PUBLISHED by The Cambridge Chronicle
Cambridge —In a room papered in handwritten posters listing goals and discussion topics, a Cambridge non-profit program has facilitated 30 years’ worth of intervention for abusive men in Cambridge.
Emerge, the nation’s first batterers’ intervention program, recently celebrated its 30th anniversary with a benefit. The program was the first in the country to begin holding abusive men accountable for their behavior and motivating them to change, said Susan Cayouette, co-director.
Participants are educated for eight weeks and then encouraged to talk about their actions and give feedback during group sessions of around eight to ten participants for 32 weeks.
“They are all different people with different levels of education, from people with disabilities … to lawyers,” said Cayouette. “It surprises people, because they have stereotypes of what a batterer is.”
Over the years, Emerge has kept the same practices of asking men to accept responsibility for their actions and contacting the victims to keep them informed, said Cayouette. Although it is impossible for Emerge to know if participants alter their behavior, contact with the victims and observation of the men’s progress during sessions help indicate the programs’ success.
“They were effective in helping me learn something and change an attitude and a behavior,” said Paul, a 49-year-old graduate of the program who declined to give his full name for privacy reasons. “It was challenging to adopt a more responsible mentality.”
Paul was ordered by a judge to enter the program in 2006. He said was living in Cambridge at the time and felt he did not need to attend Emerge because he had read books about anger management.
Paul said he found the weekly reflections and presentations helpful and important. By the end of the course, Paul said he learned that blaming his behavior on the actions of the woman was “infantile,” and he was glad to have attended the sessions.
“I somehow thought if she annoys me enough and is unsupportive enough, it’s OK to use my superior masculine body to hurt her, but I no longer think that,” said Paul.
Emerge was founded by a group of men in 1977, said Cayouette, who was one of the first women to begin leading group discussions. Her co-director, David Adams, is the last founder still remaining at Emerge today.
The program involves men anywhere from 19 to 78 years old, the majority ranging from 25 to 50, said Cayouette. Local colleges have increasingly been referring students in the past ten years, however, including Boston University. Cayouette said she thinks colleges are paying closer attention to on-campus violence after events such as the murder of a female Virginia Commonwealth University freshman in 2005.
Although 60 percent of participants are mandated to attend sessions by courts, the number of voluntary referrals from abusers' ministers, bosses or counselors are growing, Cayouette said. Women especially are more often asking their partners to enter the program.
The media, which contributes to abuse as a learned behavior, is increasingly encouraging women to be more independent, said Cayouette. Therefore, more women are taking action against their abusive partners, but more defensive women may lead to more or greater violence as men feel threatened to stay in control, she said.
The growing economic crisis is also a growing strain in relationships, said Cayouette. Men should understand they control their own actions, but rising unemployment or underemployment is a factor in tension between partners and may be used as an excuse for abuse.
Cayouette said many participants have been losing their jobs in the past four to five months, especially those employed in construction or high-tech fields. Because Emerge’s participation fee is based on the person’s income, the number of people participating for free is growing. The fee funds about a fourth of the program’s budget, so layoffs are placing an “economic burden” on Emerge.
In addition, Emerge training programs, which began about ten years after the program was established, is a shrinking source of income as the economy declines, said Ted German, director of training. Emerge trains people of many different professions nationwide and in over 20 countries around the world, particularly Asia, where batterers’ intervention is a developing field.
“Training, in an economy that is coming apart at the seams … is cut from the budget first,” said German.
Emerge receives a federal grant, accounting for half of its funds, by training law enforcement officials through a special federal program for the Department of Justice called National Danger Assessment, said Adams, co-director.
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health funds about a fifth of Emerge’s budget and oversees its operations, Adams said. Emerge helped to develop the DPH’s guidelines for batterers’ intervention programs, to which all 15 programs in Massachusetts currently adhere.
The last fourth of Emerge’s funds are from foundation grants and donations from about 100 regular donors each year, Adams said.
No comments:
Post a Comment