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Fatherhood can be a strong motivator for some abusive fathers to renounce their violence. Some men choose to change their violent behavior when they realize the damage they are doing to their children.

As a national leader in engaging men to end violence against women, Futures Without Violence, formerly Family Violence Prevention Fund, believes that it is critical to develop new strategies to motivate abusive men to renounce their violence and help heal their families. To that effect, we have developed several projects to support practitioners from different fields that engage abusive men and fathers.

Fathering After Violence

Fathering After Violence is a national initiative developed by Futures Without Violence and its partners to enhance the safety and well-being of women and children by motivating men to renounce their violence and become better fathers and more supportive parenting partners. This groundbreaking project is based on the premise that men who use violence can be held accountable for their behavior and, at the same time, be encouraged to change it by using fatherhood as a leading approach.

National Institute on Fatherhood and Domestic Violence

Futures Without Violence developed the National Institute on Fatherhood and Domestic Violence (NIFDV) to train and provide technical assistance to professionals who work with abusive fathers in different fields, using the Fathering After Violence framework. In partnership with the Office on Violence Against Women, we have trained practitioners from over 40 communities across the US, including: DV advocates, supervised visitation, batterers intervention and fatherhood programs, judges and other law enforcement, and child protection workers.

Programs for Men Who Batter

Can men who use violence really change their behavior? This is a complex question that many studies have failed to clearly answer. Some research shows that some men who complete a non-violence program can make significant changes in their lives while other experiments demonstrate minimal transformation.

Futures Without Violence believes that personal and societal change of men who use violence and the institutions that support their abuse need to be addressed to break the intergenerational cycle of abuse. If non-violence programs don’t work, we think we should look for alternatives; if they do work for some men, we ought to explore how to reach more abusers.

In an effort to explore these questions, Futures Without Violence has convened a series of national meetings with researchers and practitioners in the field of batterers intervention. In partnership with the National Institute of Justice and “The Woods” Charitable Foundation, Futures Without Violence co-sponsored an expert roundtable to explore how to improve systems that work with perpetrators of DV and how research could be more helpful to the field. The roundtable produced a series of recommendations which were compiled in the report Batterer Intervention: Doing the Work and Measuring the Progress.

Futures Without Violence and the National Insitute of Justice also commissioned four papers by leading experts and researchers in the field:

• Certified Batterer Intervention Programs: History, Philosophies, Techniques, Collaborations, Innovations, and Challenges. By David Adams, Ed.D.
• Assessing the Efficacy of Batterer Intervention Programs in Context. By Etiony Aldarondo, Ph.D.
• The Survival of Batterer Programs: Responding to Evidence-Based Practice and Improving Program Operation. By Edward Gondolf, Ed.D., M.P.H.
• Future Directions for BIPs: Examining the Power of Male Peer Support and Building Alternative Support Communities. By Barbara Hart, J.D.

One of the recommendations from the roundtable was to document innovative and promising practices in batterers intervention. Futures Without Violence is presently leading a project to compile, produce and disseminate a publication that records such practices. Check back soon for updates on this effort!

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For more information please email childrensteam@futureswithoutviolence.org