A BIPP Educational Series, Part One Online Module

CJAD Approved Hours: 1

To define a coordinated community response (CCR) and identify the benefits of a local community response to family violence

To identify the role that the prevention movement plays in BIP programming.

To illustrate the importance of the Men’s Non-Violence Movement.

The Duluth Model was founded on the principle of building a Coordinated Community Response (CCR).

The next four slides illustrate how their CCR strategy and partners work together.

Definition: Coordinated Community Response –An organized collaborative system created and maintained by a group of various organizations, government agencies, law enforcement, family violence advocates, BIP Programs, medical professionals, clergy, media, and other agencies for the purpose of creating a better response for victims of family violence.

As the movement towards accountability built momentum, a coordinated community response (CCR) system was developed between agencies that had a part in working with victims of family violence.

CCR brought law enforcement, judges, probation officers, domestic violence advocates, BIP Programs, and other providers in the community together.

Efforts by these entities led to pro-arrest policies, victim-oriented prosecution, judicial oversight of the offender, probation monitoring and coordination with victim services.

Change is required at the basic infrastructure level of the multiple agencies involved. Workers must be coordinated in ways that enhance their capacity to protect victims and must comply fully with inter-agency agreements. Participating agencies must work cooperatively on examining, adjusting and standardizing practices by making changes.

The strategy must be victim-safety centered. There is an important role for independent victim advocacy services and rehabilitation programming for offenders. Small independent monitoring and coordinating organizations should be set up to coordinate work groups, operate the tracking system, and help coordinate periodic evaluations and research projects.

Agencies must participate as collaborating partners. Each agency agrees to identify, analyze, and find solutions in which their practices might compromise the collective intervention goals. Small problem solving groups, training committees, evaluation projects, and regular meetings are used to coordinate interventions.

*Adapted from www.theduluthmodel.org

Batterers must be consistently held accountable for their use of violence. Effective intervention requires a clear and consistent response by police and the courts to initial and repeated acts of abuse.

Interventions Include: Mandatory arrest for primary aggressors; Emergency housing, education groups and advocacy for victims; Evidenced-based prosecution of cases; Jail sentences in which offenders receive increasingly harsh penalties

for repeated acts of aggression; The use of court ordered educational groups for batterers; The use of a coordinating organization to track offenders, ensure that

repeat offenders or those in non-compliance do not fall through the cracks and that victim-safety is central to the response.

*Adapted from www.theduluthmodel.org

As mental health centers and private practitioners began operating BIP programs philosophies, different approaches developed.

Some of these approaches creates the possibility of collusion with batterers by:

◦ Not keeping the primary focus on accountability◦ Legitimizing batterers excuses for violence◦ By shifting blame to victims

Prevention Initiatives are becoming more popular among those administering BIP programs. It delivers a strong message for social

change and is comprehensive, community-driven and community specific. Prevention builds long-term solutions and focuses on preventing

violence before it occurs.

Prevention: ◦ Focuses on identifying the cause of family violence. ◦ Identifies risk factors as well as protective factors that promote healthy behavior

and relationships. ◦ Seeks new partners who bring new information, influence, experiences, insight

and potential.

As BIPP evolves and new philosophies surface, some programs have started to look outside the judicial system.

What do you believe the social impact is of men

working to stop violence against women?

Men working in the family violence field is becoming more prevalent and accepted. This sends a strong message to young men and boys that violence against women will not be tolerated.

Men’s Nonviolence Project - Encourages men and boys to take a proactive role in ending violence against women.◦ www.mensnonviolence.org

Men Stopping Violence – works to dismantle belief systems, social structures, and institutional practices that oppress women and children and dehumanize men themselves. ◦ www.menstoppingviolence.org

Texas Council on Family Violence www.tcfv.org Texas Department of Criminal Justice-Community Justice Assistance

Division www.tdcj.state.tx.us/cjad/cjad-standards-bipp.htm VAWNet www.vawnet.org Battering Intervention Services Coalition of Michigan www.biscmi.org Battered Women’s Justice Project www.bwjp.org US Department of Justice www.usdoj.gov (search “batterer programs”) Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Resource Center www.jrsa.org/dvsa-

drc/ Toolkit to End Violence Against Women http://toolkit.ncjrs.org/vawo_1.html EMERGE www.emergedv.com DAIP www.theduluthmodel.org Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse www.mincava.umn.edu/ Men’s Nonviolence Project www.mensnonviolence.org Men Stopping Violence www.menstoppingviolence.org National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women RAVEN www.ravenstl.org AMEND www.amendinc.org Family Violence Prevention Fund www.endabuse.org

A Coordinated Community Response is essential to holding batterers accountable and ending family violence.

Family violence advocates and BIPPs cannot end family violence on their own. It needs to be a community effort involving the criminal justice system, mental health, medical professionals, counselors, schools, etc. If your community does not have a CCR, you are strongly encouraged to develop one.

Prevention and the Men’s Nonviolence Movement are rapidly becoming more popular and BIPP staff should get educated and be willing to educate others on the prevention of family violence.

Both Prevention and the Men’s Nonviolence Movement deliver a strong message to the public for social change. Social change has been an underlying philosophy of BIP programs from it’s inception.