FEATURES

 By: Brandon Drain
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Domestic violence is one of the most pervasive public health and social issues in the United States. As awareness grows around different forms of abuse, from coercive control to digital harassment, it is important for communities to develop culturally informed prevention strategies, adopting early intervention methods and create avenues to provide survivor-centered care.

Hyunkag Cho is an associate professor and director of the doctoral program at Michigan State University’s School of Social Work at the College of Social Science. He studies the patterns, consequences and prevention of intimate partner and domestic violence. His research explores how race, culture and systemic barriers shape survivors’ experiences and how social workers and communities can better respond.

Here, Cho answers questions on common misconceptions about domestic violence, emerging challenges, and how we can all play a role in preventing violence and supporting survivors.

Domestic violence does not happen only to people in bad luck or by bad people — like meeting the wrong people, being in the wrong relationship or just being stressed out. It can happen to anyone, regardless of their gender, race, age, income, religion and citizenship.

A variety of domestic violence forms have been recognized recently in addition to physical and sexual domestic violence. Coercive control is a pattern of acts and behaviors that an abuser uses to take away your freedom and control your life, which includes continuous monitoring of the partner and control of the partner’s money. The use of technology such as cell phones and videos to harass and abuse the partner is also rapidly increasing. It is still challenging to measure domestic violence, as many survivors do not report and certain forms of domestic violence are not easy to measure. Racial, ethnic and gender minorities’ experiences of domestic violence are not studied well.

Social workers help a variety of people, many of whom may suffer from domestic violence. Social workers need to be aware of signs of domestic violence and associated stigma to identify domestic violence and intervene and/or help as early as possible before it gets serious.

Controlling behaviors, physical aggression and sexual coercion can be behavioral warning signs from the abuser. Withdrawal from friends or families and unexplained injuries or absences can be warning signs from the survivor.

Hotlines, shelters, legal services and advocacy programs have been effective in helping survivors. Communities can help by making these resources visible, barrier-free and integrated into everyday systems, including training teachers, health care providers and employers to recognize domestic violence signs and provide help to survivors.

Domestic violence is not only a private or interpersonal issue but also a structural one, tightly linked with housing, poverty and child welfare systems. Domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness among women and children. Leaving an abusive relationship often means choosing between safety and financial survival. Children who witness domestic violence are at higher risk of emotional, behavioral and developmental problems.

If they recognize the signs of domestic violence, they can offer nonjudgmental support, avoiding blaming. They can listen and validate what survivors share with them. They can connect them to resources, while respecting survivors’ privacy and confidentiality.

Be empathetic, respect survivors’ choices, stay culturally aware and care for your own well-being.

-courtesy story

By: Joshua Cowen 

EAST LANSING, Mich. - In March of 2025, the Trump administration eliminated roughly half of the U.S. Department of Education’s 4,200 positions. Now, the administration is seeking to remove an additional 4,000 federal workers across a range of agencies, which would include almost 500 staff at the Department of Education.

This latest round of cuts would eliminate most of the work of the remaining Department of Education offices, including that of the Office of Special Education Programs, which is responsible for ensuring children with disabilities across the U.S. receive a free, appropriate public education, as required by federal law.

Despite the administration’s latest efforts being ruled illegal and in excess of authority by a U.S. district judge, the administration is expected to appeal this decision.

Josh Cowen is a professor of education policy at Michigan State University’s College of Education. Here, he answers questions about why special education programs are important and how terminating the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs will negatively affect families throughout the nation.

Responses and excerpts are from an interview published in The Conversation.

With these cuts, we are talking about getting rid of some really important positions. People in these roles serve kids and families across the country. They help answer questions about how school districts are providing for children — in the way they are legally required to — if a child has special needs.

Special education is a very broad category. Under the Department of Education, it encompasses everything from dyslexia to a child who is blind. There is no educational need so severe that a child is not entitled to free and adequate education.

When navigating challenges related to your child’s special needs education, you really need an advocate — in the legal sense of the term rather than the political one. You need someone whose job it is to take your call and walk you through options or just document your call and start an inquiry into your case.

The Office of Special Education Programs is part of the Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which has about 179 employees. The government spent more than $20 billion on its work from April 2024 through March 2025, making the broader Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services the third-largest branch of the Education Department, in terms of spending.

There are very strong federal legal obligations — and often state ones, too — for schools to serve kids with whatever need they have. This office’s main job is to be a resource to parents for their child’s education, particularly if parents feel they are not having these legal obligations met.

Let’s say a child with autism is in school. Their parent does not believe the school district is providing the accommodations that their child is legally entitled to. The school district disagrees and thinks the child is doing well in school. When things get fuzzy about what a child’s needs actually are, or parents feel they are being ignored, OSEP can help parents learn what their options are, and then can even become involved and serve as an arbitrator to figure out the best course of action.

Sometimes, public school districts and state departments of education have very clear, accessible ways for parents to receive information about their rights and obtain instructions for putting together an Individualized Education Plan for their child. If those rights are not met, states may open an investigation into the matter to ensure compliance. Throughout this process, parents may seek support and guidance from OSEP to make sure state investigations into special education cases are being done and being done well.

The Department of Education can help hold states and districts accountable and push districts and schools to be more responsive. In the best-case scenario, additional or tailored programming and support — whether it is a teacher’s aide or something else — can come from an OSEP investigation.

Well, we don’t really know what happens when you gut OSEP because no one has tried to do it before.

But it’s safe to say that parents will get really frustrated. I have been contacted by parents who have shared heartbreaking examples of the special education system not working over the past couple of years.

Feeling like the education system is really not serving you can push parents to leave the public school system and consider homeschooling or private options. In the long run, this may actually make parents even worse off because those sectors have have no obligation at all to serve students with special needs. So what’s happening at the U.S. Department of Education right now is not only creating more dissatisfaction and distrust in the system as it stands, but it’s also going to leave parents and kids with fewer options to get the support they need.

-courtesy story