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Abstract
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It is striking that for such a far-reaching social problem our responses as a community have been so slow. The first refuges for women escaping domestic violence were set up in the early 1970s, but refuge provision remains inadequately funded. This would appear to indicate, at best, inertia and at worst, collusion with such abuse at both a social and an institutional level.
Against such a background, it is hardly surprising that direct work with perpetrators of domestic violence is a new field. The Domestic Violence Intervention Project (DVIP) has been running programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence since 1992 and it is one of the longest running projects of its kind in the UK. It is based in Hammersmith, London, with a branch in Peterborough.
The DVIP was developed at a time when there was virtually no specialist provision in the UK for addressing men's systematic use of abusive behaviours within relationships. We had to look to other countries for much of our early influences and learning. In particular, we used the experiences of projects in the USA (Domestic Abuse Intervention Project in Duluth; Emerge in Boston; Manalive in San Rafael, California) and New Zealand (the Hamilton Abuse Prevention Project). Alongside learning how to construct and deliver perpetrator programmes, we learnt that intervening with perpetrators of domestic violence was about intervening in both the social and the institutional context in which the abuse occurred.
Language: en |