Since 2003, Praxis has provided consulting and training to communities to analyze institutional responses to gender-based violence through the use of institutional analysis, community assessment, best practice assessment, and Safety and Accountability Audits.

Praxis has developed Institutional Analysis methods for systems change work rooted in the field of sociology called institutional ethnography. Our tools provide approaches for activists and representatives from institutions to work together to examine and change case processing routines to better meet the needs of the people they are intended to serve. Institutional Analysis is a method of examining how complex institutions and systems operate. It discovers the specific ways workers are organized and coordinated, directly and indirectly, to approach and act on cases.

Institutional Analysis can be used to discover information about: (1) people’s actual lived experiences with institutions or systems; (2) how current front-line practice is organized; (3) gaps between the official process and the actual process; (4) problems that require a shift in policy and practice; (5) whether recommended policies and protocols have been implemented as intended; (6) how harmful consequences, inequities, and disparity of impact might be structured into a system or institution’s response; and (7) impact of changes in policy and practice.

The Institutional Analysis tools have been utilized extensively in the criminal and civil justice systems, supervised visitation, and child protective services to assess responses to gender-based violence. They avoid pointing fingers of blame at individuals for failing to protect survivors of gender-based violence. Practitioners and advocates work side by side to analyze how systems organize day-to-day work routines to either centralize or marginalize attention to survivor safety and well-being and offender accountability.

The following tools developed by Praxis help local, interagency teams to reveal systemic problems and produce recommendations for institutional change:

• Supporting the Safety of Battered Mothers & Their Children Together: A Guide to Assessing Child Protection Practice in Domestic Violence-Related Cases
• The Praxis Safety and Accountability Audit Toolkit
• Best Practice Assessment Guides in the following responses to domestic violence:
  • 911 Emergency Communications & Police Patrol
  • Police Investigation & Prosecution Charging Decisions
  • Victim-Witness Services
  • Bail Evaluation and Conditions of Release
  • Pre-Trial Release Supervision and Enforcement
• Checklists for Best Practice in the following responses to domestic violence:
  • 911 Emergency Communications
  • Police Patrol
  • Police Investigation
  • Prosecution Charging Decisions

The Center for the Study of Social Policy has formally adapted Praxis Institutional Analysis to examine disparity in foster care placements for African American children.

The Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies at the University of Minnesota-Duluth has formally adapted Praxis Institutional Analysis to examine the implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act by county-based child protection agencies.

Who can I contact for more information?

Contact us at info@praxisinternational.org to learn more.

Comments from past trainings: