Understanding and Examining

Your BIPP Curriculum

Lisa Nitsch

Gateway Project & Teen Initiative Manager

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Objectives

• Learn the history of some of the most popular BIPPs and how they came to be.

• Review, in detail, four of the most popular models:– Emerge

– AMEND

– Domestic Abuse Intervention Program • A.k.a. “The Duluth Model”

– Manalive

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History & Models of Intervention

• Do you know what model your program currently uses?

• Do you know how your agency reached that decision?

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History & Models of Interventions

• A variance of views

– Those who advocate for stricter legal sanctions

– Those who think violence against women is a product of feminist imaginations

• ALL of these folks run BIPPs!

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Is this an anger issue?

• Abusers do an excellent job of managing their anger when they choose to do so; Abusers choose not to manage their anger with their partners.

• Abusing is not about loss of control, but rather maintaining it.

• Anger management fails to account for the premeditated controlling behaviors associated with abuse.

• Cheat sheet!

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Marital & Family Therapists (1970’s)

• Marriage counselors are trained to help couples communicate and negotiate better

• Family therapists look at family processes as circular and guided by the belief in therapeutic neutrality

• Encouraged battered women to make disclosures about violence or their intentions to leave without considering risks

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Three major orientations of BIPPs:

• Pro-feminist• Social-psychological• Culture-based

Shameless plug….

Much of the following information is used with permission from “Programs for Men Who Batter” by Etiony Aldarondo & Fernando Mederos (2002)

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First Wave of BIPPs

• Developed by request of battered women’s advocates– Emerge – Boston, Massachusetts (1977)

– Raven – St. Louis, Missouri

– Manalive – San Francisco, California

• Shifted thinking away from abuse being an outgrowth of dysfunction and toward the idea that violence is instrumental and often purposeful

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Limitation

• The lack of systemic involvement by the courts and other social institutions meant there was little external reinforcement for abusers to seek help and remain in treatment.

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Second Wave of BIPPs

• Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) –Duluth, Minnesota▫ Founded in 1980 through the “battered women’s

institutional advocacy project”▫ Developed the concept of coordinated community

response▫ Created the first lesson-by-lesson educational

curriculum: “The Duluth Model” Feminist cognitive-behavioral approach Based on work by Paulo Freire (1970), a Brazilian literacy

educator “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and

the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.”

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1980’s

• Development of the coercive control model: violence is but one means to enforce or maintain control – Emerge & Raven

• Shifted focus from non-violence to aiming for equality– Manalive

• Focus on accountability– Domestic Abuse Intervention Project

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State Standards for BIPPs

• Began in the late ‘80’s

• By 1996 28 states had program standards

• Today 46 states have standards

– Not all are legislated

– Most focus on:

• Victim safety and holding abusers accountable

• Limiting confidentiality for court-mandated participants

• Addressing assaultive behavior as a patter of coercive control (vs. a form of loss of control)

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Third Wave of BIPPs

• Outside of the mainstream▫ AMEND

▫ Reintegration Model

• Moved the focus:▫ Creation of a nonsexist and affirmative men’s

community

▫ Holistic approach that address issues such as: History of victimization

Connection between race/ethnicity, class and violence

Link between mental health & developmental issues

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Disclaimers

• These reviews are not exhaustive or comprehensive

• I am not promoting any model

– In fact, I don’t use any of ‘em!

– Contact the individual program for more information

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Emerge – Boston, Massachusetts

www.emergedv.com• Founded in 1977, was the first program in the

United States focused on abusers• Program philosophy:

▫ Battering is a range of behaviors▫ Battering is purposeful▫ Battering is learned behavior – through modeling and

positive reinforcement▫ IPV occurs within a social context of male domination

over women.▫ Sexism does not exist by itself but is enmeshed with

other forms of oppression

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Emerge - continued

• Minimum of 40 sessions divided into two phases▫ First Stage – 8, 2 hour sessions Participants required to describe their most recent

and most serious incidents of abuse Curriculum/Discussion topics: What counts as violence Negative versus positive self-talk Effects of abuse on women Quick fixes versus long-term solutions Psychological, sexual and economic abuse Abusive versus respectful communication (Part I & II) Effects of partner abuse on children

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Emerge - continued

• Second Stage – 32, 2 hour sessions

• Goal setting, relationship histories and role plays

• More interactive than First Stage

• Establish individualized goals and expectations

• Includes a midpoint and endpoint evaluation

• Group time is distributed:• Check-ins (20 to 30 minutes)

• Individual Turn (15 to 30 minutes)

• A participant completes an assignment and reports in to group

• Relationship Histories, Goal Setting & Role Plays (remaining time)

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Emerge - continued

• 75% of participants are court-mandated▫ Remaining 25% are referred from the Department of

Social Services, other agencies or are self-referred

• Co-facilitated by male/female teams• Staff are not required to have professional degrees

▫ Massachusetts standards require 24 hours of training

• Requires contact with both victim and current partners▫ Those who refuse are not allowed to attend

▫ Fees range from $20-$60/session▫ Indigent clients can perform community service

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Manalive

www.manaliveinternational.org

• Began in 1979 at the request of Marin Abused Women’s Services in San Rafael, California

• Program Philosophy: The Control & Coercion Theory of Men’s Violence – Batterers are ordinary men acting out a traditional ritual of

gender-based superiority

• In every nation of the world we learn to live up to standards based on male-role power

– IPV is about power – male-role power

– Do not attribute violence to the gender per se, but to the role expectations

– Control is the thinking part of violence: “How I measure my self and you against a role I think we should be in.”

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Manalive - continued

• Part I – Individual Advocacy– A year of weekly, 3 hour classes

– Open enrollment

– Structured agenda of lecture, discussion, role play and violence-process exercises

– Divided into 3 Stages:1. Stop My Violence – 20 weeks

– Identify “hit man” and moments of fatal peril when male-role image is challenged

2. “Self” Awareness – 16 weeks

3. Self-Fulfillment – 16 weeks

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Manalive - continued

• Part II: The Community Advocacy Program

– Select men who have completed Part I to become activists in Manalive’s neighborhood & jail programs

– These programs are established and staffed by volunteers and are located in a variety of areas:

• Churches

• Medical centers

• Sheriff’s Departments

• High schools

• Prisons & jails

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The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project

(The Duluth Model)

www.theduluthmodel.org

• Organized in 1979-1980 to challenge the role that community-based institutions play in perpetrating violence against women by how they act or fail to act.

“Men beat women because they can!”

• Goal to make violence in the home as unacceptable as it is in public.

• First session-by-session curriculum (27 weeks):– “counselors…we had enlisted proved to be no

exception in their insistence on using their personal discretion to determine how to respond to each case…and wanting to be exempt from prescribed interventions.” – Ellyn Pence

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DAIP - continued

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DAIP - continued

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DAIP - continued

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We’re almost done!

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AMEND: Abusive Men Exploring New

Directions – Denver, Colorado

www.amendinc.org

• Created in 1977

• The only true way to protect victims is to intervene to change the behavior of the perpetrators.

• Three facets to the program:– Treatment for abusers

– Advocacy for their partners

– Education and training for the community

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AMEND – continued

• Program philosophy: – Domestic violence is learned behavior and

the result of complex societal and relationship values that arise from the interaction between a patriarchal system, individual personality characteristics, and family relationships.

– Solely the responsibility of the perpetrator

– Abuse is a choice regarding how anger will be expressed

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AMEND - continued

• 7 principles:1. The feminist conception of male violence as a

means of attaining power and control explains a significant amount of the behavior of men who are violent.

2. Intervention with men who batter requires a values-laden and directive approach. We are not neutral observers but proactive advocates.

3. Violence and abuse are responses people choose out of a range of potential behaviors.

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AMEND - continued

• 7 principles4. Teaching behavioral change to violent men is the

counselor’s first priority.

5. Intervention designed to permanently end violent and abusive behavior is a long-term process requiring one to five years.

6. Ending violent and abusive behavior is a complex process that requires multimodal intervention.

7. Treatment of batterers requires special skills and training which is required of all AMEND counselors.

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AMEND - continued

• 90% of clients are court mandated

• 36 weekly, 90 minute sessions– Colorado state standards require non-

negotiable program termination at 4th absence

• Counseling sessions focus on: – Identifying the problem and being aware of it

– Taking responsibility for the abuse, and

– Building anger management, conflict resolution, and communication skills

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AMEND - continued

• Sessions are tailored around the AMEND Violence Risk Inventory administered at Intake that evaluates:

– Psychosocial History & Violence History

– Situational Facorts

– Motivational Factors

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Thank You.

Your thoughts?

Lisa Nitsch

lisanitsch@hruthmd.org