"The Gremlin of Silence": Exploring the New Zealand Catholic, Methodist, and Presbyterian Religious Institutional Responses to Interpersonal Violence

Abstract

Violence is a complex, persistent and significant public health, Indigenous and human rights issue. New Zealand has amongst the highest reported rates of intimate violence, sexual violence, and violence within families and whānau in the developed world. Literature shows interpersonal violence is a preventable and solvable problem. Integrated and effective systems responses are required to address interpersonal violence in New Zealand. This involves government, multiple sectors and agencies, iwi and diverse communities. The religious sector is, however, less examined in New Zealand and needs to be addressed. Responding to this gap, this qualitative multiple-case study explores New Zealand Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches’ institutional perspectives on what helps and what hinders their institution in developing responses to interpersonal violence and considers how these can be improved. Diverse representation was sought from senior leadership within the churches, theological institutions and social services who were involved in setting strategic direction, policy development, service delivery, professional standards, and training. Multiple data sources were used in this study: semi-structured interviews analysed using reflexive thematic analysis; a review of institutional documents, publications and any written material suggested by participants or written by New Zealand religious institutional members; church and affiliated entities’ websites were reviewed, as well as domestic and international literature relating to each religious institution. This study concludes with a summary, synthesis and contextualisation of the overall findings from the three religious institutions. A bricolage theoretical framework weaves together the six mutually reinforcing components of the Infrastructure-Systems Approach with the six levels of the Social Ecological Model. Issues of intersectionality, power and historical trauma are acknowledged. Overall findings are presented under six headings: “Leadership, including governance and management”, “Guidelines, policies, procedures, including documentation”, “Training”, “Resources”, “Dedicated roles to support staff”, and “Quality Improvement and Evaluation”. This study concludes with a discussion of the key implications for New Zealand religious institutions, the New Zealand government and wider violence prevention and intervention field. This includes: the need to extend definitions of violence to include spiritual abuse and the failure of, and urgent need for the New Zealand government to include religious institutions in integrated approaches to address violence.