Steve Halley, LSCSW
Welcome to our blog. These posts share some of the many tried and true tools, skills, and techniques that the Family Peace Initiative has found to be valuable through the years.
We hope that this Facilitator's Tool Box will become a resource for you in your own quest to be the best facilitator you can be. We will be adding new blog posts monthly. Enjoy!
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I was completing an initial assessment with a young man who had been referred to our battering intervention program. He clearly did not want to be there, but he was doing his best to show that he would cooperate. His answers were short, to the point and he came across as angry in his general demeanor. When I asked him for basic information about his partner, he called her a “bitch” and said that he did not really want to talk about her. When I asked him questions about his mother, he again, used the term “bitch” and described qualities that he did not like about her, including the fact that she had left him when he was young. I decided to dig deeper, so I pointed out to him that I had only asked him about two women in his life and he had described both as “bitches”. I asked him if he felt that way about women in general or was it only these two. He jumped out of his chair startling me. He took off his shirt and turned to show me his back.
Tattooed in large bold letters across his shoulder blades was “All Women Are Bitches!” He then turned back toward me and said, “Any more questions?”
I must admit that when I entered private practice I thought I was on my way. I was a trained therapist. I was going to focus my practice on individual and couples counseling, with a little batterer intervention on the side. I had been trained through graduate school and supervised practice. I had learned how to diagnose mental health concerns and I had learned the fundamentals of a variety of therapeutic models. My education was good, but I had no way of knowing what I did not know. Looking back, there were so many things that I thought I knew, but…
When Sherry and Bill came to my office for couples counseling I had no idea what I was about to learn. They were an older couple, from rural Kansas where they had farmed together for most of their adult lives. Sherry did most of the talking while Bill listened.
One topic that seems to get considerable discussion among BIP facilitators is "the chicken or the egg" conversation regarding "thoughts or feelings". The discussion centers around which approach is better. While there are plenty who would argue that focusing on "thinking and beliefs" impacts feelings and is the best approach, there are others who vehemently argue the focus must be first on feelings. The Family Peace Initiative would say that there really is not a "chicken or egg" conundrum on the topic. A facilitator needs to have the ability to work with both thoughts and feelings with those they serve. The inability to do so limits the effectiveness of BIP work. A better question to be asked is not whatto focus on, but "how" do we focus on both simultaneously.
Commonly, participants in BIP classes have strong beliefs about emotions. Participants will say how they were taught to avoid expressing sadness and fear in their childhood. It is normal to hear comments like, "My step-dad told me that he would give me something to cry about if I kept crying", or, "If people knew that I was afraid, they would think I was weak and would take advantage of me". Participants live in fear of being seen as weak, soft, and unmanly. They mask this fear through aggression, addiction, and a host of other defense systems.
In 1989, my wife, Dorthy, was serving as the Director for a shelter program for women trying to escape partner abuse. When she realized that her agency had served the 7th victim of the same abusive man, she recognized that something had to change in society’s response to domestic violence. While serving victims effectively is critical for their and their children's well-being, serving victims after they have been abused will never end domestic violence. Dorthy knew that getting the abuser to change was the only way to stop the violence. Her efforts to start a program for those who batter in those early years formed the foundation of what is now the Family Peace Initiative.
Since the movement to address domestic violence began, the focus has been on victim services. While there is a continuing need for additional money for victim services, battering intervention programming remains almost entirely unfunded. There are beliefs that contribute to this. Here is a list of some:
I had the pleasure of listening to Chris Huffine present last November at the BISC-MI "Miles To Go" Conference in Michigan. Chris has a remarkable skill of describing with clarity what he is trying to accomplish within his Allies in Change Program in Portland, Oregon. One topic that Chris discussed was the overall goal of helping move participants from an external focus to an internal focus. I wondered how many professionals listening to his presentation realized the importance of what Chris was saying. Moving people from external to internal focus is exactly what we ty to accomplish at the Family Peace Initiative as change is unlikely to occur without this. It is an extremely important facilitator skill and may be one of the most challenging to master.
Dominating and controlling another, blaming and the anger that our participants often express, are all forms of external focus. Conversely, internal focus consists of managing, being fully aware of, and being accountable for oneself. Chris Huffine talks about the need to help participants become aware of the emotions behind the anger. He teaches that anger is seen as some other emotion plus blame. Helping participants examine the "some other emotion" without the blame helps them to move toward a calmer, less reactive internal focus.
COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
