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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Most batterer intervention programs work to help those who batter take responsibility for their abusive and cruel behavior. This is believed to be a critical step in the process of change. At the Family Peace Initiative, we too, focus on this critical step. However, over the years, we noticed continuing obstacles for many participants in being able to move toward responsibility. Often, these obstacles centered around the cruelty and trauma participants had experienced long before they became cruel to their partner. With this realization, we expanded what it means to be “responsible” to include responsibility for "healing the impact of the cruelty that was inflicted on them during childhood." Adding this dimension over 10 years ago seems like one of our most significant improvements in helping people become nonviolent. It is as if we found an important missing puzzle piece to our work.
At the Family Peace Initiative, we have several trained victim advocates on staff as BIP facilitators. They bring a knowledge of victim centered work and domestic violence dynamics that absolutely make us better. I was surprised to learn that advocates can pay a high price with their colleagues when they get involved in our work. They receive comments such as "What is making you go to the dark side?", like they are betraying victims by helping provide services to those who batter. Contrary to their colleagues' assumptions, many advocates report becoming better at their work with victims after they became skilled at working with those who batter.
Different people can do the exact same thing for entirely different reasons. Consider a Sunday morning church service. There might be 200 people in the service singing, praying, and listening to a sermon. While everyone looks like they are doing the same thing, they likely have different motives for being there. Some are probably there to commune with God. Others are there for the social interaction. Still others are there because their spouse or parent insisted. While all in attendance are seemingly doing the same thing this Sunday morning, their motives for being there vary widely.
The same is true for those who batter. While all battering behavior is an effort to gain domination and control, understanding the motive that drives this quest for domination and control is crucial for effective intervention and safety planning. A "one size fits all" perspective reduces a program's effectiveness and can leave victims extremely vulnerable. The Family Peace Initiative has operated since its inception with an understanding of different motives of those who batter. Here is the way we break down the common motives among those who batter, and how the differences can impact their victims.
It was a memorable group session. The topic for the day was "Sexual Respect". Both Janet, my co-facilitator, and Sarah, in the early stages of training, were there with me. We commonly approach this topic by making a list of all of the ways that people can be sexually disrespectful. We work hard with the group to generate a large list of 35 to 40 behaviors that would be considered sexually disrespectful. Once the list is developed, we have everyone count the number of these behaviors that they have used in the past. We love making lists at the Family Peace Initiative, as it is a simple, yet highly effective way to get participants to acknowledge cruel behavior. This time, however, our making a list took the group in a different direction.
Janet had looked thoughtfully at the list of nearly 40 sexually disrespectful behaviors that we had just created with the group. She then commented in a surprised tone, “I just realized that I have experienced 33 of the behaviors listed here.” The group fell silent. Sarah calmly added that she, too, had experienced over 30 of the behaviors listed and only a few days ago had been sexually harassed at a stoplight with her young son in the backseat of her car. She went on to say, “I would say that most of my female friends have experienced over 30 of these behaviors as well.”
The men were surprised at how common sexually disrespectful experiences can be for women.
Dick Mitchell, or “Chief Mitch” was the Director of a wilderness camp for emotionally troubled youth. I was fortunate that he chose to become a mentor for me while I worked at the camp. He believed in me, held me accountable when I strayed, made me laugh, played golf with me, and taught me how to be a better counselor. Often when I am facilitating BIP classes I get faced with situations where it is appropriate to employ a tool or strategy that I learned from “Chief Mitch”. While I wish I could remember more of his wonderful “pearls” of wisdom", the one that has been on my mind lately is a comment that he made to me over 25 years ago.
I was having difficulty figuring out how to get my group of 10 troubled kids to function well. My group was not accomplishing much and the kids in my care were extremely challenging in their behavior. I tried everything I knew to improve the situation, but nothing seemed to work. Out of frustration, I told Chief Mitch, "these kids are impossible!"
Chief Mitch came down to my campsite one afternoon to evaluate the situation. After spending a long, difficult afternoon with the kids and me, he said something like, “You know Steve, I think that probably 80% of the problems that happen in the groups around here are the result of counselor error. As counselors get better, problems seem to go away.” Then he walked away leaving me to puzzle over his words.
I think that Chief Mitch would agree with me when I say that probably 80% of the problems that arise in a BIP classroom are a result of “facilitator error”.
COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
