Family Violence, Fathers, and Restoring Personhood
Research in Practice
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
This paper explored a US group-based fathering programme ('Strong Fathers') for men who had committed domestic violence and whose families received child welfare services.
- Joan Pennell, Tia Sanders and others
- Restorative Justice: An International Journal (2013)
The study found that men who completed the programme were pulled by their desire to be with their children and pushed by their demands on themselves to be better fathers and men. The authors suggest that completing the programme may help to prepare men to participate in further restorative processes.
Working with male domestic violence perpetrators
Restorative practice typically includes offenders, survivors and their informal and formal networks. However, research by Ptacek has shown how using such practices in cases of domestic violence can be challenging because of the potential misuse of the process to reinforce coercive control.
One way of starting to address domestic violence through restorative processes is to engage men who abuse in intervention programmes that enable them to reassess their actions and change their ways of relating to others. Such programmes can help prepare them to participate safely and effectively in restorative forums.
Evidence suggests that men who complete such interventions, are less likely to commit further partner violence (Gondolf, 2002). However, child welfare services often struggle to engage men, especially where there is a history of domestic violence. The attrition rate for domestic violence intervention programmes also tends to be high.
One way of engaging men is through their role as a father, through which they may be able to acknowledge the impact of domestic violence on their children and be open to learning new ways of relating to the mothers of their children.
The Strong Fathers programme
The Strong Fathers programme was a voluntary programme delivered in the United States. It focused on fathers/male caregivers who had committed domestic violence and whose families received child welfare services. The programme had the following aims:
- To assess the impact of domestic violence on their children
- To help men learn how to relate in safe and caring ways to their children, partners/former partners and other family members
- To relearn how to parent their children and how to co-parent with their children's mother.
Research findings
This research study aimed to examine:
- The contexts that engaged men in the Strong Fathers programme
- Factors linked to their decision to stay on the programme.
There were six intervention groups with a total of 43 participants. Programme completion was defined as attending for at least 13 of the 20 sessions. In terms of completion:
- 30 per cent attended less than 65 per cent of the sessions (partial completers)
- 14 per cent never completed a session (non-completers)
- 56 per cent attended at least 65 per cent of the sessions (completers).
The completion rate was similar to those reported in other studies of domestic violence interventions.
The men identified the challenges in staying on the programme and the onus for change being placed on them rather than their families. Those who completed the programme were drawn by their yearning for their children and pushed by their sense of what it means to be a man and a father. Four stages were identified in their engagement with the programme:
- Exerting greater control, especially towards their children
- Acknowledging the need for them to change
- Acknowledging their lack of patience
- Integrating the learning and demonstrating how to be a "whole person" with their children and partners.
Implications for practice
This study relates to men who were relatively low-risk of violence as the programme screened out men who were considered as high risk. Notwithstanding this limitation, the authors suggest that participating in the programme helped the men to recreate themselves as "persons in relation" to others. They argue that the reconstruction of fathers' "personhood" is a crucial component of healing families' trauma, re-creating bonds and averting the intergenerational transmission of violence.
The focus on how the men could become responsible fathers and attend to the needs of their children and other family members was a crucial factor in securing completion. The authors argue that by increasing fathers' self-understanding and their capacity to communicate, they may be better prepared to participate in restorative forums in the future.