Faculty Voices: An Interview with Kristie Thomas

Kristie A. Thomas, PhD, MSW, is currently an assistant professor at the Simmons College School of Social Work where she teaches graduate courses and a PhD course on the origins and utility of social and behavioral theory in applied research. Kristie came to Simmons from the University of Pennsylvania where she served as the assistant director of the Evelyn Jacobs Ortner Center on Family Violence. In addition to her teaching experience, Thomas is currently the principal investigator on a study aimed at exploring the experiences of homeless survivors of violence who are living in shelters across Massachusetts. Additional research and teaching interests include program evaluation, community organizing and development, and population interventions aimed at reducing violence. Kristie also teaches a course at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

We sat down with Kristie to discuss her work in the domestic violence space, her research, and her professional experiences. The following is a full transcript of our conversation.

Tell us a little bit about your experience with Simmons College. How long have you been working as part of our faculty?

I joined the Simmons School of Social Work as an assistant professor in 2011. I was drawn to Simmons for several reasons, but two stand out in particular. First, it was clear that Simmons would value my contributions as a scholar and as an educator. My research informs my teaching and vice versa, so I didn’t want to have to pick between the two. Luckily, being at Simmons means I don’t have to. The other aspect that drew me to the School of Social Work is its long-standing commitment to addressing domestic violence (also called intimate partner violence), which is my area of scholarship. It’s been fantastic to be at an institution that values the research I conduct and whose reputation has helped me facilitate connections with the surrounding advocacy and service community.

What is your academic focus at Simmons and what courses do you teach?

I teach courses in our MSW and Ph.D. program, as well as a course at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The courses I teach reflect my academic passions: anti-violence work, community organizing, research and evaluation, and theory. I enjoy all of the courses I teach, but my favorite is one of our electives: “Leadership Development in Anti-Violence Work: The Susan Schechter Social Action Seminar.” It is special to me for many reasons. First, it focuses on multiple types of interpersonal violence, but from a lens of organization- and system-level change. Second, it is a student-driven seminar, which means I learn even more from my students than usual. Third, I get to co-teach it with a fantastic practitioner, activist, and scholar, Dr. Fernando Mederos. Last but not least, the course represents a unique partnership with the national organization Futures Without Violence and was developed to honor the legacy of the pioneering domestic violence activist Susan Schechter. It is a dream come true to teach the course.

We have noticed your truly outstanding work on projects related to domestic violence. What originally interested you in this research focus and what motivates you to affect change around this cause?

Thank you! I always knew I wanted to be a scholar, but it was a combination of personal experiences and practice experiences that led me to focus my research on the issue of domestic violence. For example, my first job after college was working as a crisis counselor at a domestic violence shelter. It was both grueling and inspiring, and it sparked a fire that continues to drive me. I saw the immediate and persistent effects of domestic violence on the well-being of individuals, their loved ones, and their communities. I also saw the ways in which systems and policies can make survivors’ lives even harder — especially for those who are economically impoverished. These lessons were reinforced in my subsequent practice experiences, and I entered my doctoral program with a very clear focus on domestic violence, homelessness, and service delivery.

Since then, I have kept domestic violence at the center of every research project, but have I branched out from that center to explore a range of aims, use a range of methods, and collaborate with an array of researchers and practitioners — each of which is necessary to better understand how to eliminate this pervasive social problem.

With it being Domestic Violence Awareness Month, what can everyday people do to promote a proactive conversation about ending domestic violence and get involved?

Well, first of all, I hope people talk about domestic violence during the other 11 months of the year.

But, to answer the question, I think people are afraid to talk about or get involved with domestic violence out of fear that they’ll say or do the wrong thing. Please don’t let fear paralyze you. If you think someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or being abusive, start by simply engaging the person with simple questions (e.g., how are things going for you?) to learn as much as you can about his or her situation. If you approach with judgment, you’ll likely shut down the chance of helping the person stay safe or get help.

I think people also stay silent because they think they don’t know anyone who has experienced domestic violence, or they think it’s not their business — neither of which is accurate. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in three women and one in four men has been physically assaulted by an intimate partner in their lifetimes, and domestic violence costs society billions of dollars in lost productivity and expenditures by the medical and criminal legal systems. In other words, it is a pervasive and expensive epidemic that everyone should (and can!) do something about:

One of the things we are focusing on this month on our blog is homelessness. We’ve noticed your extensive exploratory research surrounding the homeless survivors of violence. Can you speak to any key findings you have encountered over the course of your work on this?

Sure. First, survivors living in domestic violence shelters and those living in homeless shelters are often the same population with similar needs; the reasons they land in one or the other usually has more to do with system-level factors such as bed availability and policies. Second, homeless survivors have to juggle many competing crises that require difficult tradeoffs. So, when someone makes the seemingly irrational decision to leave a shelter and return to an abusive living situation, it’s likely due to a need to address another equally important basic need (e.g., medical care, children’s schooling, connection to one’s community). Everyone defines costs and benefits differently, especially when in survival mode.

As a former MSW student, if you could give any piece of advice to a social work student pursuing their MSW now, what would it be?

I think the most important thing is not losing sight of the very first thing you’ll learn in social work school: “person-in-environment.” It can be easy to hone in on the “person” and forget about the “environment,” especially the systems, policies, and structural factors that surround and affect everyone — especially our clients. Overlooking the larger context can be harmful. You might start to think that (and act like) your clients are the problem rather than seeing the external barriers that surround them. It will also make your job harder over time. If we don’t work to address larger structural issues, social work agencies will continue to be constrained by an ever-shrinking pot of available resources.