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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Marianne R. Yoshioka, PhD, School of Social Work, Columbia University, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10025, 212 851 2252, mry5@columbia.edu

This presentation describes an empirically based peer assistance intervention (PAI) linking Cambodian immigrant women living with IPV to social services. Combining principles of peer support with the functions of a legal advocate, the PAI offers an enhancement over basic services by providing additional education, support, and advocacy. It is unique from legal advocacy programs because it is located in a social service setting and directly targets culturally informed barriers through education, normalizing help-seeking, and promoting self-efficacy. The goal of the intervention is to reduce culturally influenced barriers to service and increase service utilization and is comprised of 6 components (education, support, problem–solving, modeling, safety planning, and advocacy). In this evaluation study, the intervention was delivered by a trained bi-lingual, community peer to Cambodian women who were in contact with an Asian specific domestic violence agency in the Boston area. A total of 24 women participated in this funded research. Overall, data show that the women who participated in this study experienced improvements in terms of their knowledge of, intentions to use, and supportive attitudes toward social services. In addition to a review of these data, discussion will focus on the challenges of training and working with community peers, their supervision needs, and implementation experiences. This study is unique in that it is an evaluation of a little studied approach to working with an under-represented group of Asian women living with violence with the aim of reducing the disparity in their service utilization.

Learning Objectives:

Objective
• Participants will be able to describe the substantive content of an effective peer assistance intervention to link immigrant clients to social services. Objective
• Participants will be able to articulate specific ways to increase the satisfaction of the peer assistants, their supervision needs, and to anticipate implementation challenges.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No