Domestic Violence Safety and Accountability Audits
The Domestic Violence Safety and Accountability Audit, developed by Praxis International, Inc., is carried out by a local team to look at how work routines and ways of doing business in institutions and systems strengthen or impede safety for victims of battering. By asking how something comes about, rather than looking at an individual worker, an Audit discovers systemic impediments to and gaps in victim safety, and produces recommendations addressing the removal of those impediments and the closing of those gaps.
The Audit is designed to leave communities with new insights into victim safety, sharper skills in problem investigation and solving, and stronger relationships among community partners that can be applied to an ongoing review of its response to domestic violence. The Audit is a form of institutional analysis. It guides communities to discover and understand how 1) a victim of battering becomes “a case;” 2) how responses to that case are organized and coordinated in and across intervening agencies; and 3) how the complexity of risk and safety varies for each victim of battering. (Text from BWJP website)