Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs: Program Leaders on History, Approach, Research, and Development

Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs responds to the intense debate about the approach and effectiveness of batterer programs, especially in light of the “evidence-based practice” movement. But it does so through a collection of 24 interviews with batterer program founders and leaders who have been working in the field for 25 to 35 years. In the process, it answers many of the misconceptions and misrepresentations of batterer programs, and highlights their contributions and development. It also offers recommendations to researchers and the field in general that would help strengthen the work overall. More specifically, the book is a follow-up to the author’s research-oriented book, The Future of Batterer Programs: Reassessing Evidence-Based Practice (Northeastern University Press, 2012). That book critically reviewed the research on batterer programs in light of the demand for documentation of program effectiveness and documented the effective role of batterer programs in an intervention system. It also exposed the need for “evidence-based practice” research to include the feedback, interpretations, and critique of practitioners who have their own “evidence” to contribute. In Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs, a summarizing introduction and conclusion on leadership frame the set of leader interviews. The collection of interviews represents an archive of the experience and wisdom of long-term workers in the field—many of whom are on the verge of retirement. This “database” should help researchers develop more meaningful studies, and ground research results in actualities of the work. Ideally, the interviews will also help practitioners realize their commonalities and better represent themselves to their critics and public in general.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Respect, Accountability, and Justice Chapter 1: The Duluth Model Chapter 2: Individualized Problem-Solving Chapter 3: Clinical Integration Chapter 4: Activist Oriented Chapter 5: Women Leaders Chapter 6: Other Approaches Chapter 7: Beyond Abusive Men A Final Thought

About the Author :
Edward W. Gondolf is professor emeritus at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is also research associate and former research director at the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Research and Training Institute (MARTI).

Review :
This book by Edward Gondolf represents a collection of full and detailed interviews with the founders or leaders of the batterer programs described in the chapters of this book. It is clear that the book is a result of the continued research and sequential evaluations of the programs that the author has been doing for a long time period. The main attraction of the book is that the interviews themselves are conducted with unique and hard accessible respondents like the founders and long-time working experts whose tenure varies between 25-30 years in the batterer programs. These face to- face interviews with longstanding batterer program leaders allow for the resolution of some of the misrepresentations, misinterpretations, and misconceptions of the batterer programs. Edward Gondolf is the world's leading researcher on programs to end men's violence against their intimate partners. In this book, he interviews his colleagues - the pioneers who designed and built these programs - and establishes an important historical record of the origins of batterer intervention as well as sheds light on their successes and challenges. These interviews go beyond the rhetoric of what works or doesn't, to a deeper examination of program evolution and the meaning of success. This is a book that every practitioner and policy maker should read. From the 24 interviews of this book comes a rich narrative of how intervention programs for abusers emerged and evolved. Gondolf brings a much neglected yet essential type of evidence for understanding the impact of abuser interventions – that of the lived social history and professional experience of some of its leading practitioners, who offer a fascinating inside account of what inspired them to do this work, what they have learned from it, what sustains them, and how it ties into larger social justice movements.