Issues in Family Violence

Fall 2001

Using Batterer Accountability Strategies to Increase Safety for Children

David Mandel & John Went

Using Batterer Accountability Strategies to Increase Safety for Children A couple of years ago, in a small Connecticut town, a young girl reported to a staff person at her school that she had been hit by an object thrown by her father. The incident was reported to the child abuse hotline and an investigator went out to speak to the family’s three elementary school age children. In separate interviews, the three children described Dad as “scary, violent and mean.” They all reported other incidents where they had been struck and also reported that Dad had struck their mother. Dad was reported to own firearms and have a military background. When Dad was interviewed by the investigator at the local police department, he acted belligerent and challenging. Concern for the safety of the children, the mother and the worker were high.

The Non-Violence Alliance was consulted about how best to handle to the father. The initial plan for the family had been to ask the mother to remove the children and seek some form of shelter or the Department of Children and Families would remove the children. After our consultation, the plan was reformulated to focus on the steps the father would need to take to address the danger he represented to his children. The father was told he needed to hand over his weapons to the local police department and move out of the house. He was also told he needed to get a domestic violence evaluation and abide by its recommendations. Reluctantly, he complied with all these conditions because the investigator made it clear that his choices would determine whether the children were removed or not. Any disruption to their life would be the result of his failure to comply with the stipulated conditions.

To confirm the father’s compliance, the investigator made unannounced visits to the home over the first weekend. The father was recommended to domestic violence treatment and complied with a condition of once a week counseling for over six months. At the end of that period, the children were reporting no new violence and a significant change in Dad’s demeanor. The case was eventually closed.

While the particulars of every domestic violence related case might not lend themselves to this type of approach, the case can help us focus on certain steps that would be important to explore in most cases where domestic violence is a factor. In this article we are going to focus on three important elements that supported the apparently successful outcome in this case:

1. Documentation of the behavior of the perpetrator and its impact on the children,
2. Development of perpetrator focused specific steps and
3. Use of appropriate treatment options.

These efforts can greatly increase the probability that children can be protected in their own home without the disruptions that accompany a removal from their home or from the non-offending parent.

Start with the Premise of Responsibility
In documenting the impact of a domestic violence perpetrator on the children in the household, it is essential to begin with the assumption that the male caretaker, whether father, stepfather or boyfriend, has a share of the responsibility for the emotional and physical well being of those children. Second, it is important to remember that violence, abuse and control are choices made by the domestic violence perpetrator, often without any regard for the impact these choices have on the children. By using these premises of responsibility it becomes easier to map out the damage to the children created by the perpetrator’s violence towards the mother. For instance, when a domestic violence perpetrator’s jealous accusations, stalking and harassment prevent the victim from taking a job, the worker can document the abuser’s failure to consider the financial and emotional needs of the children.

Documenting Perpetrator Behavior
Documentation should include a specific description of the perpetrator’s pattern of control, including past violent behavior, threats, intimidating actions and other forms of control. Particular attention should be paid to how the fear and uncertainty generated by prior behavior continues to impact current parenting, decision-making, risk analysis and safety planning of the adult victim. Details about the severity of violence, extent of injuries, duration of incidents, unpredictability of violent behavior, and the physical proximity to children are important to record. It is important to document if the children are being used as a weapon by the perpetrator or as way of gaining access to or control over a domestic violence victim. Therefore, it would be important to note if, when visitation with the children occurs, the domestic violence perpetrator spends all his time with the mother instead of the children, or pumps the children for information about the mother’s behavior. It would also be important to note the specific impact these actions appear to have on the child or children. Crying, protests, withdrawal into silence, or fearful behavior all would be some of the possible indications of negative impact.

The language used to describe the domestic violence in the household needs to be precise, affirming of the perpetrator’s role in harming the children and avoid blaming the victim for the behavior of the perpetrator. Imprecise phrases relegate the perpetrator and his responsibility to the background or make it disappear altogether. “Dysfunctional family,” “high conflict family,” “violent family” or other similar phrases, which blame the relationship, the family system or communication issues as the cause of the violence, should be avoided. Phrases like “the mother allows” the domestic violence perpetrator to be in the home, negate any impact violence, threats and manipulations by the abuser have in determining his presence in the home. When we transfer the language of codependency from the substance abuse field by using descriptions like “ she enables his violence,” we shift responsibility for the perpetrator’s violence onto the victim. Therefore, if the domestic violence perpetrator, who has been ordered by a judge to stay away from the victim, makes illegal contact with victim, then the case notes should include a clear description of how he disregarded the court order.

In many cases, defining the battered woman who is a mother as having “failed to protect her children” solely based on her status as victim places the entire burden of responsibility for the damage done to the children by the domestic violence perpetrator on her shoulders. Instead we can increase batterer accountability by using language consistent with an understanding of the domestic violence perpetrator’s behavior as interfering with the parenting ability of the mother. As Randy Magen writes in his 1999 article in Child Maltreatment “In the Best Interests of Battered Women: Reconceptualizing Allegations of Failure to Protect,” “the concept of interference suggests that the obstacles created by the battering are not in the mother’s control to remove. This term also conveys the responsibility that both mothers and fathers have to be parents.” In actuality, the domestic violence perpetrator’s abuse interferes with the parenting of both adult caretakers. His abuse directly and indirectly undermines the ability of the adult victim to parent. Additionally, his preoccupation with controlling her draws his own attention from his obligation to meet the physical and emotional needs of the children.

Specific Steps
When the assessment has documented specific behaviors related to power and control, there are choices to be made about the treatment plan and/or specific steps in the perpetrator’s service agreement. In “Effective Intervention in Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment Cases: Guidelines for Policy and Practice”, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges recommends that “child protection services should make every effort to develop separate services plans for adult victims and perpetrators-regardless of their legal status vis-à-vis the child.” Within these separate service agreements, some specific steps could be included. (See box)

When the criminal court is involved with a domestic violence perpetrator, coordinating with family court and probation can significantly enhance compliance. If court personnel are aware of a perpetrator’s involvement with child welfare, they can impose a mandate that he comply with all of the recommended specific steps. This is particularly useful in cases where the perpetrator is not a biological relation to the children.

Treatment Options
In the determination of specific steps, there is a choice to be made as to the most effective treatment option. Two of the most common choices, anger management and couples counseling, are almost always at the least ineffective and at the worst potentially damaging to the victims of domestic violence.

Domestic violence is about control and the misuse of power to dominate another person, not about out-of-control anger. Anger management may help an abuser reduce the quantity of angry outbursts, but will not help him end other behavior such as manipulation, culturally sanctioned domination, or sexual abuse. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges raises the concern that anger management is inappropriate when it does not address “underlying belief systems and attitudes that contribute to domestic violence.”

Couples or family counseling is useful for interactive issues that have a mutual, or systems, dysfunctional pattern. Issues such as communication, intimacy, or differing value systems may benefit from family therapy. However, abuse, and the fear it engenders in family members, first needs to be ended by the abuser so that there is enough trust available to work on the interactive issues. Victims of abuse may be further traumatized in an environment that sees behavior as mutually determined. She will be made to feel responsible for causing and changing the abuser's behavior, and be helpless to do so.

If the perpetrator who has been assessed is involved with the criminal justice system, it is possible to coordinate with court personnel who may have their own treatment options available. A coordinated response between the child welfare agencies and the court may have a stronger impact on the abuser's sense of external consequences, as well as his ability to deny his problem.

Within court systems, groups are available for abusers that range from short term, such as a ten-week class to long term psycho-educational groups lasting a year (or more if a condition of probation). Some treatment/intervention services, unfortunately, do not maintain contact with victims or present partners. These particular services are therefore missing a great deal of valuable information about the abusers. With the information a child protection worker has gathered in an assessment, a more complete picture of the specific abusive behaviors as well as their impact on the family may emerge. Abusers will most often choose not to share the whole story of their abuse while victims who feel safe enough can fill in the other 180 degrees of the situation.

The most effective treatment would include a multi-level group therapy program that focuses on control issues and includes a victim, or partner, contact component. Most therapists dealing with abusers appreciate a continued outside presence to hold the abuser externally accountable while they work on his internal accountability. There are, at this point, a number of such programs around the country.

The final treatment options to consider deal with substance abuse or mental health issues. Neither of these will cause abuse, but they may have a significant impact on the nature, predictability or quantity of the abuse. The abuser may need to be referred to substance abuse or psychiatric treatment to first make changes in these areas so they can be mentally and emotionally ready to work on issues of power and control. If it is unclear to you whether there is substance abuse or psychiatric issues enough to preclude domestic violence treatment, coordination with his treatment program may eventually sort this out.

It is the experience of the Non-Violence Alliance, and other programs throughout the country, that a minimal expectation for change to take place is about six months of weekly group treatment. The first month to three months deals with accepting responsibility for abusive behavior, while several more months are required to begin addressing the use of control in intimate relationships. An abuser can often stop physical abuse in a much shorter period of time. In some instances, it can end without treatment but through a simple external consequence such as arrest or the loss of his family to a shelter.

Conclusion
The use of batterer accountability strategies in child protection cases is in its infancy. There is peril and promise in exploring these approaches. The peril is clear. When intervening with the domestic violence perpetrator we must concern ourselves with minimizing the negative impact our choices will have on the safety of the adult victim and children. The promise is uncharted. Cutting edge strategies are still being developed locally and nationally. Some jurisdictions are naming non-related domestic violence perpetrators as respondents in petitions, and then using their subpoena and contempt powers to mandate compliance with the court conditions. In San Diego County, the child welfare and probation departments have developed a collaborative Family Violence Project that targets domestic violence perpetrators who appear on both caseloads. In other states, juvenile court judges are able and willing to issue restraining orders and handle related criminal matters in their courts making it easier to hold the perpetrator accountable for the safety of the children.

The use of batterer accountability strategies can enhance the safety of children by addressing domestic violence at its source. Some domestic violence perpetrators can be made to change out of fear of the courts and external consequences. Others will change because they begin to realize the impact their behavior is having on others, particularly their children. Child protective service agencies, with their focus on caretaker responsibility, are uniquely positioned to develop and implement these innovative interventions.

(c) 2001, The Non-Violence Alliance. Permission to reprint with the following information "Originally published in Issues in Family Violence, Volume 4, Issue 1 Fall 2001, The Non-Violence Alliance, www.endingviolence.com."