“Why Did You Stay after the First Time?” - a Vignette Investigation of Black Male Clergy Responses to Help-Seeking Among Black IPV Female Survivors

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a pervasive public‑health and social‑justice problem, and Black women frequently seek help first from informal supports, especially clergy, before engaging formal systems of care. This exploratory study examines how Black clergy verbally respond to physical versus emotional/psychological forms of IPV, with the aim of identifying patterns that shape help‑seeking pathways and informing culturally responsive training and collaboration strategies. Research questions: (1) How do Black clergy interpret and verbally respond to vignettes depicting physical versus emotional IPV? (2) How do cultural or institutional schemas guide clergy decisions about safety, referral, and accountability?

Methods: Qualitative, exploratory case vignette‑based study using two standardized vignettes (one depicting escalating physical violence with injury; another depicting coercive control and emotional abuse) were presented in a fixed order during semi‑structured Zoom interviews (45–70 minutes). Interviews were audio‑recorded and professionally transcribed. Four Black clergy (all male; ages 49–59; ministry experience 15–40 years) serving predominantly Black congregations in a mid‑sized city in Western New York were recruited via purposive and snowball sampling. Thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke’s six‑phase approach; dual independent coding with adjudication by a third analyst when needed; themes retained only if present in at least half the interviews.

Findings: Clergy responses clustered into five thematic domains: (1) Safety and Survivor Protection; (2) Support and Resource Mobilization; (3) Institutional and Administrative Responses; (4) Faith‑Based and Theological Responses; and (5) Clergy Perceptions and Attitudes Toward IPV. Physical abuse consistently activated an urgent, crisis‑oriented response, emphasizing separation, police involvement, protective orders, and mobilization of family networks, whereas emotional/coercive abuse was more often minimized, spiritualized, or reframed as a counseling or endurance issue. Clergy also invoked pastoral authority and family responsibility schemas that shaped decisions about who merited intervention and whether to pursue internal disciplinary measures versus external referrals.

Conclusion: Findings indicate a critical gap in clergy recognition and response to non‑physical forms of IPV: emotional and coercive control are frequently deprioritized despite their documented harms. For practice, results support the development of trauma‑informed, culturally grounded training for Black clergy that: (a) clarifies the risks and indicators of emotional/coercive abuse; (b) integrates standardized danger‑assessment tools; and (c) establishes formal referral pathways and collaborative protocols with IPV advocates and service providers. For policy, faith–community partnerships and funding for clergy training should be prioritized to strengthen early intervention pathways. For research, larger, multi‑site studies should examine denominational and gender differences among clergy and evaluate the effectiveness of targeted training on referral behavior and survivor outcomes.