CHANGE 1996-1997 Annual Report
Convenor’s Report
On behalf of the Management Committee I am pleased to introduce
CHANGE’s seventh Annual Report.
In September 1996 CHANGE reached the end of its Urban Programme
funding and moved from Stirling University to new premises in
Grangemouth. In September too, the CHANGE Administrator, Gaynor
Davenport, left to take up a college course and the Management
Committee would like to extend their appreciation to her for her
cheerful diligence and hard work during her time with us.
CHANGE's director, Monica Wilson was granted 9 months study
leave to complete a university counselling course. At present
(March 1977) Monica is employed by CHANGE one day per week until
the completion of her course in the summer. Despite her limited
time, Monica has managed to fulfil training commitments to local
Criminal Justice Services, to attend conferences and the
National Practitioners’ Network and to liaise with other
agencies regarding future training contracts.
During the last year, CHANGE 's direction has continued towards
training and consultancy work. Monica Wilson and CHANGE's former
joint co-ordinator, David Morran, have now completed the CHANGE
Practice Manual and we commend them for their dedication in
producing such a thorough and comprehensive document.
In October 1996 the Management Committee were pleased to see the
publication of the Scottish and Home Office sponsored research
study which evaluated the effectiveness of the CHANGE Project,
together with the similar Lothian Domestic Violence Probation
Project. The results of the research were extremely positive,
concluding that the two projects "are more likely than other
forms of criminal justice interventions to reduce or eliminate
violence and intimidating behaviour".
CHANGE no longer receives a regular income and it has, of
necessity, reduced its scale of operation during the last year.
However, Monica has worked tirelessly throughout, often helped
by Gaynor on a sessional basis, and the Management Committee
would like to extend their sincere thanks to her. We look
forward to CHANGE’s continued development.
Sue McLaughlin
Convenor
Director’s Report
This last year has been a significant one for CHANGE in that our
Urban Programme funding ceased at the end of September and we
removed from the University to our present address. Since then
we have had no regular source of income.
The first half of the twelve months covered in this Report were
spent finalising the Training Manual and fulfilling training
commitments to our social work sponsors. This took the form of
three one-day awareness-raising sessions on male violence which
were offered to all social workers in the three local
authorities of Falkirk, Stirling and Clackmannanshire, during
May 1996. These were followed by a succession of three intensive
6 day training courses for criminal justice workers over the
next three months. This exercise was of great benefit in
revising the Training Manual and in refining the training
package relating to its use, which is now being marketed more
widely to other agencies and authorities.
At the end of September Gaynor Davenport, CHANGE administrator,
left to take up further college studies and I was granted 9
month’s study leave to undertake the full-time Diploma in Person
Centred Counselling at Strathclyde University. I hope to
complete that by summer 1997. In the interim I am working one
day a week for CHANGE running the office and planning for the
future with the management committee.
CHANGE’s future would appear to be lie in developing its
training and consultancy roles. The manual will form the basis
for that training and the research findings lend support to the
wider development of this type of intervention with men.
As this Annual Report marks the end of seven years Urban
Programme funding, we are taking the opportunity to summarise
what CHANGE achieved over that time.The text of this year’s
Report therefore comprises an overview of that seven years’
work.
Monica Wilson
Director
CHANGE: A Summary 1989-97
Background
The CHANGE Project was established in September 1989 with the
central aim of providing a criminal-justice based re-education
programme for men convicted of offences involving violence
towards their wives or female partners. The programme aimed to
complement the work of Women’s Aid and others with the survivors
of domestic violence by challenging men to take responsibility
for their violence and offering them an opportunity to change
their violent and abusive ways.
While the provision of a men’s programme for domestic violence
perpetrators was the central goal of the Project, CHANGE was
also charged to develop training programmes and educational
materials for use by social, legal, voluntary and community
agencies; and to raise general public awareness about the nature
of men’s violence to women.
The establishment of the Project represented the outcome of
several years’ efforts by a steering group comprising academics,
activists and other interested individuals committed to piloting
a scheme working with violent men that took its model from best
practice available elsewhere. Largely this came about from
concern that work with men was already happening in other
countries, using a variety of models, some of which gave cause
for anxiety to activists and practitioners in the field of
domestic violence. Such work was likely to be replicated in
Britain, and there was known to be interest from a range of
agencies and individuals. In particular there was concern that
the work should be placed in a criminal justice context and that
it be informed by, and accountable to, women.
Perspective
The perspective which CHANGE adopts on male violence is that it
is intentional, albeit not always conscious, behaviour that men
use to maintain power over and to control women in intimate
relationships. It stems from the historic and cultural legacy of
patriarchy whereby men are socialised into believing they are
superior to and have rights over women.
Institutional responses
Institutional responses to men’s violence had, until relatively
recently, largely served to bolster the belief that violence to
women in the home is somehow different to other forms of
violence; that it is a private matter, not as serious, or is
justifiable in some way.
Prompted by arduous lobbying and campaigning by women’s groups
and their allies, there has been a recognisable shift among
agencies of the justice system to improve their practice in
relation to men’s violence to women. In fairness, many in the
justice system recognised the limitations of their responses but
felt that current measures available had little to offer women
by way of resolution.
Project goals
The programme that CHANGE was charged to set up aimed to impact
on institutional responses and the wider community, as well as
on individual men. By offering a programme that focused on the
offending behaviour sentencers had an option that focussed on
addressing violence. By working closely with social workers and
placing the programme in the context of a probation order this
would both signal the seriousness with which such offending was
regarded and offer an opportunity to monitor the offender’s
behaviour while on probation. Emphasising the criminal nature of
domestic violence and placing the responsibility on the man to
change that behaviour would also help to demonstrate to the
community in general that this type of behaviour is criminal and
unacceptable.
Beginnings
The Project originally had three members of staff; two Joint
Co-ordinators; a man and a woman, and an Administrator. A
constitution placing responsibility for the management of the
staff with a Management Committee was drawn up and submitted and
subsequently accepted by the Inland Revenue granting the
organisation charitable status. The Committee is made up of
local people from a range of backgrounds who are concerned with
the issue of men’s violence. In addition an Advisory Group,
comprising representatives of local statutory and voluntary
agencies was formed whose task has been to provide advice and
information to staff and the Management Committee.
For the first six months the focus of the work was on liaising
with other agencies whose co-operation would be required, and
drafting the men’s programme. Firstly this meant holding
discussions and drawing up working agreements with those
agencies. Unlike the acknowledged ‘best practice’ model in the
USA of DAIP, CHANGE did not start in the context of a
co-ordinated community structure for tackling domestic violence.
Indeed one of the Project’s goals was to work towards this with
others involved. Instead the Project had backing from Central
Region Social Work Department who sponsored and supervised it;
support from local and Scottish Women’s Aid and the interest of
one or two key individuals within other agencies of the justice
system. Much time was spent therefore in discussions with Social
Work managers, the Police, Procurators Fiscal and Sheriffs. As
the main referral sources for the men’s programme were to be the
three Sheriff Courts in Central Region, systems for referral and
assessment were agreed and referral frameworks were devised for
Courts’ use. Leaflets providing information for sentencers were
sent regularly to Sheriff Clerks for distribution to visiting
and temporary sheriffs.
Developing the programme
In developing the content of the programme, CHANGE benefited
from the contacts already made by members of the steering group
with model programmes in the USA. The Project was launched by
holding a one-day conference with contributions from Donna
Garske and Hamish Sinclair. This was followed by four days’
intensive staff training from Hamish Sinclair based on the
Manalive Men’s Programme. The training gave CHANGE staff a basic
grounding in how a men’s programme operates, but the Project was
also keen to learn from other examples of men’s programmes.
Subsequently the CHANGE team was sent to visit three model
programme centres in the USA. During a packed ten day trip the
team visited the Domestic Abuse Intervention Programme, (DAIP)
in Duluth, Minnesota; the Domestic Abuse Project, (DAP) in
Minneapolis, and EMERGE, in Boston. All these organisations were
generous with their time and experience, and freely gave copies
of all sorts of materials, many of which CHANGE drew on or
adapted in developing this programme. Ellen Pence and Michael
Paymar from DAIP were guest speakers at another CHANGE
conference later that year, and undertook three days of workshop
training for CHANGE staff and others interested in this work.
An extensive trawl of the literature on a range of intervention
programmes for offenders, and discussions with those currently
doing or planning similar or related work were then undertaken
as the programme began to take shape. The development of the
programme was also informed by visiting local Women’s Aid
refuges and talking with the women there. As the shape of the
planned programme was sketched out, feedback was sought from
members of CHANGE’s Management Committee and Advisory Group, and
from local Social Work Area Teams.
Programme approach and content
The content and shape of the men’s programme has constantly been
revised over the time it has been used, in the light of
developing experience and evaluative feedback from participants,
but the goals remain consistent. The approach adopted can
broadly be described as cognitive-behavioural in as much as
emphasis is placed on starting from men’s own understanding of
their behaviour and helping them to look at it from another
viewpoint. Emphasis is on challenging attitudes and beliefs -
about self, about men and women’s roles - as they relate to
actions. The expectations men carry as a consequence of their
beliefs about how others, and women in particular, ought
to behave; these root expectations are what men need to
confront and change if they are going to act differently. To do
so, this change needs to be seen to have value; thus men need to
weigh the gains and losses, or relative merits of changing or
refusing to change. In order to change also, men must see that
change is possible, and that it is something over which they
have choice. It is an irony that so many men who feel compelled
to exert control over those around them feel often so little in
control of themselves. Instead they often percieve themselves as
victims of others’ actions.
Apart from content, there were a number of other considerations
to be taken account of. In running a court-mandated programme a
percentage of the men referred, despite the fact that they had
agreed to participate, would nevertheless be likely to resist
the ideas and demands the programme made of them. Each session
was organised therefore in such a way as to decrease men's overt
resistance, draw them into undertaking the work of the group,
and gain their compliance and co-operation.
The most efficient and accountable way to organise this work was
in the form of modules. A man had to attend as many sessions as
were necessary to complete all the modules in order to fulfil
his probation requirement with CHANGE. He had to be present in
the group for the didactic presentation of a module, i.e the
‘taught part’. He was required to contribute to any
‘brainstorming’ or other exercise which might follow, and he
also had to undertake homework related to the module concerned.
By April 1990 CHANGE was able to start undertaking assessments
of men’s suitability for the programme. Courts and Social
Workers were informed that the first group programme would
commence as soon as a sufficient number of men was ready to
commence. The first group began in May 1990 with four men.
At the time of writing, CHANGE has worked with thirteen
groups of men, of varying size, over a period of six years. It
must be stated that the men CHANGE has worked with during this
time have been exclusively working class and white. This was not
out of choice, but reflects the profile of the local community
who are dealt with by the criminal justice system.
Contact with women partners
CHANGE was also charged to build into its work systems to ensure
the safety of women partners and services for them. The Project
has attempted to offer support and to be accountable to women in
a number of ways. These have involved working with other
agencies, notably Women's Aid and Social Services, to develop
materials and working practices. The system evolved over a
period of 6 years, and was informed largely by feedback from
women to the programme and comments from women taking part in
the formal research evaluation.
Evaluation
Although the CHANGE men’s programme was devised drawing upon
what was known at that time about effectiveness, the research
evidence then was skimpy and none related to UK practice. Thus
CHANGE was designed to operate as a pilot programme and has been
subject to a formal research study. Together with a similar
men’s programme piloted in Lothian Region, the impact of the
CHANGE men’s programme has been compared with other criminal
justice sanctions such as fines, probation and prison. The
findings of the three year Scottish Office and Home Office
sponsored study are now published as a research report. The
researchers analysed the elements and processes associated with
change, and there is a notable correspondence between the goals
of the programme and that process. Change in the men was backed
by evidence provided by women partners on the grounds that
theirs’ was more likely to provide a stringent test of any
change.
The report is lengthy and detailed and cannot be reproduced
here, but an important finding for the future of this work is
that:
‘a significant proportion of the offenders who participated in
the men’s programmes reduced their violence and associated
controlling behaviour and their women partners reported
significant improvements in the quality of their lives and their
relationships with these men.’
Wider remit
CHANGE's wider remit has been fulfilled in a variey of ways over
the last seven years. The Project has hosted three UK wide
conferences, plus an Information Day, an Accounting Day, and a
Seminar; all for invited audiences. From the third conference
there developed a practitioners' network for those involved in
working with men. The network has UK wide participation and
continues to meet twice yearly.
The Project Co-ordinators have contributed formal presentations
to 17 Conferences, contributed over 30 workshop sessions at
conferences and training events, undertaken more than 20
seminars for students in social work, psychology and in-service
courses for the police, and delivered 18 training packages,
ranging from 1 to 6 days mainly to Probation Staff.
In addition to the Probation based programme, CHANGE has also
piloted work for use in prisons and contributed to the work of
SACRO's Intensive Probation Project for young offenders based in
what was formerly Central Region.
Future plans
CHANGE plans to develop mainly as a training and consultancy
agency building on the experience gained from the last seven
years. The manual will form the basis for that training and the
research findings lend support to such a development.
