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!
Questions or comments? Please email us at
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.
John Gottman says that the way an argument is started helps determine the way it will end. I believe that the same is true for battering intervention program groups: a good beginning can influence how the group ends. I have to confess, when I started doing this work, I didn’t give much thought to how the group started. It was only after I was involved in this work for a while that I noticed the impact of the start-up, whatever it might be. I hear of some programs using mindfulness activities to begin classes, with good results. One man told me of meditative readings that he uses to set the tone for his group. While there are countless approaches to beginning a group process, I’ve noticed that quite a few of us use a version of “check-in” to start group--but the purpose and way it is administered varies greatly. After trying to use the check-in in a variety of ways, we’ve found a relatively simple version gives both facilitators and participants good results, but for different reasons.
Much the way a vehicle is propelled by a motor, in many ways, people are propelled, or “driven” by beliefs. Rarely do we make a choice of what we say, do, or not do, without a belief “driving our car”. A central aspect of many batterer intervention programs is bringing the beliefs that serve to "justify" cruel behavior the surface. Examples of these beliefs include, " I am the man, so I am the boss" or, "When I am violent, it is because she pushed my buttons". Many group facilitators have been trained in the cognitive behavioral strategies for identifying these beliefs, and discussing them with participants. However, when using a trauma-informed affective approach, these moments can be used to accomplish even more.
COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
