ABSTRACT
A review of the literature, university courses, and professional practices suggests that a substantial deficit exists in the current knowledge, skills, and abilities regarding violence in black families. In addition, traditional theories and models which exist and which are often superimposed on black families for coping with the social, economic, mental, and health care problems of violence are inadequate. Attention to the problem of black family violence has focused primarily on the rate of violence, usually compared to whites, rather than a viable model with resolutions to black family violence. The purpose of this chapter is to fill this gap and add to the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the helping profession and black consumers by introducing copology as an alternative coping approach for identifying, understanding, reducing, managing, and preventing black family violence. This chapter includes an overview of black family violence, a working definition of coping, some professional attitudes toward black family violence, and some traditional helping approaches available to black families.
