Batterer intervention providers, anger management counselors, mental health professionals, and research scholars dedicated to evidence-based practice worldwide.
With regard to the conference in Santa Fe, May 1-3, 2018, we are offering opportunities for individuals who might wish to present a 50 minute workshop or symposium in addition to the presentations of plenary presenters. An incentive to present is that the $275 price of the conference is halved for workshop/symposium presenters.
The description of the application process is described at the santafeboys.org website. The deadline is December 15.
September 2018. A very recent article in the Times highlighted the sheer lack of progress with the perpetrator programmes, Duluth and hybrids of course. Linked here is the article and my comments in blue!
Cafcass – the Children an Family Court Advisory Service – has been working up a programme to tackle the child abuse involved in “Parental Alienation”. This is due to be put before parliament very soon and a pre-view of the changes is to be presented in October.
My working partner, Mrs Denise Knowles and I, are due to go to pre-view next week of a film commissioned by the BBC into our work with domestic abusers. Our fingers are crossed that it is a “fair” representation of our work. It is due to be broadcast before Xmas.
I attended a NIA conference earlier in the year where two speakers from Duluth were still advocating their “power and control wheel” – despite the recognition in 1999 of their guru, the late Ellen Pence, that “power and control” was not an issue in the vast majority of men with whom she worked but that she and her colleagues had nevertheless taken every opportunity to point out to the men that they were so motivated and merely minimising and denying their behaviours. Eventually she realised that they were only finding what they set out to find! The link to the book and quotes is here.
The majority of our victims and offenders report that they wish schools educated students in the areas of emotional intelligence, healthy relationships, and the red flags of abuse. Most victims of domestic violence report that they were not aware they were entering an abusive relationship. We’ve created this prevention video geared toward high school students to increase awareness of the early warning signs. We use the BELIEVE model to heighten awareness of the red flags that are often missed early in the relationship. Please feel free to share this video and encourage high schools to share with students. The best way to prevent domestic violence is through education.
Looking for a new opportunity to work in an innovative competency based domestic violence program? We use a modified version of Steven Stosny’s Core Value Workshop Model in a Virginia State certified 18-week county based program for adult men and women who have been verbally, emotionally or physically abusive with partners, parents, children or siblings. We are looking for a counselor who is able to offer services in the English and Spanish Languages.
My colleague, Shelly Wagers, has reminded me about the recently-completed report from the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence Across the Lifespan. I have read it and I plan on endorsing it. Here is the link to the web location to see the National plan and endorse it: https://www.npeiv.org/a-national-plan
Here is the link to NPEIV’s home page to learn more about our organization. https://www.npeiv.org/
Individuals convicted of domestic violence in the United States are typically mandated to attend a course of treatment in lieu of, or in addition to, incarceration. The type of treatment, also known as batterer intervention, is determined and regulated by each state. In most states, it takes the form of a weekly psycho-educational same-sex group, from 1.5 to 2 hours per session, and for a duration of 16-52 weeks, with the average around 26 weeks. While standards usually allow individual counseling in special cases, couples therapy is expressly forbidden in all but a few states. A majority of programs take a gendered perspective of domestic violence.
The most methodologically-sound research suggests that these programs are minimally effective in reducing domestic violence. A primary reason is that unlike interventions for other social problems (e.g., substance abuse), domestic violence treatment policies have not been sufficiently informed by the body of empirical research. A consensus has emerged, that for treatment to be effective it needs to be tailored to client needs, based on a sound assessment, in contrast to the standard “one-size-fits-all” models currently in existence. Below are some useful resources for anyone wanting to promote evidence-based policies in the field of domestic violence:
Visit the website of the Association of Domestic Violence Intervention Programs (ADVIP) at www.battererintervention.org. Click on the link at the bottom left section of the home page (“click here for full articles and summaries”), or go directly to: http://www.domesticviolenceintervention.net/advip-2016-world-conference-findings/
Look for: Domestic violence perpetrator programs: A proposal for evidence-based standards in the United States. Researched by 17 renowned domestic violence scholars, this is the most comprehensive review of the domestic violence intervention literature. If time is an issue, read the summaries.
Also look for: A survey of domestic violence perpetrator programs in the U.S. and Canada: Findings and implications for policy intervention. This article, by John Hamel and Fred Buttell of Tulane University, reports on a recent survey of batterer intervention programs in the United States and Canada, and provides valuable insights by experienced clinicians.
Read the excellent article by Canadian researchers Lynn Stewart and Claire Slavin-Stewart, Applying effective corrections principles (RNR) to partner abuse interventions. The RNR model is the gold standard for evidence-based interventions with incarcerated populations and general criminal recidivism. The article was originally published in the peer-reviewed scholarly journal, Partner Abuse, Volume 4, Number 4, in 2013, but is now available on the ADVIP website. Click on the “Research” link, and then “Articles,” or go directly to: http://www.domesticviolenceintervention.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Stewart2013.pdf
A thorough and up-to-date review of the literature on risk assessment instruments can be found in the article, Assessment in intimate partner violence: A review of contemporary approaches, by Tonia Nicholls and her colleagues. This is also available in the research section of the ADVIP website, and can be accessed directly at: http://www.domesticviolenceintervention.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Nicholls.etal2013.Manuscript.pdf
Two states have already demonstrated the effectiveness of domestic violence intervention policies based on risk assessment – Colorado and Florida.
For information about research on the Colorado model, read: Gover, A. (2011). New directions for domestic violence offender treatment standards: Colorado’s innovative approach to differentiated treatment. Partner Abuse, 2 (1), 95-120.
To read about research on the Florida model, read: Coulter, M., & VandeWeerd, C. (2009). Reducing domestic violence and other criminal recidivism: Effectiveness of a multilevel batterers intervention program. Violence and Victims, 24 (2), 139-152.
(You can get an electronic copy of either or both articles by contacting John Hamel, LCSW, at
johnmhamel@comcast.net)
One of the most reliable and widely-used risk assessment instrument, the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA), is available from the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care. For information and to watch the free training video, go to: http://odara.waypointcentre.ca/
For an excellent discussion on how couples therapy can be a safe and effective treatment option, read: The trials and tribulations of testing couples-based interventions for intimate partner violence, by the notable researcher-practitioner Julia Babcock of the University of Houston. It is available at: domesticviolenceintervention.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Babcock2017.pdf
Before you can have an evidence based practice you have to have a practice upon which to base your evidence.
If you only have 1 practice there is no opportunity to compare and contrast and establish a better practice. Without a better practice, there can never be a best practice and best practice, as a superlative, is an illusion, it exists only, if at all, in a moment of time.
Our practice is 21 years old and it flies in the face of a great deal of “traditional practice”. We reckon it is pretty damned good although there will definitely be improvements which can and should be made.
Fly in the face number 1
Coming from couple counselling backgrounds we knew much more about couple relationships than we did about the politics. We knew very much more about the interactions between men and women than we ever did about criminals. So although we accepted the UK DV figures of 1994 that only 4.9% of DV was attributable to women our course was designed to work with male abusers but without excluding female abusers. So, for 21 years we’ve worked with male abusers and female abusers, in mixed gender groups. Internally there have been very few problems with this. Externally you’ll perhaps be able to imagine the troubles! About 1,000 men and 100 women have completed the 36 hours of our programme.
Fly in the face number 2
We went for a closed group. We recognised that when John Doe from family X meets Sheila Oz of family Y there will be many differences in their expectations – based on what they learnt from their family of up-bringing. If someone, very reasonably, only knows their own family then he or she will tend to believe that all families will run like that. Meeting people from different families will help him or her to understand some of the differences.
We want the clients to talk together, as much as possible, intimately. We want them to exchange as much information as possible about one another. Like women on labour wards, through the sheer intimacy of the situation some of the men and women will make friendships which will last and be mutually supportive. We felt enormously supported in 2012 when we met Dr Louise Dixon whose very critical paper of RESPECT – the accreditor of perpetrator programmes in the UK – coincided with our practical understanding of their nonsense, and also her conclusions about similar work being needed by females also matched ours. (It has also been very refreshing that so many of her ex-students have continued to contribute to the greater reality of the IPV agenda.)
Fly in the face number 3
Emotion drives behaviour, not, in the vast majority of cases, a desire for power and control – read Ellen Pence’s 1999 confession about her notions of power and control ! Duluth and Beyond.
As clients talk about their emotional experiences in their families in a very large percentage of cases what pops up? Well, yes, you guessed it, as the research tells us, their own abuse at the hands of their parents, and others. And what does that “put the client in touch with” ? – Their own sufferings, which when they explore and understand a little also brings their own behaviour, often in front of their children, into stark relief. Most of the people we work with are seeking to regain (or keep) contact with their children so it is important that they understand the impacts of parental behaviour on their children (as well as their partner). The “emotional wheel” provides a very much better focus than the power and control wheel: it is immediately relevant to the clients themselves, their children and their partner. Clients “take it on board” with alacrity – rather than having the power and control wheel welded onto them, somehow. (Our emotional wheel version differs a little from Plutchnik’s; rather arrogantly we think ours is better! Open to debate!)
Fly in the face no 4
The amount of time and the format. Traditionally counselling runs an hour, 90 mins, 2 hours per week. We want to run a closed group. Over longer periods of time people fall ill, get conflicting appointments, etc . etc. A prolonged closed group would disintegrate with drop-outs! Training for professionals very often occupies full days. The most important course I ever took lasted 4 whole days. Men work. Many men work moving shift patterns. You cannot satisfy all the various needs but you do need to be satisfying most. Men provide. If you “stop them from working” you stop them earning and this interferes with many men’s ideas of their roles as providers. So you avoid that as far as possible. We work at weekends, Saturday and Sunday, 2 weekends, about 1 month apart. The results – 90 – 95 % of the people complete all the work. This year we’ll work 32 of the 52 weekends – that is a very high social cost to us – we feel like martyrs! – but the real importance is for the clients who can engage, and in the longer run for the benefit of their children and their partners and their future partners, too. If we ever totalled them up it would seem like a very small cost to us, compared to the benefit to most of them.
Fly in the face no 5
In the UK 7 Duluth-style programmes run by 4 Duluth-style projects could scrape together 36 whole male figures on whom to base £1.2 worth of research, MIRABAL. The researchers drew some percentage style conclusions in the executive summary which lead you, if unwary, to think “Wow – that’s impressive!” On page 8 of the fuller report you get the explanation – based on 36 men!
That year, our little organisation completed work with 55 men, 33 of them referrals by social services. So far, 12 months later, we have heard of 1 man from that cadre that has been violent again. I would bet that more than 45 of those men would have been willing to undergo the research afterwards. Our annual income? Less than £15,000. Buy some research with that!
We have a practice. We have some evidence but nothing like enough. Our independent evidence mainly focusses on the profound changes brought about in 1 client who would have almost certainly been concluded as having a “severe personality disorder” although those words were not written. The examining psychologist’s remarks – 13 years ago – were: “That condition is not supposed to change, they’ll have to re-write the text books.” A client who completed this weekend showed many of the same signs of very profound changes (and of course there was another who showed relatively little sign of change. )
Professor Daniel Siegel and many others have been doing just that, re-writing the text books, that is – and no doubt his definitions of The Mind and emotions and their inter-relationship with the brain and relationships will, no-doubt, earn him a Nobel Prize or some equivalent in the future. For all of us “professionals” who became skilled at applying the various DSM’s diagnoses and, in our training, didn’t get any information about “the mind”, 95% plus of us to all appearances, Siegel’s work is likely to help us develop understandings of what constitutes a healthy mind, as opposed to merely diagnosing an unhealthy mind and then having very little idea about what to do with that to help improve the individual’s situation!
Emotion is a noun but with Siegel’s insights based on his definition he states : “emotion is a verb”. Temper is both noun and verb, more the latter than the former!
Evidence based practice. Practice is a noun: unfortunately the verb is with an s! How does evidence based practice practise? Does it get trapped by attempting to apply a diagnosis without knowing what it is seeking to achieve?