Cultural Adaptation of a Career Development Intervention for Latina Immigrant Intimate Partner Violence Survivors
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Date
2019-09-18
Authors
Valenzuela, Yolanda
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a worldwide public health crisis that brings long-lasting consequences to victims’ mental and physical health as well as vocational and economic development. Limited extant research shows that the impact of IPV precludes women’s involvement in career and vocational development activities that may be crucial to helping victims escape abusive relationships. Considerably less is known about immigrant Latinas’ experiences of IPV and how those experiences impact their vocational development and economic mobility, and what prevention and intervention efforts are most effective at remedying these impacts. No current intervention focuses on helping Spanish-speaking Latina immigrant survivors of IPV explore and identify the impact of IPV on their work skills identification, self-esteem and self-efficacy in engagement in vocational development, and career and economic development. To address APA’s mandate to bridge gaps in practice and intervention for diverse populations, scholars in recent decades have undertaken the task of culturally adapting existing psychological health interventions. The purpose of this dissertation study was to complete Phase 3 of the Heuristic Framework for cultural adaptations with a focus group qualitative research design and constructivist/interpretivist paradigm to examine the validity of the preliminary adaptation version of the ACCESS vocational intervention for Latina immigrant IPV survivors. The results of this study inform Phase 4 refinements necessary to further increase the cultural validity of ACCESS.
Focus group and session data were analyzed using inductive conventional qualitative content analysis. Results indicate the preliminarily adapted version of ACCESS is culturally relevant for unique and intersectional vocational development needs of Latina immigrant IPV survivors and that few changes are required to refine the intervention in the next phase of the cultural adaptation. Data themes also confirmed extant literature findings; that barriers such as lack of English skills, xenophobia and racism, and documentation status negatively affected participants’ work experiences, choices, and goals. Furthermore, participants expressed that in addition to the IPV that they experienced, aspects of familismo, traditional gender role expectations, and their role as mothers impacted their decisions about when to work and what type of work they pursued.
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Keywords
Cultural Adaptation, Intimate Partner Violence, Latina immigrant populations, Vocational Development