Dialogue about violence with victims with cognitive disabilities: Challenges faced by professionals

Summary Dialogues between professionals and clients in social work are central to identifying and providing support for violence in close relationships. How professionals approach dialogues about violence in close relationships with clients with cognitive disabilities, and associated challenges to making them accessible, are understudied. Semi-structured interviews with 18 professionals in disability services, domestic violence shelters, social services, and health services in Sweden were conducted. Previous findings and gaps in theory motivated an inductive content analysis which generated four categories that illustrate challenges to accessible violence in close relationship dialogues. Findings The four categories comprise challenges about : understanding and reasoning about violence; self-determination and protection; adapting assessment tools and approaches; and urgent and long-term approaches. These challenges entail difficulties in creating shared understandings and handling conflicting rights of clients. Furthermore, they included the need to adapt and maintain the validity of assessment tools, as well as organizational restrictions on the use of long-term approaches. Applications The findings shed light on how professionals must simultaneously handle various aspects of violence in close relationship dialogues. Verbally adhering to a given description of a situation was restricted by the need to maintain a professional–client relationship. When motivating the need to accept support, professionals had to avoid manipulating clients. Furthermore, the findings indicate several weaknesses in current practice that professionals struggle to address individually, such as, overly extensive assessment tools and little guidance on identifying less overt forms of violence in close relationships. Professional guidance is required in social work practice and related fields.