Intimate partner violence prevention through legal health promotion in a health care setting: A Workshop series

The health/legal partnership between Passageway at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Legal Services Center at Harvard Law School identified the need for an effective domestic violence prevention strategy aimed at linking improved legal health outcomes to those of overall health. Survivor feedback about the need for preemptive legal information was central. Workshops were created to maximize women's access to legal information before reaching a crisis requiring legal intervention. Project design was informed by identifying barriers precluding access to legal information. Workshops occur in a familiar setting; present legal information applicable to all, avoiding disclosure; demystify legal systems and processes; and challenge legal myths. Facilitated by attorneys and advocates, workshops educate and empower women while providing a safe space for participants. An intentional recruitment strategy was used to target hard to reach patient populations as well as health care providers serving this urban hospital. Members of groups targeted include low income Latinas and pregnant adolescents. Workshops are taught in English and Spanish by bilingual/bicultural attorneys. Process and outcome measures were collected and analyzed using a post-test design. Findings indicate after participating women had an increased understanding of family law, were informed about legal rights, and identified legal myths and relevant “next steps”. The holistic legal education model has proved highly replicable, inexpensive, and has the potential to significantly impact the health of diverse groups of women. This new initiative at Passageway has very quickly proved to be an innovative and effective prevention effort.