2 hr. Representatives from the key local government and nongovernment service providers that were signatories to the interagency protocol (police, corrective services, community services, family violence service, and women’s support service) attended. Most of the agency representatives were operational frontline managers. Child protection caseworkers and probation and parole officers who were working directly with offenders and/or victims presented their reports and provided updates on the cases under consideration. Usually, there were six or seven active cases on the list for discussion at each meeting.

A case was determined to be eligible if it attracted a score of more than 10 on a risk assessment tool jointly developed by the signatories to the protocol. The tool listed weighted evidence-based risk factors. A score of more than 20 signaled high priority; a score of between 10 and 20 was for “secondary consideration”; and a score of below 10 was not serious enough for integrated case coordination. The risk factor checklist was thus an actor that ordered practice and set in train a series of events that nudged various other actors into alignment in the assessment and management of risk. However, regardless of the score on the checklist, the police guidelines stipulated that if there had been three domestic violence (DV) incidents recorded in the previous 6 months, the system automatically flagged the case as “high risk.” This is indicative of the relative strength of the police service network in the integrated case coordination meetings.

Each case on the active list had a case plan, which outlined the various actions that the different agencies had agreed to take to improve victim safety and ensure offender accountability. In this way, the case plan functioned as a central nexus of practice, where various strands of discourse, policy, and protocol intersected. Each case had a lead agency with a designated representative initiating discussion and taking responsibility for maintaining the case plan. Group members were expected to bring to the meetings relevant information about the cases on the active list, a process made possible by the information-sharing provisions in Part 16 A of the NSW child protection legislation (Children and Young Persons [Care and Protection] Act NSW, 1998).

Cases remained on the active list until each agency’s goals (referred to by the group as “end outcomes”) had been met (e.g., the mother had engaged with a support service or early intervention program) and/or there were no longer “significant safety concerns” for the victim (e.g., the perpetrator had been incarcerated). Some cases were “suspended” for 6 months (rather than “closed”) and then reviewed if the agencies agreed that this was warranted (e.g., the perpetrator was due for release from jail and there were concerns that the violence would recommence). A master spreadsheet (developed and maintained by the family violence service) did the work of keeping track of the progress of each case, functioning as a ledger that quantified the cases that were “active,” “suspended,” and “closed,” over a specified period.

Following are two data excerpts, taken from the transcript of one meeting, that illustrate how differently the practice of integrated case coordination unfolded, with varying effects for the victims/survivors, depending on which agency took the lead and which actor-networks were activated. I present the vignettes as typical examples of the many cases discussed at the integrated case coordination meetings. The first excerpt, “Shan and Gavin,” shows integrated case coordination enacted in one way. The next excerpt, “Chloe and Jamie,” shows the same interagency practice enacted in a different way. Names have been changed to protect identities.

“Shan and Gavin”

In this excerpt, the members of the integrated case coordination group were discussing the case of Shan and Gavin. The Department of Corrective Services was the lead agency, and the Probation and Parole Officer who was working directly with Gavin was attending the meeting to present his report:

Department of Corrective Services Probation and Parole Officer:

So since our last meeting we’ve seen him twice. He has been attending counselling, I think. I’ve tried to verify that, but I’ve had difficulty making contact with the counsellor. I did eventually, but by the time I did, it turned out that the “exchange of information” time period had expired and it required a new one to be lodged—I asked if he’d been attending but the counsellor just refused to give me that kind of info without a current exchange of information request, so that will delay things a bit, but it’s in train . . .

Family Violence Service Manager:

So, we’re still working towards getting them both to a family safety meeting—on the case-plan here, that’s wrong, I think, isn’t it? It says a referral to service X, but it should be to us . . . can you change that?

Department of Corrective Services Manager:

Is there anything else anyone wants us to do before the next meeting? We could look at trying to get a baseline around urinalysis to monitor his cannabis use—is there anything else? The mental health assessment outcome from the counsellor will hopefully tell us a bit more and move us a bit closer to achieving the end outcome on our case-plan . . .

Department of Corrective Services Probation and Parole Officer:

Yes, well I’m due to see him again on the 28th, so I’ll follow up on those actions then.

Department of Corrective Services Manager:

Any other actions on our list?

Family Violence Service Manager:

No . . . but I think this case is here on our list because of the risk in relation to the pregnancy.

Police Domestic Violence Team Leader:

She doesn’t have a case worker allocated from Community Services, does she?

Family Violence Service Manager:

No, they won’t allocate one because there haven’t been any reports about the children for quite a while.

Police Domestic Violence Team Leader:

But the Apprehended Violence Order is due to expire soon . . .

Family Violence Service Manager:

Yes, exactly, and that will be just after the baby’s born, so it’s going to be a very high-risk time . . .

Department of Corrective Services Manager:

Hmm, okay, so who’s next?

(fv2.o2, lines 51-71)

In this case vignette, the strength of the managers’ and frontline practitioners’ enrollments in their own home agency networks was evident, in their reporting on the outcomes of their work with victims and offenders. Maintaining a focus on managing the behavior of the offender, Gavin, enabled Police and Corrective Services to emerge as primary actors here, enrolling the other group members into their own networks and convincing them (at least for now) to take on the criminal justice system (CJS) framing of DFV as primarily a crime. Similarly, the Department of Community Services succeeded in enrolling others (including actors that were not signatories to the protocol), demonstrating the strength of its network in responding to DFV as principally a child protection issue. These enrollments enabled the statutory agencies to achieve the tasks as outlined on their case plans, thereby strengthening their own individual agency networks.

The enrollment of legislated information-sharing provisions enabled individual agencies to access information to which they would not otherwise have been privy. In this case, negotiating access to the offender’s mental health assessment report was important for the Department of Corrective Services to achieve the “end outcome” on their case plan. However, this could not happen before renewal of the “exchange of information request.” The exchange of information request thus functioned as a gateway through which the Department of Corrective Services was required to pass before this access was granted. However, having already enrolled alcohol and drug experts into their network, the Department of Corrective Services could undertake urinalysis testing to support them in completing their designated task of monitoring Gavin’s marijuana use. In this way, the case plan effectively translated “high-risk management” into monitoring the offender’s drug habits. The point is that this was a task that mattered to the Department of Corrective Services manager at least as much as keeping the victim safe.

Raising the issue of Shan’s pregnancy, and the fact that no caseworker had been allocated because no “risk of harm reports had been made” to the child protection agency “for quite a while,” the manager of the feminist-based family violence service refocused discussion on the victim/survivor. In ANT terms, the Department of Community Services had become a primary actor through the repeated creation of risk of harm reports, strengthening and reifying the child protection system’s network. In this situation, no risk of harm report meant no allocated caseworker for the victim/mother, no intervention deemed necessary. Therefore, the case plan allocated no tasks to the Department of Community Services in this case. However, this had the effect of creating a “double bind” for Shan because evidence suggests that pregnancy is a high-risk time for women in abusive relationships (Jasinski, 2004). Shan’s pregnancy had thus translated her (the primary victim) into a potential risk to her unborn child, but no early intervention support was forthcoming because there were no new reports of children at risk (yet).

The convergence of the Apprehended Violence Order expiry date and the birth of the victim’s baby would soon combine to ramp up the level of risk to both Shan and her children, including her unborn child (Coker, Sanderson, & Dong, 2004). The matters of the Apprehended Violence Order expiry and the birth of the baby thus intersected with the child protection discourse to constitute a “high-risk case,” but as nothing serious (enough) had happened (yet), no further action was to be taken. Gavin was still considered a “high-risk” offender and Shan was left unsupported–and the integrated case coordination group had six more cases to get through before 3 p.m.

“Chloe and Jamie”

In the following excerpt, the integrated case coordination group was discussing Chloe and Jamie. The family violence service had been working intensively with Chloe for some months and was the lead agency in this case:

Family Violence Service Manager:

You remember that an officer even spoke to the kids and the kids said yes, he did it . . . but there was no note in the narrative about officers speaking to the kids?

Police Domestic Violence Team Leader:

Hmm, for the original assault?

Family Violence Service Manager:

Yes, and there was some talk about interviewing the children and that hasn’t happened yet, she told me today . . .

Police Domestic Violence Team Leader:

I’ll get someone onto it tomorrow . . .

Family Violence Service Manager:

Well, I don’t think there’s much to gain by doing that now—the kids are traumatized, they’re a mess, so I don’t think there’s any point in starting any intervention with them while he’s in and out of the house.

Police Domestic Violence Team Leader:

She [victim] seems, umm, very sort of . . . erratic.

Family Violence Service Manager:

Yeah, well she’s your typical worn-down, beaten domestic violence victim. She has her own history of childhood abuse and trauma. One of her parents abused her, and now she’s [being] abused by this guy. Her mental health is poor. Her kids are a mess, and she’s very much like . . . you know . . . she feels hopeless, like nothing is going to change. She comes in here and gives a statement and nothing happens. So, like I said before, she’s not going to give you another statement . . . that was the day she was asked by the police to go and unlock the house so she had to stand by while they dragged him out of the house so it was very obvious that she’d dobbed him in, or “dogged” him, so she’s not doing that again, but you want him on a warrant, so that’s her hope, that he’s going to get picked up anyway, for something else . . .

Department of Corrective Services Manager:

That’s the warrant for breach of his community supervision order, isn’t it? That will solve our problem . . .

Family Violence Service Manager:

When police knock on her door . . . she needs to know we’re working with her, you know? That we’re on her side. So, the warrant now goes to police to execute . . . if you go to her house to execute that warrant, let’s say, can you, what would you need her to do at the front door? Let’s say someone’s going out to execute this warrant for breach of his community supervision order.

Domestic Violence Liaison Officer 1:

Well, there’s two ways we usually execute it: she either opens the door—and confirms that he’s inside and then we go in and execute it—or if no one answers and we know he’s in there, we can kick the door down and do it that way . . .

Family Violence Service Manager:

Or maybe there’s a third way . . .

Domestic Violence Liaison Officer 2:

Hmm, how do you mean?

Family Violence Service Manager:

Like we could say to her, sort of word her up, so that she just kind of quietly lets the officers who come to the house know that he is there. But let it not look like they’re demanding to execute a warrant, but then they go in and get him . . . but I don’t think it’s something we can plan, you know, because he comes and goes all the time. I can talk to her about the fact that there’s a warrant out for him, if you like . . .

Domestic Violence Liaison Officer 2:

. . . and then if she can kind of help us to get him . . .

Family Violence Service Manager: Yeah, so if she can just sort of quietly say, or indicate to the police when they come to the door, if he’s there . . .

Domestic Violence Liaison Officer 1:

. . . and then let us in and then we can work out how we’re gonna do it, that way it won’t look as if she’s the one who’s put him in.

Family Violence Service Manager:

. . . and maybe I can ask her some common times that he’s likely to be there.

Domestic Violence Liaison Officer 2:

Yeah, that’d be good . . .

(fv2.02, lines 669-688)

In contrast to the previous vignette, the group’s enactment of integrated case coordination in relation to Chloe and Jamie involved a series of enrollments that generated more positive effects for the victim/survivor. Through this way of working together, the interagency network enrolled the police and corrective services representatives, and the police network enrolled the victim/survivor, Chloe. This reciprocal process resulting from multilateral negotiations enabled the system to be “tweaked” to become more responsive to Chloe’s needs.

The omission in the police narrative meant that no one had arranged to interview the children immediately following Jamie’s assault of Chloe. When the police officer undertook to “get someone onto it tomorrow,” he was challenged by the family violence service manager as to the appropriateness of this action at that time. She made the point that the children were already traumatized and that this police intervention, so long after the incident, would be likely to retraumatize them. In this way, the family violence service manager was able to challenge the authority of the police, drawing on her role as trauma expert to shape the actions to be taken, thereby strengthening the interagency network in which her service was a focal node.

Referring to the children’s mother as “very sort of. . . erratic,” the police officer invited another instructive response from the manager of the family violence service. The picture painted of Chloe as “your typical worn-down, beaten domestic violence victim [with] her own history of childhood abuse” whose mental health was poor and whose life was “a mess” underscored the long-lasting and far-reaching impacts of trauma. Explicitly making the links between Chloe’s own abusive childhood and the current abusive situation that she and her children were experiencing, the manager of the family violence service pulled the threads of the victim’s past through into the present in a way that could inform the future. The arrest warrant for Jamie was a crucial actor in this scenario, effecting the intended outcome in this case. The fact that the warrant was not related to DFV charges or to breach of an Apprehended Violence Order was less relevant than the fact that it would provide the police with a legitimate reason to take the offender into custody. Thus, the manager of the family violence service had succeeded in enrolling both the Police and Corrective Services into the interagency network by aligning their interests. This convergence had the effect of creating a single focus for action: victim protection and support.

Taking a trauma-informed approach enabled the family violence service manager to emerge as a primary actor here, having successfully enrolled the statutory authorities into accepting interrelated roles with the victim, thereby taking on (at least for now) the family violence service understanding of DFV as a trauma-related issue, rather than simply a CJS concern. This enabled them to see beyond their own agency priorities and engendered a better understanding of the impacts of offender behavior on victims, resulting in a more coordinated and nuanced interagency response to integrated case coordination.

The suggestion by the family violence service manager of there being “maybe a third way” for the police to execute the warrant introduced the possibility of being able to do their job in a way that was less prescriptive than usual, less “by the book.” However, it involved considerable negotiation, in more than one direction, with several parties. In ANT terms, this technique was successful because, by the end of the conversation, she had enrolled the police into the interagency network, thereby strengthening it. She did this by suggesting that enrolling the victim into the police network would help the police to “get their man.” By persuading the police officers that it was possible to enlist the help of the victim in executing the warrant on the offender, the manager of the family violence service also strengthened her position in the integrated case coordination network; she was the lynchpin here, occupying the node where multiple networks intersected. She would negotiate with the victim, if the police agreed to negotiate with her. The transaction involved a trade-off of sorts, there being no deal without strings attached. These “strings” effectively enrolled Chloe into the police network, translating her from victim into police informant. The possibility of a “win–win” situation thus aligned multiple interests, as the actors negotiated a different way of working together, a way that acknowledged and incorporated the victim/survivor as a key actor.

Interagency Collaboration Through Multiple Connecting Actor-Networks

Analyzed using the core ANT concept of translation, interagency practice was shown to be enacted via processes of network formation, maintenance, and collapse. From this analysis, two types of networks emerged: single agency networks and interagency networks. Importantly, the same actors participated in both types of network, illustrating both the entanglement of the networks and the mutual constitution of actors and networks.

While most of the single agency networks participated in each of the practices examined in the study, what also emerged strongly was that each interagency DFV practice generated its own interagency network, which then sustained the practice. Importantly, however, without the single agency networks there could have been no interagency networks, as all new networks grow from others (Latour, 2005), either nesting within them (as in the police, corrective services, and court networks within the CJS) or existing within them and extending beyond. Significantly, the interagency networks reached beyond the existing networks, connecting them in new, often challenging, ways.

Underscoring the challenges of visual representation for ANT theorists, Latour (2011) remarked on ANT’s “impoverished visual vocabulary” (p. 800). Noting that while the concept of the network is useful to emphasize the (re)distribution of action, networks are “extremely poor metaphors, since they remain entirely made of nodes and edges to which are added some conveniently drawn potato-like circles” (Latour, 2011, p. 800). Nevertheless, when synthesizing and looking across the interagency practices examined in this study, forms of visual representation were developed, both for illustrative purposes and to notice and probe the aggregate data in new ways. This was crucial in the interpretive work relating to the relative stability of single agency versus interagency networks. Notwithstanding Latour’s (2011) caveats, Figure 1 offers a useful visualization of the multiple intersecting and entangled networks that participated in the enactment of interagency DFV work in the research site.

Figure 1.

Actor-networks in interagency DFV work.

While all networks are inherently open to instability, the analysis suggests that the networks of the single agencies were significantly more stable than the interagency networks that emerged. The networks nested within the CJS, and those of the statutory authorities particularly, have been shown to be especially durable because of the many successful translations that have occurred over time in the processes of their formation. This resonates with Harvie and Manzi’s (2011) argument that the criminal justice discourse has become one of the dominant discourses in interagency DFV work, leading to the centrality of the statutory sector and the marginalization of nongovernment women’s organizations (Hague & Malos, 1998).

A key actor to emerge as a facilitator of interagency network formation in this study was a coordinating service that specialized in DFV work. In three of the four interagency practices examined in this study, including integrated case coordination, the family violence service (FVS) played this coordinating role. The need for dedicated specialist services such as the FVS, to give a voice to victims/survivors, is a recurrent theme in the literature on interagency collaboration in DFV work (see Hague & Mullender, 2006; Murphy & Fanslow, 2012).

Two Modes of Working Together

The study found that the enactment of interagency DFV work involved oscillation between practitioners working together, while remaining to some extent apart, separate from each other and working together in a more engaged, integrated way. This movement between two modes of working together was evident across all the practices examined, including integrated case coordination, the practice under discussion in this article. The first mode involved multiple service providers working together but operating with their own multiple foci for action. I call this mode of working together “multiple practices” (plural) because it emerged from and maintained multiple individual/separate agency networks (e.g., police, court, corrective services, child protection, and women’s services).

The second mode also involved multiple service providers, but working this way, practitioners maintained a singular focus for action, the victims/survivors’ interests. This mode entailed a tighter, more entangled working-togetherness, which emerged from and maintained a singular interagency network. Borrowing from Mol’s (2002) conceptualization of the multiple phenomenon, I call this second mode practice multiple, to capture the notion of multiplicity enacted in practice with a shared single focus. In making this distinction, I am not proposing a dichotomy. Rather, I am suggesting that practice multiple and multiple practices coexist, not as alternatives or opposites, but as entangled modes of practice that together make up the textured fabric of interagency working.

The differences between the two modes are clarified below, with specific reference to the case vignettes presented earlier.

Multiple Practices

In the first vignette (Shan and Gavin), practitioners from different agencies worked together, but as if in parallel, not always connecting, even though they were in the same physical space. Interagency procedures unfolded strictly as per the participating agencies’ own priorities, and their “territory” was staunchly defended. Enacting interagency work this way, practitioners were generally acting from “spaces of prescription” (Fenwick, 2010, p. 126) with a rigid task orientation, adhering strictly to their “home” agency mandates and staying firmly within the boundaries of their professional roles.

The enactment of integrated case coordination as multiple practices thus effected a somewhat managerialist approach to the complexity (Harvie & Manzi, 2011) of interagency DFV work here. Task-oriented accountability resulted in a narrowing of focus to each of the individual statutory agencies’ own primary matters of concern. A consequence of this was that Shan did not receive the support or protection that she needed, when she needed it. Moreover, the domination of criminal justice concerns had the effect of focusing action on apprehending Gavin, at the expense of attending to Shan’s support needs.

The effect of this was that Shan became less and less visible, effectively being filtered out of the support system, relegated (at least for now) to continuing to live a life impoverished by fear and anxiety. Moreover, when enacted in multiple practices mode, integrated case coordination tended to privilege the child protection system, with abused mothers, like Shan, being frequently assessed as inadequate parents. Holding mothers responsible for child protection (see Beeman, Hagemeister, & Edleson, 1999; Hester, 2008, 2009; Thiara & Humphreys, 2017) while ignoring the impacts on fathering by abusive men not only fails to differentiate between the parents, but also frequently results in blaming the mother for the father’s abusive behavior.

Across all the interagency practices examined in this study, when multiple practices dominated, victims/survivors tended to be categorized based on individual agency eligibility criteria. Interagency success was viewed largely in terms of how well the system managed the increasing volume of “cases” and how quickly and efficiently these could be moved through the system. Productive orderliness was emphasized as the participating agencies fulfilled their mandatory responsibilities, as prescribed by their own agency networks, thereby demonstrating their accountability to each other. In this process, there was a tendency for management of offenders’ criminal behavior and compliance with child protection policy and legislation to take precedence over attention to the needs and safety of the adult victim/survivor (usually the mother). This tendency, noted frequently in the literature about mandatory reporting of children living in DV situations (see Humphreys, 2008), highlights another quality of multiple practices mode: the concentration and accumulation of power at a small number of network nodes. In this study, these nodes were frequently where the networks of the statutory authorities of the police, corrective services, and child protection intersected within the CJS.

Practice Multiple

In contrast, in the second vignette (Chloe and Jamie), integrated case coordination was enacted in practice multiple mode, characterized by a greater responsiveness to victims/survivors. This was achieved partly by the group members being open to doing business not-quite-as-usual and working together as diverse practitioners with a shared priority, as actors in an interagency network. In this mode, the practitioners were encouraged to widen their focus to take in the broader circumstances surrounding Chloe’s story. They were more inclined to identify workarounds together, acting from “spaces of negotiation” (Fenwick, 2010, p. 126), so that their interagency business focused on how best to ensure the system met the needs of Chloe and her children.

As the group members learned that it was possible to work flexibly and still operate within their agency guidelines, they could (re)center Chloe and her needs, integrating her presence into practice, despite her material absence. Taking trauma-informed action enhanced their practice in a way that opened the possibility of questioning the impacts of the system on victims/survivors and taking steps to remediate negative impacts. This enabled the group to include in their case planning what might have appeared to be peripheral to the main game of managing offender behavior. Engaging in practice multiple, they were reminded that there was always and already a bigger picture and a longer story than ever appeared on a case plan. Keeping the impacts of Jamie’s violence always in view had the effect of holding him responsible for his behavior and at the same time expanded the focus to encompass the system’s accountability to Chloe and her children (Hague, Mullender, & Aris, 2003). Enactment of integrated case coordination as practice multiple thus effected a rebalancing of the focus for action, ensuring that the practice remained principally about prioritizing victim safety and well-being.

Across all the interagency practices observed, practice multiple became the mode of working when practitioners connected in a way that held them in alignment with a shared priority, as actors in an interagency network. When this happened, practitioners’ role boundaries were stretched and rearranged in the collective effort to improve outcomes for victims/survivors. Enacted as practice multiple, interagency work challenged the supremacy of the CJS from time to time, the power of the statutory authorities being destabilized occasionally, in the pursuit of victim/survivor advocacy. Reorienting discussion back to the victim/survivor, to focus on her risks and needs enabled the practitioners to hold in view the impacts of the offender’s behavior and reduce the possibility of retraumatizing the victim/survivor. Importantly, it also made it possible for them to uphold the imperative to ensure children’s welfare while supporting the adult victim/survivor/mother, performing what Fleck-Henderson (2000) refers to as “seeing double.” In this way, accountability to victims/survivors was foregrounded as a matter of importance in interagency work.

Interagency tensions were confronted, and held open, rather than shut down or avoided, in practice multiple mode, enabling the group to move toward shared responsibility and joint problem solving (Murphy & Fanslow, 2012). The success of their work together was judged in terms of evidence of improved outcomes for victims/survivors, rather than merely discharging their own responsibilities.

The Textured Möbius of Integrated Interagency DFV Practice

As discussed, both multiple practices and practice multiple coexisted in interagency DFV work in this study, producing service provision that emerged from “a texture of connections” (Gherardi & Perrotta, 2014, p. 147). However, this texture varied depending on which networks were enacting a practice at any given time. The texture produced by multiple practices was often smooth, unfolding as per prescribed procedures, but in terms of interagency work, it was loosely woven, frequently with large holes, through which victims/survivors could slip. This was because multiple practices were not necessarily enacted in connection, but often in parallel with each other, failing to intersect appropriately.

However, the texture produced by practice multiple was more tightly woven. This texture was created by service providers working together in a way that their practice intersected, often surfacing tensions and differences. The resulting texture, while knotty in places, was taut enough to pull the threads of multiple practices together (even if only temporarily) into a web of safety for victims/survivors. It was precisely the entwined nature of multiple practices and practice multiple that gave the interagency DFV work in this study this complex texture.

Taking up Latour’s (2005) point that networks are poor metaphors for visual depiction, the single-/double-sided, three-dimensional, nonorientable Möbius band may offer a richer metaphor, one that combines and rounds out the “nodes . . . edges . . . and potato-like circles” (Latour, 2005, p. 800) that typify diagrams of networks. To elaborate on this analogy, I suggest that integrated interagency DFV service provision has a texture that has two-sides-in-one, because practice multiple and multiple practices coexist, not as alternatives or opposites of each other, but as entangled modes of working together. It is three-dimensional because what results is greater depth in the delivery of more fully developed holistic service provision. It is nonorientable because movement or action in any direction, starting from any place, will eventually end up at the starting point, in this case, the victim/survivor.

Implications for Policy and Practice

Filtered through an ANT lens, “policy changes its character . . . in interesting and provocative ways” (Law & Singleton, 2013, p. 4). Observing that policy usually assumes that there is a single reality, Law and Singleton (2013) suggest that ANT “points us in the direction of a much more fluid version of policy,” (p. 12) one that recognizes that the world is irreducibly multiple. So, what might a sociomaterial approach to policy and practice in the context of interagency DFV work look like? This article proposes that (at least) four implications emerge from the inevitable entanglement of policy and practice.

Foregrounding Complexity, Change, and Negotiation

First, policy needs to reflect the complexity of interagency DFV work to support the development of responsive practice (Hood, 2014), rather than aim for simplicity through standardization of responses. Policy making would therefore proceed from an understanding that nothing exists in stable isolation and connections are always in a state of flux and have material effects, even if these are not immediately visible. The implication of this is that, in the development of integrated approaches to DFV, the effects of introducing new elements, or of making changes to components of systems and frameworks, would need consideration in terms of both outcomes and process.

Systemic reform processes would proceed as negotiated “settlements” (Latour, 2005) among the multiple agencies that have a part to play in responding to DFV. For example, it is important that different agencies’ policies intersect in productive ways, and that multi-agency initiatives are genuinely multi-agency and not dominated by the concerns of a handful of stakeholders (Reeves, 2013). In the case of Gavin and Shan, the expiration of the victim protection order coinciding with the imminent birth of the baby increased Shan’s level of risk. However, no action was suggested to address this, despite the FVS manager raising it as a matter of serious concern. Integrated governance structures, therefore, need to establish that the priorities of nongovernment organizations have equal standing to those of their government partners (Radermacher, Karunarathna, Grace, & Feldman, 2011).

Monitoring, Modification, and Maintenance

Second, we would expect that the implementation of integrated approaches would rarely happen in practice as planned or intended. The translations that inevitably occur are not always predictable, and so systems need to be agile and flexible enough to respond to such unanticipated consequences. This throws into relief the need for constant maintenance and modification of systems and procedures to adjust to rapidly changing environments. A sociomaterial perspective on the enmeshment of policy and practice eschews a “set-and-forget” approach. For example, in the case of Chloe and Jamie, the discussion of the execution of the arrest warrant served to reshape police practice to be more responsive to victim interests in this instance.

Methodologies for the evaluation of coordinated and integrated responses may also need reconsidering, tracing instead the effects of various associations, and “joining the dots” of these effects, rather than trying to measure the effectiveness of individual components of particular models. This would help to address the need for evaluation approaches that examine how interactional, organizational, and systemic determinants of collaboration intersect (San, Martin-Rodriquez, Beaulieu, D’Amour, & Ferrada-Videla, 2005), sometimes producing unforeseen consequences.

Rethinking the Design of Practitioner Tools

Third, nonhuman participants in interagency work would be taken seriously, not as mere tools, passive things in the background, but as active players in the enactment of practice (Zukas & Kilminster, 2012), of equal standing with practitioners and in their entanglement with “people factors” (Atkinson & High and Complex Needs Unit, 2007, p. 145). The implication of this is that the design of practitioner resources such as referral protocols and risk assessment forms would take account of how practitioners engage with these tools, how technology might “push back,” and what impact this might have. Gillingham’s (2011) caution about decision-making tools unintentionally reducing complex practices to box-ticking activities serves as a salutary reminder in this context. This is certainly not to suggest that technology may not be enrolled as an ally in interagency data sharing and communication, but rather to sound a note of caution about possible unintended consequences. For example, current efforts to simplify and streamline interagency DFV work through the introduction of common tools and processes, while intended to promote shared understandings, sometimes only succeed in reducing the complexity of practice on paper, while inhibiting the exercise of professional judgment, as was illustrated by the handling of the Gavin and Shan case.

Strengthening Interagency Networks

Fourth, the relative fragility of interagency networks needs to be recognized. In light of this study’s findings, it may be inferred that the emergence of practice multiple, and the corresponding stability of interagency networks, is facilitated by specialist victim-focused and trauma-informed DFV services assuming coordinating roles (Bagshaw, Chung, Couch, Lilburn, & Wadham, 2000; Hague & Bridge, 2008). An important implication for policy then is that expecting integrated responses to deliver optimal outcomes for victims/survivors in the absence of feminist-informed services is unrealistic. As the case of Chloe and Jamie illustrates, specialist DFV services help to stabilize interagency networks, fostering the development of practice multiple, which is vital to achieving the purpose of anchoring interagency practice to both adult and child victims/survivors (Humphreys et al., 2001). Recognizing the distinction between practice multiple and multiple practices and proceeding from an understanding of interagency DFV collaboration as enacting these entangled modes of working, the non-negotiable bottom-line policy and practice maxim would be to maintain a focus on victim impact in all interventions.

Conclusion

By viewing the complexity of interagency DFV work differently, newness has been “incited” from the data (Taguchi, 2012, p. 270), guiding the gaze toward what is made to matter and transforming interagency DFV work from a “matter of fact to a matter of concern” (Latour, 2011, p. 799). While reframing interagency DFV work in sociomaterial feminist terms has not “tamed” the wicked problem of DFV, it has shined a light on intersections between things and people, the often-neglected places in joined-up interagency DFV working, paying explicit and close attention to the various actors involved in the minutiae of practice, thereby deepening understanding of the phenomenon. It has also illuminated the incessantly necessary work of stabilizing fragile interagency DFV networks so that working together remains a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped to improve the clarity and the quality of the article. Thanks also go to Jane Wangmann (University of Technology Sydney) for her valuable feedback on an early draft of the manuscript.

Authors’ Note

Sarah L. Stewart is also affiliated with University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.

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) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Sarah L. Stewart

Author Biography

Sarah L. Stewart is currently a research associate at the University of Tasmania. She was awarded a PhD from the University of Technology Sydney and was named on the 2017 Chancellor’s List in recognition of exceptional scholarly achievement in doctoral research. Her PhD explored interagency collaboration in domestic and family violence work. Before turning to research, she worked in the domestic and family violence sector for more than two decades, first as a direct service provider and then as an educator providing professional learning and development. Her research interests lie broadly in the area of professional practice and learning. She is especially interested in sociomaterial research approaches.

References

Atkinson

, & High and Complex Needs Unit. (2007). Better at working together: Interagency collaboration: Part 1, Literature review. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Social Development, Child, Youth and Family.

Australian Institute of Criminology. (2015). Homicide in Australia: 2010–11 to 2011–12: National homicide monitoring program report. Canberra: Author.

Bagshaw

Chung

Couch

Lilburn

Wadham

(2000). Reshaping responses to domestic violence. Adelaide: University of South Australia.

Banks

Dutch

Wang

(2008). Collaborative efforts to improve system response to families who are experiencing child maltreatment and domestic violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 23, 876-902.

Beeman

S. K.

Hagemeister

A. K.

Edleson

(1999). Child protection and battered women’s services: From conflict to collaboration. Child Maltreatment, 4, 116-126. doi:10.1177/1077559599004002004

Callon

(1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen in Saint Brieuc Bay. In Law

(Ed.), Power, action and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? (pp. 196-233). London, England: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act NSW, (1998).

Coker

A. L.

Sanderson

Dong

(2004). Partner violence during pregnancy and risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, 18, 260-269. doi:10.1111/j.1365-3016.2004.00569.x

Fenwick

(2010). (un)Doing standards in education with actor-network theory. Journal of Education Policy, 25, 117-133. doi:10.1080/02680930903314277

10.

Fenwick

Edwards

(2010). Actor-network theory in education. New York: Routledge.

11.

Fenwick

Edwards

Sawchuk

(2011). Emerging approaches to educational research: Tracing the sociomaterial. London, England: Routledge.

12.

Fenwick

Nerland

Jensen

(2012). Sociomaterial approaches to conceptualising learning and practice. Journal of Education and Work, 25(1), 1-13.

13.

Fleck-Henderson

(2000). Domestic violence in the child protection system: Seeing double. Children and Youth Services Review, 22(5), 333-354.

14.

Gherardi

(2000). Practice-based theorizing on learning and knowing in organizations. Organization, 7, 211-223. doi:10.1177/135050840072001

15.

Gherardi

(2008). Situated knowledge and situated action: What do practice-based studies promise? In Barry

Hansen

(Eds.), Sage handbook of new approaches in management and organisation (pp. 516-527). London, England: Sage.

16.

Gherardi

(2009). Knowing and learning in practice-based studies: an introduction. The Learning Organisation, 16(5), 352-359.

17.

Gherardi

(2012). How to conduct a practice-based study. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

18.

Gherardi

Perrotta

(2014), Between the hand and the head - How things get done, and how in doing the ways of doing are discovered. Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, 9(2), 134-150.

19.

Gillingham

(2011). Decision-making tools and the development of expertise in child protection practitioners: Are we “just breeding workers who are good at ticking boxes?” Child & Family Social Work, 16, 412-421. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2206.2011.00756.x

20.

Hague

Malos

(1998). Inter-agency approaches to domestic violence and the role of social services. British Journal of Social Work, 28, 369-386.

21.

Hague

Bridge

(2008). Inching forward on domestic violence: The “co-ordinated community response” and putting it in practice in Cheshire. Journal of Gender Studies, 17, 185-199. doi:10.1080/09589230802204134

22.

Hague

G.M.

Mullender

(2006). Who listens? The voices of domestic violence survivors in service provision in the United Kingdom. Violence Against Women, 12(6), 568-587.

23.

Hague

Mullender

Aris

(2003). Is anyone listening? Accountability and women survivors of domestic violence. London, England: Routledge.

24.

Harvie

Manzi

(2011). Interpreting multi-agency partnerships: Ideology, discourse and domestic violence. Social & Legal Studies, 20, 79-95. doi:10.1177/0964663910384907

25.

Healey

Frere

Ross

Humphreys

(2009). A summary of the literature on initiatives to build integrated family violence service systems. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare.

26.

Healey

Humphreys

Wilcox

(2013). Governance and interagency responses: Improving practice for regional governance—A continuum matrix (Topic Paper 21). Sydney, New South Wales: Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse.

27.

Hester

(2008). Mothering through domestic violence. Paper presented at the Belfast Women’s Aid Conference, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

28.

Hester

(2009). The contradictory legal worlds faced by domestic violence victims. In Stark

Buzawa

(Eds.), Violence against women in families and relationships: Making and breaking connections Volume II: Family pieces (pp. 127-146). New York: Praeger.

29.

Hester

Westmarland

(2005). Tackling domestic violence: Effective interventions and approaches. London: UK Home Office.

30.

Hood

(2014). Complexity and integrated working in children’s services. British Journal of Social Work, 44, 27-43. doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcs091

31.

Humphreys

(2008). Problems in the system of mandatory reporting of children living with domestic violence. Journal of Family Studies, 14(2/3), 228-239.

32.

Humphreys

Mullender

Lowe

Hague

G. M.

Abrahams

Hester

(2001). Domestic violence and child abuse: Developing sensitive policies and guidance. Child Abuse Review, 10, 183-197. doi:10.1002/car.686

33.

Jasinski

J. L.

(2004). Pregnancy and domestic violence: A review of the literature. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 5, 47-64. doi:10.1177/1524838003259322

34.

Kearns

Coen

(2014). Charting the trajectory of domestic violence policy change in the Republic of Ireland since the mid-1990s—A path towards integration? International Journal of Integrated Care, 14(3), e025. doi:10.5334/ijic.980

35.

Latour

(1986). The powers of association. In Law

(Ed.), Power, action, and belief: A new sociology of knowledge? (pp. 264-280). London, England: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

36.

Latour

(1992). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In Bijker

W. E.

Law

(Eds.), Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change (pp. 225-258). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

37.

Latour

(1993). We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

38.

Latour

(2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

39.

Latour

(2011). Networks, societies, spheres: Reflections of an actor-network theorist. International Journal of Communication, 5, 796-810.

40.

Law

(1992). Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy and heterogeneity. Systems Practice, 5, 370-393.

41.

Law

Singleton

(2013, July 3-5). ANT, multiplicity and policy. Paper presented at the 8th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis, Societies in Conflict: Experts, Publics and Democracy, University of Vienna, Austria.

42.

Mol

(2002). The body multiple: Ontology in medical practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

43.

Murphy

Fanslow

(2012). Building collaborations to eliminate family violence: Facilitators, barriers and good practice. New Zealand: New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse, The University of Auckland.

44.

Murray

Powell

(2011). Domestic violence: Australian public policy. Melbourne, Victoria: Australian Scholarly Publishing.

45.

Nicolini

(2011). Practice as the site of knowing: Insights from the field of telemedicine. Organization Science, 22, 602-620. doi:10.1287/orsc.1100.0556

46.

Nicolini

Mengis

Swan

(2012), Understanding the role of objects in cross-disciplinary collaboration. Organization Science, 23(3), 612-629.

47.

Orlikowski

Scott

(2010). Sociomateriality: Challenging the separation of technology, work and organization. Annals of the Academy of Management, 2(1), 433-474.

48.

Postmus

Ah Hahn

(2007). The collaboration between welfare and advocacy organizations: Learning from the experiences of domestic violence survivors. Families in Society, 88, 475-484.

49.

Radermacher

Karunarathna

Grace

Feldman

(2011). Partner or perish? Exploring inter-organisational partnerships in the multicultural community aged care sector. Health and Social Care in the Community, 19, 550-560. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2524.2011.01007.x

50.

Reeves

(2013). How multi-agency are multi-agency risk assessment committees? Probation Journal, 60, 40-55. doi:10.1177/0264550512470187

51.

San Martin-Rodriquez

Beaulieu

M.-D.

D’Amour

Ferrada-Videla

. (2005). The determinants of successful collaboration: A review of theoretical and empirical studies. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 19(Suppl. 1), 132-147. doi:10.1080/13561820500082677

52.

Schatzki

T. R.

Knorr-Cetina

Von Savigny

(2001). Introduction to practice theory. London, England: Routledge.

53.

Stanley

Humphreys

(2014). Multi-agency risk assessment and management for children and families experiencing domestic violence. Children and Youth Services Review, 47, 78-85. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.06.003

54.

Statham

, & Department of Children and Youth Affairs. (2011). A review of international evidence on interagency working, to inform the development of children’s services committees in Ireland. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10147/315237

55.

Taguchi

H. L.

(2012). A diffractive and Deleuzian approach to analysing interview data. Feminist Theory, 13, 265-281. doi:10.1177/1464700112456001

56.

Thiara

R. K.

Humphreys

(2017). Absent presence: The ongoing impact of men’s violence on the mother-child relationship. Child & Family Social Work, 22, 137-145. doi:10.1111/cfs.12210

57.

Valentine

Hilferty

(2011). Why don’t multi-agency child welfare initiatives deliver? A counterpoint to best practice literature: Prepared for NSW Ombudsman. Sydney, New South Wales, Australia: Social Policy Research Centre.

58.

Visher

Harrell

Newmark

Yahner

(2008). Reducing intimate partner violence: An evaluation of a comprehensive justice system-community collaboration. Criminology & Public Policy, 7, 495-523.

59.

World Health Organization. (2013). Responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women: WHO clinical and policy guidelines. Geneva, Switzerland: Author.

60.

Zukas

Kilminster

(2012). Learning to practise, practising to learn: Doctors’ transitions to new levels of responsibility. In Hager

Lee

Reich

(Eds.), Practice, learning and change: Practice-theory perspectives on professional learning (pp. 199-213). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.