Building Bridges Between Fatherhood Programs and Programs Working to End Men's Violence

A fundamental goal of the Building Partnerships to End Men’s Violence Initiative is to build partnerships between domestic and sexual violence prevention programs and community based organizations that already reach large numbers of men and boys. The many hundreds of programs working with fathers in communities across the country represent one such opportunity for collaboration. There are important reasons to promote such collaboration. Research shows that the presence of a caring adult male can have a long-term positive impact on children, improving their academic success, mental health, and ability to establish healthy intimate partner relationships. In this sense, father involvement programs can be seen as integral to preventing domestic violence. At the same time, however, the goal of father involvement raises important concerns for battered women and their children, and for those who work to secure their safety.

The interview that follows grapples with some of the challenges posed by closer collaboration between people working to stop violence against women and those promoting responsible fatherhood. For example, the discussion offers strategies for addressing the tension between survivor safety and father involvement. The interview describes the important philosophical and programmatic differences between batterer intervention programs and responsible fatherhood programs and points to ways in which each can learn from the other. Throughout, the interviewees share their ideas on cultural competence and make explicit the connections they see between violence against women and other forms of oppression. The interview is infused with a shared sense of optimism and a profound respect for community driven solutions that recognize the interconnectedness of all the people involved in them.

The interview was conducted in early 2003 by Dean Peacock, a consultant for the Family Violence Prevention Fund’s Building Partnerships to End Men’s Violence Initiative, with three practitioners who have been working over many years to build bridges between the movements to end men’s violence and to promote responsible fatherhood. The interviewees are: Jacquelyn Boggess of the Center for Fathers, Families and Public Policy; Jerry Tello of the National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute; and Oliver Williams of the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community.

Dean: Let’s talk a bit about the fatherhood field. I have heard both Jacquelyn and Oliver talk about three distinct groupings of fatherhood organizations.

Jacquelyn: I think for a lot of people the immediate response to fatherhood groups is fathers' rights organizations. That is not the kind of organization that we are talking about collaborating with. Those in fathers’ rights organizations tend to be men that have more money. They tend to be men who are going to work their situations out in a courtroom, and, frankly, do not attend the kind of fatherhood groups that we are talking about.

There is a second category of fatherhood groups—responsible fatherhood organizations. Some of the federal legislation in the late 1990s sought to create and economically support this type of fatherhood program. These organizations address financial matters like child support and joblessness.

The third kind of fatherhood organization I would call “father involvement.” They are the kind that we are looking to collaborate with; they are natural organizations that spring up in groups of men who want to help other men in the community and have a community feel. They are a place for men to go to talk about what they have been going through, in their work and in their relationships. Father involvement groups sprang up a long time ago, without much money. They existed on a shoestring with volunteers, people just wanting to be helpful and to change their communities.

Dean: You have all been part of this national discussion about the importance of building alliances among people who are working with fathers and people who are working to end men's violence. Can you each talk a little bit about what you feel is important about bringing these two fields closer together?

Oliver: I think that sometimes we have had these narrow compartments that have shaped how we have thought about and done violence work. We have had this perspective that what we do is to help battered women leave the person who has been abusive to them. Once we have managed to find a place for her to be safe, then our job is done. But sometimes battered women return to their partners, or maintain relationships with the fathers of their children. So sometimes you have an ongoing, co-parenting relationship. For us not to attend to what that means in terms of safety and accountability means that we leave a reality for some battered women. A number of battered women do need to get away from their partners. But many want their ex-partner to take responsibility for and contribute to the well being of their children.

Jerry: Well, it is not the best perspective to begin with whether or not we should build partnerships across programs. Community members do not separate themselves based on the programs that they go to. The community bases its connections on its needs. Fathers and brothers and uncles and mothers and daughters and grandmothers are all connected, and they all have issues, and they all have wounds, and they all have strengths. What happens sometimes is that we, in our limited insight as practitioners, begin to separate the community based on our needs. And sometimes what that ends up doing is contributing to the trauma and isolation, and inhibiting the healing that could be going on.

Dean: What would a community-based approach look like that attempts to assist fathers to be both good partners and good parents?

Jerry: I think that looking at the whole does not mean there are not parts of the whole that function sometimes separately and sometimes interdependently. But, regardless of what part of the circle you operate from, it’s important to always have the perspective of the total circle. In the programs that we do and train people to do, regardless of whether we are calling it fatherhood, anger management, domestic violence services or rites of passage, there are issues and themes that are very much the same across the board.

Some men come in who are young fathers, and they have certain issues that they are dealing with. Some men come in because they need a job. But even in that, they’ve got to go home. So part of their job preparation has to also include work on their family relationships, because if things do not go well there, they are not going to have a job for very long. Then we get court-ordered men and if you look at their history, they have generations of baggage. And so they come in from a different part of the circle. But wherever they come from, whether it is little boys or young fathers or men who have been violent, everything is looked at from the center of the circle, which is maintaining sacred relationships. We need to have a similar focus of purpose, regardless of what type of program we are doing.

Dean: That is a significantly different approach than most batterer intervention programs take, where the man comes in typically because he has been referred by the criminal justice system.

Oliver: Yes, I do think that that is true. When father involvement staff do an assessment, they figure out that there is a range of things that this person needs, and then they try to respond to that range of needs. Some of the really deep, good programs will do cross-training and will include domestic violence even when they are focusing primarily on substance abuse or unemployment. In the fatherhood programs that I have seen, they are trying to deal with the person and with healing and restoration. I do not know if the reverse is true. Domestic violence programs often do not expand the range of issues because they are there to talk about the violence.

Jerry: In some fatherhood programs, the premise is that with education and with motivation men can be better fathers. But when wounds are very deep, lifelong violent wounds that have come from fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers, generations deep, those wounds do not heal so quickly. Those wounds do not heal just from motivation and education. Sometimes it takes a deeper type of intervention for more accountable, healthy relationships to develop. I'm very concerned about getting generic fatherhood programs to also try to heal men who have very significant wounds.

Dean: Ideally, if we think about responsible fatherhood programs being more sensitive to and more proactive about the issue of domestic violence, and batterer intervention programs being more thoughtful about fatherhood, what would we want to see first?

Jacquelyn: This is really an important question for me. We have to be very careful about what we say that fatherhood programs can or should or will do. I think you described where we are, Oliver, when you said that everybody agrees that the collaboration has to be done. I would really caution us, though, not to come up with concrete standards or plans yet. I think there is so much talk that has to happen first. Practitioners in fatherhood programs keep telling me with regard to domestic violence, “I'm afraid. I'm afraid to do anything because I do not want to make things worse. I do not want to mess up.” In the end, that is not where we want to be—the place where they are too scared to do anything at all. In some cases, however, maybe that is where we want to be right now, because we could mess up if we start too soon. I would really caution that we slow down and talk about this over and over and over again.

Dean: What do you think the substance of that conversation needs to include?

Jacquelyn: The conversation needs to address whether fatherhood programs should refer out for domestic violence services, for example. Is that the way we should do it most often? If we are not going to refer out, does that mean we need to have a certified person who works in the fatherhood program? Does referring out work? Oliver and I were in a meeting where people said if you refer someone out for services, you lose them. If you are going to do provide services in-house, what does that mean? I do not know. Those are not the answers. They are the questions.

Jerry: I think there are some things we can agree on—that violence in relationships is not acceptable, and that we all need to do something about it. So that can be a resounding common voice, regardless of where we are in the circle. Whether we are doing an intake or working with somebody to get them a job, or working in a teen fatherhood program or a batterers' program, we can all agree on that. If you are in the fatherhood field, then you need to have somebody connected to child welfare and to batterers' intervention and to the rest of the parts of the circle. We need to recognize that everyone in the community needs to take some responsibility, and then be connected to those people who are better equipped to do what you cannot.

Oliver: I think that we do need to talk more about capacity building. The issue of domestic violence needs to be part of the repertoire of the people who are working in fatherhood programs and there has got to be an assessment about capacity in this area. Different people and programs have differing capacity to handle the intensity of domestic violence work. This needs to be acknowledged and discussed. And different skills are required depending on where the men are in the process of taking responsibility for their behavior. Some men have a really hard time taking responsibility for their own violence, and some have a hard time speaking up about other people’s violence.

Dean: One of the things we have not talked about much are the safety concerns that come up quite frequently when we talk about men who have been violent staying connected to the women through the children. So we want the man to be a good father to the kids, but he has a history of violence. What systems do we put in place to keep the survivors safe?

Oliver: We must recognize that there are questions around safety. In a fathering program, just like a batterers' program, if a person is going to be harmful to themselves or to someone else, you have got to report the case. In visitation centers and other places, we have to think about the potential harm that somebody could do. We have to put this on the table. In criminal court, or dependency or family court, we have to look at what a person has done to really change their behavior. We have to ask the question, “What is the evidence of change?” I'm not so sure that we ask this question often enough.

Jerry: I think it is about redefining what the expectations of honorable relationships are. That definition needs to very clearly specify that violence is not included. But it must go beyond that to include a focus on nurturance. I think that is something that many batterer intervention programs do not do. They talk about prevention of violence and go through exercises to move men away from the violence, but these steps do not necessarily take men to the nurturing part. We need to do that work.

What we tell men is, “You’ve got to show up. Be present.” That is very hard for some men, especially some men of color, who get questioned and checked all day long and have had that happen to them historically. Just to show up, to be present with your total spirit, is a major thing. We talk about being present in the life of your relationship. After you show up, you have got to be able to pay attention. Pay attention to what your partner needs. Pay attention to what your role should be. Pay attention to when you need to speak up, when you need to be quiet, when you need to be attentive, when you can be nurturing and when you need to back off a little bit and give some space. Then you have got to give your heart. You have got to give your love. Do it with love. Do not do it with hate. Do not do it with anger. You have got to do it with love. And love sometimes means shutting up. Sometimes it means you follow. Sometimes it means being patient. Sometimes it means speaking up, and sometimes it means taking the lead or taking a risk. Finally, we tell men to give it up. Giving it up means spiritually looking to a greater source, or recognizing that you are not in control. Forget about control. It is about walking with others, putting out your hand, and being a partner that is across from another partner, being a partner to your child, a partner to your relationship, a partner in your community.

Oliver: That is an interesting thing, Jerry, because it is the idea of balance. That notion appears in conversations about what manhood means for African American men. To keep your vitality, you must have balance. You cannot let one emotion or facet of your being constantly overtake you.

Jerry: People from different roots have their own rhythm and their own song, and I think we need to honor that because the violence or the pain that we bring to relationships comes through a certain history. Therefore, when we are attempting to reconnect people or heal people, we need to respect their culture and their roots, their ethnicity, traditions and customs.

Oliver: We are dealing with people who carry different baggage, who change at different paces, and who heal at different paces. I do not know how to deal with this because there is no language for this in batterers' treatment. But I think in fathering programs, because they serve such a wide spectrum of men, there is. Sometimes when we talk about batterers' treatment, we say, “Once a batterer, always a batterer.” That has influenced the way that we approach the work. We have to find a range of ways to reach this population, and I do not believe that we have developed all the ways that we can reach them. We have to find different and better ways to identify and engage men who may be violent and help prevent the problem. And maybe this is a thing that I get from fathering programs. I think that there is hope.