Scenario One: 

A drunk woman with a child, who looks to be about 9 years old, comes to a DVSP agency seeking “information” about domestic violence and about our services. She is slightly slurring her words but can hold a conversation, and she insists she needs to talk with a representative. She is invited to meet with one of the staff and tells the following story. Her name is Tiana, and she tells you she was just sent over by her son’s school counselor. The school counselor said her son was overheard telling some other kids about how his mom and her boyfriend had a huge fight, and that his mom was walking around with a black eye and a broken tooth. Tiana acknowledges she and her boyfriend had a fight, but says it wasn’t really a big deal, and that her son tends to exaggerate things. She tells you the only reason she’s here is she’s afraid that if she doesn’t do what the counselor says, he’ll call DCFS, and they’ll take her son away. After more conversation, Tiana says she probably could use some counseling. She doesn’t know how to talk to her “overprotective” boyfriend about his jealousy, and now her son is upset that they moved into her boyfriend’s home, and left the old neighborhood and school. Tiana says that there’s a chance that if she stands up to the boyfriend, he might kick her out, and she’ll have no place to go. She says she loves him, and that the fight just happened due to the stress of moving in together. Tiana is worried that if her son’s father catches wind of what happened, he will try to take custody of the son, and she’ll never see him again.

Scenario Two: 

Klaus is a friend who discloses that last year, he ended a very bad relationship with his boyfriend, Timothy. They had been together for 5 years, and he tolerated a lot of physical abuse from Timothy. When Klaus ended the relationship, Timothy told him that no man would ever have him again, and that Timothy would kill him before he’d let that happen. For the first 6 months, everything was fine. But about 6 months ago, Timothy started sending him flowers and love notes, several times a month, to his place of work. Klaus ignored them or threw them out. A month ago, after he started seeing someone, he started to get these hang-up calls where nobody spoke, and all he heard was heavy breathing. He blocked the number, but then would get called by another number instead. Last night, he saw a car driving away from his neighborhood as he returned home. The front door was ajar, and nothing appeared to be wrong inside, but the guy he is dating got his tires slashed a few miles away. Today, he received a death threat by email from an unknown source. He can’t prove it, but he thinks it might be Timothy harassing and stalking him and his new boyfriend.