ADVIP 2018 World Conference

"Moving Forward with Evidence-Based Practice"
Conference Presentation Slides

Abstracts, presenter bios and contact information below

AM1: One size fits all in treatment of IPV: A critical reappraisal
Presenter: Arthur Cantos, Ph.D.
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AM2:  Identifying and addressing high risk cases in batterer intervention
Christopher Murphy, Ph.D.
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AM3:  If it IS broke, why not fix it? An empirically supported intervention for intimate partner violence
Presenter: Erika Lawrence, Ph.D.
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AM 4:  Finding common ground in batterer intervention
Presenter:  John Hamel                                                                        
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PM1:  We're not victims: Deconstructing narratives of female perpetrators of intimate partner violence
Presenter: Leslie Lambo
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PM2: The Colorado Model:  How evidence-based strategies can renew hope and support for effective offender treatment, evaluation, and management
Presenter: Jesse Hanson, MPA
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PM3: Barriers to implementing evidence-based practice: Part One: The trials and tribulations of testing couples therapies for intimate partner violence 
Presenter: Julia Babcock, Ph.D.
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ABSTRACTS AND PRESENTER BIOS

AM 1: One size fits all in treatment of IPV: A critical reappraisal

This presentation will review recent approaches to the treatment of intimate partner violence with respect to the extent to which they address the different types of intimate partner violence and the varied characteristics of perpetrators. The characteristics of the populations used will be reviewed and the extent to which they have been implemented as another one-size fits all approach as opposed to an intervention tailored to the characteristics of the perpetrators or the type of violence will be examined. The importance of tailoring the interventions to meet the needs of perpetrators will be highlighted, as will the problems with using a one-size fits all approach. An attempt will be made to propose how each of the recently developed interventions could be used to address unique characteristics of the perpetrators and the type of violence in order to abandon the one-size fits all approach to intervention in intimate partner violence.

Dr. Arthur Cantos is the Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and was previously Program Director in the APA approved program at La Universidad Carlos Albizu in Puerto Rico and DCT for the Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook as well as advanced degrees and diplomas from Middlesex Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, University of London, England and the University of Valencia, Spain. He has over 30 years of experience in practice and academia and is licensed to practice clinical psychology in the states of Illinois and New York, as well as in the United Kingdom. Over the past 30 years he has done extensive work in all aspects of the family violence area and has made numerous presentations on the topic of treatment of male perpetrators of intimate partner violence. He recently completed a 5 year longitudinal outcome study of perpetrators on probation in Lake County, Illinois and published an important review article on treatment of perpetrators of intimate partner violence.  Contact:  arthur.cantos@utrgv.edu

AM 2:  Identifying and addressing high risk cases in batterer intervention

Clinical practice and research to date indicates that a substantial proportion of partner violent offenders desist from physical assault after experiencing coordinated community response and standard batterer intervention programming. However, a sizeable minority of offenders do not appear to be sufficiently responsive to standard IPV intervention, and continue to perpetrate serious forms of abuse and violence. This workshop will provide an overview of evidence-based strategies to identify high risk offenders presenting for intimate partner violence treatment. Exposure to adverse childhood experiences and traumatic events, post-traumatic stress symptoms, substance abuse, and emotional dysregulation will be specifically considered as correlated risk factors for poor treatment engagement and outcome. Discussion will focus on ideas and strategies for supportive risk management and case-responsive intervention.

Christopher M. Murphy, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and clinical supervisor for the New Behaviors Program for intimate partner violence at HopeWorks, a community-based non-profit agency in Howard County, Maryland. Dr. Murphy earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of New Hampshire, and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Stony Brook University. He received the 2015 Linda Saltzman Memorial Intimate Partner Violence Researcher Award from the Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma. His research focuses on the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral, motivational, and trauma-informed interventions for individuals who engage in intimate partner violence, the identification of personal, contextual, and intervention factors that facilitate and inhibit treatment response in this population, the role of alcohol and drug use in partner violence and its treatment, and relationship skills training to prevent abuse and violence in emerging adulthood.  Contact: chmurphy@umbc.edu

AM 3: If it IS broke, why not fix it? An empirically supported intervention for intimate partner violence

ACTV is a relatively new curriculum for men who have been court-mandated to complete a Batterers Education Program (BEP) following a domestic violence conviction. Our goals in ACTV are to: (a) reduce/end men’s use of psychologically/emotionally and physically abusive and controlling behaviors and to (b) increase men’s use of respectful, adaptive, healthy behaviors in their relationships. ACTV is implemented in a group format with a male-female facilitator pair. It is a 24-week program typically offered through states’ Departments of Corrections with each session lasting 90 minutes. The purpose of ACTV is to guide group members to make different choices than they have made in the past and to engage in behaviors consistent with their personal values. To create ACTV, my students and I developed a novel conceptual model adapted from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), then translated that model into a novel 24-week group intervention targeting IPV. Interventions emphasizing ACT have yielded impressive outcomes for a broad range of problems, but this is the first intervention to apply these processes to IPV. Additionally, this is the first intervention to target the reasons why violence continues rather than why it is initiated.  In this presentation I will begin by providing an overview of our ACTV and how it differs from existing court-mandated IPV interventions. Examples of how we apply ACT concepts and processes in session will be provided. Finally, outcome data from two RCTs will be summarized.

Dr. Erika Lawrence is a Professor at The Family Institute at Northwestern University and their Director of Translational Science. She received her PhD in clinical psychology at UCLA and worked as a Professor in the Departments of Psychology at the University of Iowa and the University of Arizona (where she still maintains an appointment). She has conducted interventions with and assessed the effectiveness of interventions for domestic violence offenders, victims, children, and families since the early 1990s. Over the past decade, she worked closely with the Iowa DOC including the probation and parole officers, DOC employees, judges and victim advocates to overhaul their court-mandated curriculum for men sentenced to complete a BEP. She has trained hundreds of facilitators and co-led countless groups. Her research demonstrating the effectiveness of her new curriculum led to its adoption as the only BEP offered in Iowa. It has also been (or is being) implemented in multiple states and Bogota, Colombia. The Pew Center has listed it as the only BEP that they recommend based on its empirical support and its cost-effectiveness. Dr. Lawrence’s work in this area has been funded by the DOJ, NIMH, NICHD, and the CDC. She can be reached at: (747) 733-4300, ext. 880

AM4: Finding common ground in batterer intervention

Recently, legislation has been proposed that would amend California PC 1203.097, the current statute that specifies how batterer intervention programs (BIPs) should be implemented and regulated, so that current interventions are more empirically sound, based on the best research evidence. Seemingly a promising path forward, the term “evidence-based-practice” has not always been clearly understood or defined, raising concerns among some victim advocates and intervention providers. The purpose of this presentation is to shed light and clarity on these issues, so that stakeholders work together to make batterer intervention groups more accountable and effective. An emphasis will be placed on promising aspects of intervention that cut across theoretical lines, including the importance of the facilitator-client relationship and group process factors, along with curricula based on known risk factors.

John Hamel, Ph.D., LCSW, has a Masters in Social Welfare from U.C.L.A., and a Ph.D. from the University of Central Lancashire, U.K., and has worked with family violence perpetrators and victims since 1992, and is a court-approved provider of batterer intervention and parent programs in four San Francisco Bay Area counties. He is the author of Gender-Inclusive Treatment of Intimate Partner Abuse, 2nd Edition: Evidence-Based Approaches, (Springer, 20145); co-editor with Tonia Nicholls, PhD, of Family Interventions in Domestic Violence: A Handbook of Gender-Inclusive Theory and Treatment (Springer, 2007); and editor of Intimate Partner and Family Abuse: A Casebook of Gender Inclusive Therapy (Springer, 2008.) Mr. Hamel has had dozens of his research articles published in various peer-reviewed scholarly journals, and is Editor-in-Chief of Partner Abuse, a journal published quarterly by Springer Publishing. He regularly speaks at conferences on domestic violence, has trained mental health professionals, victim advocates social service organizations, law enforcement, attorneys and family court mediators, and has provided case consultation and expert witness testimony. He is a founding member of the Association of Domestic Violence Intervention Programs (ADVIP), an organization of mental health professionals and researchers dedicated to evidence-based practice(www.domesticviolenceintervention.net). John can be contacted at johnmhamel@comcast.net or (415) 472-3275.

PM1:  We're not victims: Deconstructing narratives of female perpetrators of intimate partner violence

Intimate partner violence has a long-term impact on health, work, and psychological wellbeing that can extend to all members of the family. Although a significant number of men constitute victims of intimate partner violence, in general, both they and their female perpetrators have received little or no attention. In contrast, male perpetrators of intimate partner violence and their female victims have been comprehensively covered by existing research, literature, and the attribution of extensive support and services. Therefore, this qualitative study focuses on women who engage in or initiate violence in their intimate relationships. Through in-depth interviews with twenty-three women who were mandated to undergo treatment for intimate partner violence and participant observation of the support groups, I examined the reasons and justifications used by women to explain why they resort to violence as a strategy in conflict with their intimate partners. Specifically, I attend to women`s subjectivities, justifications and motives for the aggression and violence. Although women’s violence is essentialized and denied, this study reveals that women practice both coercive control and a significant level of violence in their relations with their intimate partners. When women are violent, they are not “just acting like men” but resorting to violence as an authentic and legitimate aspect of their femininity. This study suggests that policy and definitions that have been established for intervention should be inclusive in order to incorporate women perpetrators and male victims into the lexicon of intimate partner violence. There is a need for treatment protocol to address coercive control, dominance by women, and equality in relationships. The narratives of the women in the study provide an essential insight into their subjective experiences of intimate partner violence and the processes that result in their use of violence and aggressive behavior.

Lesley Lambo is a part time faculty member and a Doctoral Candidate in the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. She has worked extensively in the area of sexual assault and domestic violence. Lesley has conducted research projects in Nigeria and Montreal with male perpetrators on the topic of Intimate Partner Violence and Masculinity. After holding focus groups as part of a qualitative study with men who batter their wives, two NGO’s began using support group meetings in order to assist families in crisis. More recently and for her Doctoral dissertation, Lesley conducted a qualitative and exploratory study of women perpetrators of intimate partner violence in Medford, Oregon at OnTrack Inc., a treatment facility for family violence and drug rehabilitation. Contact: Lesley.lambo@concordia.ca, or lesleylambo@yahoo.com

PM2: The Colorado Model:  How evidence-based strategies can renew hope and support for effective offender treatment, evaluation, and management

Interventions aimed toward reducing recidivism among domestic violence offenders have faced growing criticism nationally as scholars and policy-makers alike search for correctional strategies intended to promote victim safety. In 2010, the Colorado Domestic Violence Offender Management Board (DVOMB) revised state mandated Standards for court ordered domestic violence offenders that instituted a differential treatment model that more closely adheres to the principles of Risk, Need and Responsivity (RNR). This change in the Standards eliminated the previous minimum length of 36 weeks for all offenders and called for a coordinated and collaborative management strategy for managing domestic violence offenders in the community. The presenter will describe the model, including the development and use of a specific assessment tool, the elements of differential intervention, the work of designated offender management teams, and recent research and evaluation data on the model.

Jesse Hansen, MPA, serves as the Program Coordinator for the Domestic Violence Offender Management Board (DVOMB) in the Division of Criminal Justice, Colorado Department of Public Safety (CDPS). With a background in policy and research, Jesse has worked for the Office of Domestic Violence and Sex Offender Management (ODVSOM) in different capacities since 2011 related to the development and implementation of Standards for the evaluation, assessment, and treatment of offenders. In his previous position as the Staff Researcher and Statistical Analyst, he conducted research, synthesized correctional literature and worked towards integrating research-informed and evidence-based practices into programs related to the management and treatment of sex offenders and domestic violence offenders. Jesse also serves as the CDPS representative on the Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB) and the DVOMB representative on the Colorado Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board. Additionally, Jesse Hansen has presented nationally at the Domestic Violence Symposium, the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) Conference and the National Adolescent Perpetration Network (NAPN) Conference. His other interests include hiking, fishing, racing, and reading.

PM 3 (Part One): The trials and tribulations of testing couples therapies for intimate partner violence

Part One: Most states mandate against couples interventions because it may infer that the partner is equally to blame for the violence, or that she may be at risk for retribution should she speak her mind in session. However, these are theoretical rather than proven risks. It is possible that a specific subset of IPV offenders may be best treated in a dyadic format that addresses both partners’ communication skills. Even though couples approaches appear to be promising for some violent couples, couples communication skills training has been largely excluded from existing batterers’ interventions, eschewed because the prevailing theory is that violence stems from patriarchal beliefs, not deficits in communication skills. One jurisdiction in Oregon is taking charge to implement evidence-based practice in the criminal justice setting. The police department in Yamhill County, Oregon is acutely aware of the problems IPV arising from arguments escalating out of control. In this talk, I will discuss the research evidence on couples approaches for domestic violence and will present some preliminary data on couples who have completed our Creating Healthy Relationships multi-couple group program in Yamhill County, Oregon. I will also discuss the feasibility of implementing couples’ program in coordinated community response jurisdictions entrenched in the gender-based, perpetrator-victim model.

Dr. Julia Babcock is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at the University of Houston. In graduate school at the University of Washington, she conducted research on domestically violent couples with Drs. Neil Jacobson and John Gottman. Since taking an academic position at the University of Houston in 1997, Dr. Babcock has established herself as a one of the few domestic violence researchers to conduct physiological studies with couples experiencing intimate partner abuse. She also conducts evaluations of the efficacy of battering intervention programs in the community. Her meta-analysis of battering intervention outcome studies (Babcock, Green, & Robie, 2004) revealed that the existing battering intervention programs, in general, are not highly effective. Therefore, she conducts laboratory studies designed to yield information applicable to the development of new clinical strategies with couples experiencing intimate partner violence. She can be reached at jbabcock@uh.edu, or (281) 844-8364.

PM 3 (Part Two): Changing legislation to remove barriers to research in Oregon

In Oregon, a state-level advisory committee was established in 2006 through the Office of the state’s Attorney General to oversee a set of rules to guide implementation of legislatively mandated batterer intervention programs (BIP) across the state. Rules adopted mandated adherence to the belief model as implemented for BIP programs in Duluth, MN. In 2014 attempts were made to conduct new research on other promising practices; however, some committee members actively used their positions to become gatekeepers forbidding use of any strategies except those mandated in 2006. As result, it was necessary to identify potential partners to approach the Legislative Assembly to change the current law. This presentation will address steps successfully taken in Oregon to allow use of rigorous research and open the path to improved outcomes for clientele. In addition we will identify potential barriers and lead a discussion of “how to” make legislative changes in other states to achieve positive outcomes.

Patricia Warford, PsyD, graduated from George Fox University with a Doctorate of Clinical Psychology in 1996; her doctoral dissertation, “Therapeutic Implications of the Therapist’s Values on Female Victims of Domestic Violence” focused on the potential for positive outcomes through use of research-based therapy techniques. Licensed since 1998, Dr. Warford has developed and maintained an active private practice in Newberg, OR, including ongoing work with victims (male, female and LBTQ) of domestic violence since 1992, and with men court-mandated in Oregon to batterer intervention groups since 2003. Dr. Warford is also qualified in state and federal courts as an expert in domestic violence matters and her forensic work has focused on domestic violence issues. She has taught coursework on domestic violence for graduate students in psychology at George Fox. Dr. Warford is currently a member of the Oregon Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team and has previously served on other DV-related commissions at both state and local levels. She has been married to her high-school sweetheart for 40 years. They have two children, three grandchildren, and a therapy dog. Contact: (503) 554-8172; pwarfordpsyd@hush.com.

PM 3 (Part Three):  Providers discussion

Sam Bachman, MSW, LCSW, has worked in the domestic violence field since 1991, primarily at ADAPT: Anger & Domestic Abuse Prevention and Treatment program.  As Program Director,  Sam has led ADAPT through multiple innovative redesigns over the past 20 years.  It is now the leading the largest DV intervention program in the Washington DC and Northern Virginia area with five staff and 9 concurrent intervention groups for adult men and women.  Contact:  sam.bachman@fairfaxcounty.gov