Abstract
Data from this article are derived from responses to questionnaires provided by 232 frontline workers and team leaders from a range of organizations across four Australian states who participated in The Invisible Practices Project: Engaging With Fathers Who Use Violence. This project was designed to explore the practices of workers who see perpetrators of domestic violence outside the relative safety of group-work programs. Thematic analysis was employed to examine the research question: What is the organizational context that contributes to, or constrains, the practices of frontline workers intervening with fathers who use violence? This article reports the ways that agencies increase the visibility of, and practices with, fathers who use violence. Increasing the visibility of fathers who use violence is posited as a crucial driver of policy and practice reform aligned with feminist goals of eliminating sexist institutional practices. It is argued that such practices render fathers who use violence invisible, reinforce patriarchal views of family roles and responsibilities, intensify the scrutiny on the mothering of women survivors, and compound the impact of domestic violence. This article documents emerging practices that seek to redress practices that support patriarchal views of family roles and responsibilities and has implications for understanding the capacity of social workers and other professionals to intervene with fathers who use violence.
Domestic violence is behavior that usually occurs in secret, rendering the perpetrator of violence and their actions invisible outside of the home. Most perpetrators of violence minimize, deny, or imply that the victim is lying, deluded, or mentally ill (Cavanagh, Dobash, Dobash, & Lewis, 2001), raising questions about whether the behavior actually occurred and under what circumstances. The classic philosophical question comes to mind: “When a tree falls in a lonely forest, and no animal is nearby to hear it, does it make a sound?” (Mann & Twiss, 1910, p. 235). If no one bears witness to the violence, did it really happen? This article considers the ways in which social workers and other professionals can bear witness and publically legitimize male violence against women and children. Specifically, it explores how organizations can support workers to work in ways that illuminate domestic violence.
Male violence against women and children is the primary focus of this research project, and of most domestic violence services in Australia, even though there are other forms of interpersonal violence requiring service responses to address intersecting issues relating to sex, gender, and/or sexual orientation. Irrespective of their field of practice, intervening with families oppressed by male violence and the patriarchal culture within organizations is a crosscutting issue for social workers and other professionals working within the legal and social service system (Danis, 2003).
Parallel processes between the relationship system and the human service system have been identified (Heward-Belle, Humphreys, Laing, & Toivonen, 2018; Laing, 2017). In the context of this article, we note the parallels between family relationships and the service system response to men’s violence. In particular, this article reflects on the invisibility of practice with fathers who use violence and sheds light on whether practice is invisible because it is not occurring or whether it is invisible because it is unrecorded and underdeveloped. While significant intervention with fathers occurs through statutory child protection and generic family service programs, practice with fathers who use violence and coercion is neither documented nor evidence-based in the way it has been implemented in, for example, men’s behavior change programs (Humphreys, Healey, & Mandel, 2018). In other words, to date, the nature of such intervention is largely “invisible.” Analysis of qualitative data from practitioners working in child protection, family services, police, probation and parole, and specialist domestic violence services is used to explore these issues of invisibility in practice and the emergence of work in this area.
Literature Review
The impact of domestic violence on children has been explored in great detail for several decades (Edelson, 1999; Kimball, 2016; Kiztmann, Gaylord, Holt, & Kenny, 2003). Feminist activists working in women’s refuges were among the first to draw attention to the deleterious impact of domestic violence on children (Morley & Mullender, 1994). The evidence shows that the majority of children either in the short or long term are negatively impacted in their physical and mental health, behavior, and cognitive development. While the attention to children’s healing has tended to be sporadic (Westwood & Larkins, 2015), a range of individual and group-work programs for children have been developed (Bunston, 2002), but few address domestically violent men’s fathering practices (Heward-Belle, 2017). More recently, work has also focused on programs to strengthen the mother–child relationship in the aftermath of violence as a way of addressing children’s healing in the context of their primary relationship (Graham-Bermann, Lynch, Banyard, De Voe, & Halabu, 2007; Humphreys, Thiara, Sharp, & Jones, 2015).
Less attention has been directed toward intervening with men who use violence. The issue of whether feminists should intervene with domestically violent men has been fiercely contested (Justo, Lucas, Salizzo, & McCartney, 2009). Although some within the women’s movement have always advocated for intervention with men who perpetrate domestic violence (Shepard & Pence, 1999), in the main, interventions that have occurred have tended to come through criminal justice responses (Kelly & Westmarland, 2015) or group-work programs for men (Lilley-Walker, Hester, & Turner, 2018). This work has been focused on exploring the effectiveness of different programs in creating positive change in the violence and abuse directed toward women (Lilley-Walker et al., 2018). In relation to children, a “trickle down” approach has been taken which has assumed that reducing the violence toward women will curtail the impact of harm to children. However, the ways in which children are impacted by fathers who use violence may continue particularly when there are ongoing child contact arrangements and men with few ideas about positive fathering (Smith & Humphreys, 2019). Children have their own relationships with their fathers who may include the need for reparation and protection (Lamb, Humphreys, & Hegarty, 2018).
In response, group-work programs are emerging which attend to fathers who use violence in recognition that half the victims of domestic violence are children (McConnell, Barnard, Holdsworth, & Taylor, 2014; Scott & Crooks, 2007). In some jurisdictions, the standards for perpetrator programs are also in the process of change (RESPECT, 2017) requiring program facilitators to incorporate greater attention to men as fathers. Evaluations of the specialist programs for fathers who use violence are at an early stage, with some positive trends in the data (McConnell et al., 2014) and interesting questions raised about measuring outcomes which are commensurate with those desired by children and their mothers (Howarth et al., 2015).
However, most men do not attend either men’s behavior change programs (perpetrator programs) or programs for fathers who use violence. They are much more likely to be seen by statutory child protection workers and family services workers visiting vulnerable children and their families in the home or in their offices (Humphreys & Campo, 2017). There are also increasing injunctions to social workers and other professionals including child protection workers to engage with perpetrators of domestic violence (Smith & Humphreys, 2019) and to shift away from the dominant child protection intervention of focusing on the protective capacity of mothers and disregarding the perpetrator of abuse (Featherstone & Peckover, 2007). Recognition is also growing that many women are not in a position to separate for a number of legitimate reasons such as a lack of housing, extended family and cultural practices, fears of the escalation of violence with separation, and social and institutional practices that create the expectation that children will have extensive contact with the abusive father, rendering them no safer. Exploration of responses which may be more inclusive of all family members even though they would not generally be seen together even in cases where mothers and fathers are living in separate locations is therefore occurring (Stanley & Humphreys, 2017).
Interestingly, while there are increased directives to ensure that workers intervening in situations of domestic violence keep violent fathers in their line of sight, the practice in this area is underdeveloped or generally undocumented. What constitutes good, poor, or adequate practice is unclear. Some jurisdictions have developed guidelines for child protection workers (Dwyer & Miller, 2014), but there has been little attention to researching the ways in which workers are utilizing the guidelines that exist or how they perceive their organizations’ strengths and weaknesses.
The domestic violence system, in particular, specialist women’s domestic violence services, developed from interventions focused largely on supporting women and children living with domestic violence to separate from men who use violence. Separation has also been a key priority for the statutory child protection system that has often required women to leave violent men for the sake of the children, in spite of the danger and likely impoverishment of doing so for many women and their children. At the same time, family law with its “pro- contact culture” (Humphreys & Campo, 2017, p. 5) presents potentially dangerous situations for adult and child victims/survivors alike in requiring father’s involvement with children despite their use of domestic violence (Hester, 2011). The attention to fathers who use violence contributes to the provision of a counterweight to men’s rights groups which tend to see all involvement of fathers with children as positive.
This article reports data from the first Australian study to document the visibility of, and practice with, fathers who use violence and control: The Invisible Practices Project: Engaging With Fathers Who Use Violence. The study provides a snapshot of contemporary practice developments and challenges for service providers working with domestically violent men in four Australian states, namely Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australian, and Queensland. It draws from open-ended responses in participant questionnaires to explore the following question: What is the organizational context that contributes to, or constrains, the practices of frontline workers intervening with fathers who use violence?
Method
The invisible practices project was a complex, action research project. Action research is a combined strategy for inquiry (research and learning) and development (practice and action) in which a problem or situation is identified for improvement, interventions for change may be planned, and problems or challenges are solved through iterative cycles of reflection and review (Graham & Tetroe, 2009).
The project involved 65 primary participants who were practitioners from four Australian states drawn from a range of human service and justice organizations (child protection; n = 34), specialist domestic violence organizations (n = 8), community-based family services (n = 20), and police, probation and parole (n = 3) who underwent online and 2 days of face-to-face training with the Safe and Together Institute (2018). These practitioners then met in a monthly Community of Practice (hereafter CoP) facilitated by the researchers in each state, supported by consultation with the Safe and Together Institute via Zoom facilities, over a 6-month period. Practice interventions with fathers who use violence, and with their partners and children, were shared in these CoPs. In this project, the challenges facing practitioners investigating and engaging fathers who use violence in their relationships and strategies identified to address these concerns were documented by state-based researchers who observed each CoP. Aligned with principles of action research, a process of continuous reflection about what approaches worked, and why, was undertaken and recorded as ethnographic notes.
A further step involved the primary CoP participants choosing a group of people (n = 211) to influence (influencees) from within their organization, sometimes involving members of their team, and at other times senior practitioners in their organizations. The strategies for influencing varied across practitioners and their organizations but generally involved coaching, group supervisions, and regular internal forums. This strategy ensured that the action research principle that changes in understanding and knowledge also concurrently contribute to changes in practice (Steyaert & Jiggins, 2007).
Given the extent of training provided and the opportunity for peer support, practitioners who were enthusiastic and interested in the development of work intervening with fathers who use violence were either chosen by senior managers or volunteered to be involved in the project. An expectation of their involvement was that they would participate in a Time 1 and Time 2 questionnaire and a focus group at the completion of the CoP meetings. The responses to the two open-ended questions in the questionnaires provide the data for this article. The consent form to participate in the invisible practices research project documented these expectations. The study was funded by the Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety. Ethics approval was provided the ethics committee of the University of Melbourne (ID 1749310).
Data Collection and Analysis
Two hundred and seventy-six participants were sent questionnaires. One hundred and twenty-two respondents provided responses to both questions at T1 prior to participating in Safe and Together training and subsequent capacity building activities. At T2 (within 6 weeks of completing the CoP), 112 participants responded to questions. In total, 234 responses provided a return rate of 85% of participants. The responses to the following two open-ended questions provide the data for the findings: (1) What do you think your agency is doing the best in terms of working with fathers who use domestic violence? and (2) Where does your agency require the greatest area of improvement in working with fathers who use domestic violence? The focus on these two questions ensured that the organizational context and its responsibility for setting the practice environment rather than skills of individual workers were interrogated. The questions were also posed for workers to highlight best and “worst” practices in their organizations rather than detailing all their work with men who use violence. The latter detailed approach may have been appropriate in an interview but not for responding to an open-ended question where requests for descriptive detail can create a barrier. With 234 responses, these two broad questions surfaced rich data for analysis.
Two senior researchers analyzed the qualitative survey data which had been transcribed and recorded in a table which included their responses to the qualitative survey questions listed above. Techniques derived from thematic analysis (Thomas & Harden, 2008) were used to guide the data analysis. Specifically, each line of the qualitative data was read and reread (primary coding), and codes were developed to summarize the essence of the participants’ responses (secondary coding). In this stage, the following six codes were used in relation to participants’ perceptions of their agency’s involvement in engaging fathers who use violence and control: best practices, areas requiring improvement, visibility of fathers who use violence, practices to foster engagement, challenges, and facilitating factors to enhance engagement. The two codes “visibility of fathers who use violence” and “practices to foster engagement with fathers” were the most densely populated codes and the diverse range of comments in relation to both these codes formed two higher level conceptual codes: “visibility” and “practice.” Data from the other secondary codes were also incorporated into these conceptual codes where appropriate. The findings in relation to these concepts are the subject of this article.
Findings
Accounts of Visibility
Participants’ comments reflected varied perceptions regarding the visibility of domestically violent fathers within their agencies and have been located on a continuum from “invisible” to “highly visible” based on the thematic analysis. The concept of visibility was operationalized according to a number of components, including practitioners’ accounts of if, and how, they saw domestically violent fathers; and their perceptions of their agency’s view of the appropriateness of working with this population. Moreover, in exploring how participants viewed domestically violent fathers, researchers also interrogated the language used to describe them, as it afforded some insight into how practitioners may construct fathers who perpetrate domestic violence.
Invisible––Low Visibility
Comments in this group conveyed a perception that fathers who use violence and control were not seen as legitimate clients of participants’ services, and many participants indicated that they did not believe that it was appropriate for their agency to engage men in their work with families experiencing domestic violence. For example, a practitioner indicated that “Our agency does not work with fathers, we are a woman only service” (Participant 10: Specialist DV). This sentiment was echoed by many participants in one state who worked within the same large government department that has a policy directive precluding workers from providing services to people who perpetrate violence. While there may be legitimate reasons behind the development of such a policy, including the need to ensure that workers providing such services are safe, supported, and highly skilled, it could be argued that this policy assists in the process of rendering domestically violent men invisible.
Most other participants indicated that their agencies did not have specific policies precluding them from working with this population. Instead, they indicated that agency funding agreements limited their ability to work with men who use violence as the following quotes attest: “As we are only funded to work with adults and children who are victims of DV, we are limited by this in terms of responding to perpetrators” (Participant 22: Specialist DV) and “Our agency was never funded to work with fathers; however, it would be beneficial to seek further funding to employ a male DV to work with fathers” (Participant 177: Specialist DV).
A number of participants indicated that their agencies did not work with men because to do so would divert scarce resources from programs for women and children. A number of agencies traversed this issue by directly charging men to participate in men’s behavior change programs, a solution that worked for some men who could afford to pay but not for others who were unemployed. This solution raised issues of equity and social justice for many workers who questioned the ethics of not being able to provide a service to economically disadvantaged families. Notwithstanding financial constraints, some participants believed that it would be beneficial for their agencies to work with men who use violence and control.
One dimensional descriptions of domestically violent men were common among participants in this group. For example, they were almost exclusively referred to as “perpetrators” and descriptions of their involvement in family life were confined primarily to judgments about the risks and dangers they posed to women and children. There were few comments that sat outside of the narrow construction of men as perpetrators of domestic violence. There were limited references to their fathering and no comments about any potential positive contributions that they might make to family life or child development. Some practitioners also highlighted the importance of being vigilant to the language used to describe the antecedents of domestic violence. They applied Safe and Together concepts (Humphreys et al., 2018) such as “domestic violence destructive systems” to their analysis of how practitioners communicate about domestic violence. Specifically, a statutory child protection worker (Participant 16) highlighted that domestic violence destructive language continues to be used in assessments and reports. A hallmark of destructive language is that it tends to mutualize responsibility for domestic violence equally among the perpetrator and the survivor. Such an approach neither attends to the unequal power dynamics evident in relationships characterized by domestic violence nor does it hold perpetrators responsible for choosing to use violence and other tactics of coercive control. Many practitioners commented on the need to increase the level of domestic violence knowledge among practitioners in the legal and service system in order to address the dangerous practice of viewing survivors as partly or wholly responsible for the safety of themselves and their children when domestic violence was being perpetrated.
Practices Associated With Invisibility––Low Visibility
Not surprisingly, in situations where men who use violence were invisible or barely visible to practitioners and their agencies, the practices with them were minimal and often potentially dangerous. The most common practice described involved using women survivors to convey programmatic information to their violent partners about men’s behavior change programs, described by one participant thus: “Our agency does not work directly with perpetrators. Referrals are offered to the women who use our service to give to the fathers” (Participant 10: Specialist DV).
It could be argued that this practice can perpetuate gender inequality as it removes the social sanction potentially offered by a professional response and places the onus of responsibility on women to police and change men’s violent and controlling behavior. Moreover, this indirect practice is potentially dangerous as women are left to confront men within a relationship context that is characterized by an unequal power structure scaffolded by male privilege, violence, and coercion.
Some participants working in agencies that had adopted policies precluding work with men who perpetrate domestic violence developed work practices with women survivors that aimed to increase the visibility of fathers who harm. For example, participants in one agency described adopting the Safe and Together Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool in direct work and group work with women survivors. This tool was used to aid risk assessment and safety planning processes and as a psychoeducational tool in group-work settings to help survivors document and discuss the tactics of power and control deployed by their partners and ex-partners. Participants also reported directing more questions to and holding more conversations with women survivors regarding their partners’ and ex-partners’ fathering practices.
Participants commented on how they felt such conversations had potentially raised women’s consciousness about gender inequality, particularly in relation to judging mothers and fathers differently as “good enough parents.” While participants saw these practice developments as positive, caution should be exercised before coming to such a conclusion and careful consideration should be given to any potential unintended consequences. For example, raising women survivors’ consciousness in relation to gender inequitable parenting practices may justifiably increase their expectations regarding their partners’ participation in domestic life and child rearing. However, in the absence of a sufficient web of accountability including appropriate sanctions, supports, and services to hold domestically violent men accountable, survivors may be left alone to confront dangerous men about the gendered imbalance of domestic and childcare work within the home. Moreover, survivors may be left to negotiate the possible implications of their partners’ actions to redress this imbalance, which may include increasing the amount of time spent with children despite being unsafe and poor parents.
There was another group of workers who worked within agencies where fathers were rendered invisible or barely visible through agency policies, practices, or funding agreements but who nevertheless engaged in a high level of practice with this population. For example, some workers from nongovernment organizations indicated that despite a strong agency culture that prohibited work with fathers who use violence, they found ways to engage with men in their casework practice often under the guise of labeling this work “parenting support”: One staff member has worked with a CALD family seeking permanent residency and our referral included an L17 [police report] detailing DV. While the father did not identify his violence as a goal to work on, we were able to work alongside the IVO [Intervention Violence Order] to alleviate some of the stressors, which had led to his substance use and violence in relation to visas and employment. The mother initially disclosed the DV at the beginning of our work with the family though she did not wish to leave the relationship. As our work progressed she made no further disclosure and observed no apparent signs on ongoing DV.
Workers within statutory agencies made other comments, which reflected a slightly different set of issues contributing to low visibility. Many of their comments reflected the inherent power of practitioners within such organizations who commonly used language like “we need to make perpetrators accountable for their violence” (Participant 68: Child Protection Statutory). When practitioners described practices with domestically violent men, they were mainly confined to investigative aspects of work that pivoted on gathering information about them in order to assess the risks they posed to women and children. The application of this work within individual offices and across large organizations was described as being very inconsistent and highly dependent upon the commitment of individual practitioners who perceived a need to work with domestically violent men.
Medium to High Visibility
Many comments in this group reflected a growing view that a different approach was needed to improve the safety and well-being of women and children who experience domestic violence, which involved increasing the visibility of domestically violent men. The impetus for increasing fathers’ visibility included assessing men’s influence within families in order to enhance risk assessment and safety planning processes, inviting men to embark on a process of change to address their use of violence and control in order to prevent further violence and to increase their level of accountability, and ensuring that men received natural justice in order to respond to allegations about their behavior. Moreover, many participants perceived that increasing men’s visibility offered the opportunity to redress sexist child protection practices. Sexist practices place a disproportionate amount of responsibility on women survivors rather than on male perpetrators to create safety for themselves and their children. The following comments from a child protection practitioner typified comments in this category: (o)ur Department is in the process of change; historically we have placed too much responsibility on mum, the adult victim, to create safety. For example, we would encourage mum and the children to leave the family home instead of encouraging dad, the perpetrator of the violence, to remove himself from the family home in order to create safety. By focusing too much on mum and the children a lot of times the perpetrator was overlooked and not held accountable for their behaviours. Upon reflection, this is very dangerous as simply removing a mum and children does not implement safety as we know that the adult victim and children are most at risk after a separation. This practice also does not push for change in the perpetrator’s thinking and behaviours into the future and although they may not return to a relationship with the adult victim it is highly likely that if they start a new relationship the cycle of violence will resume in that relationship. (Participant 37: Child Protection Statutory)
The language used to describe men who use violence and other controlling behaviors was, in the main, similar to the one-dimensional language used in the “no to low visibility” group. Men were principally referred to as “perpetrators,” women and children were principally referred to as “victims,” and most descriptions of work with domestically violent men pivoted on “making men accountable.” However, there were more comments that positioned domestically violent men as multidimensional people, with whom workers could potentially engage in order to address their violence and poor fathering practices. These comments conveyed a sense that the practitioner’s line of sight extended beyond seeing domestically violent men solely as “perpetrators.” Instead, there was a sense that practitioners were curious about understanding how men saw their role as fathers, and as one practitioner described, there was a desire to “support them toward strengthening the positives identified and educating around impacts of negative behaviours” (Participant 45: Child and Family Services).
Practices Associated With Medium––High Visibility
Many participants perceived that they had significantly changed the way they worked with families that contain men who use violence and control. Their comments about their own practices strongly suggested that they perceived that they had adopted many Safe and Together practice principles including partnering with the adult survivor, mapping the perpetrator’s pattern of coercive control and connecting it to women’s and children’s functioning, holding men to a higher standard of accountability as fathers, and seeing their use of violence and control as a fathering choice. Speaking directly to fathers about domestic violence in order to comprehensively assess risk was the most commonly identified practice change to arise as a result of participating in the research. Alongside this shift, participants also perceived that they were partnering more effectively with women survivors to establish safety plans. Interestingly, despite the fact that many participants worked within statutory child protection services, there were few comments about practice developments that related to direct work with children and young people.
Some participants talked about another level of engagement that could be described as therapeutic in the sense that it centered on inviting men to begin a journey of change to become ethical and accountable for their behavior and to stop using violence and control in their relationships. Participants reported the emergence of some innovative practice initiatives but stressed that these initiatives were confined to discrete areas rather than consistently across whole agencies. Descriptions of innovative practices were more common among practitioners who worked within agencies that had made a significant commitment toward building workforce capacity. For example, in the state of Queensland where over 1,400 child protection practitioners have been trained in the Safe and Together model, participants described innovative practices including the establishment of a program called Walking With Dads. This pilot involves practitioners with specialist skills in intervening with domestically violent men working alongside child protection practitioners in five trial sites. In addition, funding was established for the development of specialist men’s behavior change programs to address men’s violence and enhance their fathering capacity.
Innovative and emergent practices were also described by participants in Victoria, another large Australian state that has recently undertaken a Royal Commission into Family Violence, which handed down 227 recommendations, many of which focused on increasing the accountability of perpetrators. For example, some participants employed in the nongovernment sector in Victoria reported that their services had introduced specialist fathering programs for men who use violence and control such as the Caring Dads program (Scott & Crooks, 2007). Participants who delivered specialist fathering programs described optimism about such practice developments citing high rates of engagement and increased accountability as positive program outcomes. At the same time, most participants perceived that insufficient funding had been allocated to resourcing specialist programs for engaging fathers who use violence and control. Moreover, participants consistently reported the need to build workforce capacity to enable them to undertake this complex work which, as one worker stated, requires highly skilled workers to engage “perpetrators to own and take responsibility for their behavior whilst also being aware of the risk to the victim when they become empowered” (Participant 21: Children and Family Services).
Discussion
The findings from the questionnaires completed by 232 workers from human service and justice organizations highlight the intersections between participants’ accounts of the visibility of, and practices with, men who use violence and control. This study addresses a lacuna in the literature as practice with these fathers has been hitherto largely “invisible”; neither documented in case files nor evidence-based in research.
Most fathers who use violence and other tactics of coercive control, irrespective of the severity of their abuse, live with, or will continue to have contact with children (Alderson, Westmarland, & Kelly, 2013). At the same time, most domestically violent men do not attend men’s behavior change programs to address and change their abusive behavior. Professionals, such as child protection workers and family service workers, potentially have the most contact with men as fathers when undertaking home visits to respond to children in need. Intervening with fathers who use violence and control offers a counterpoint to persistent and entrenched institutional practices that intensely scrutinize mothering while paradoxically rendering abusive men invisible.
The findings of the study highlight that the visibility of fathers who use violence differs markedly within and across agencies and is a crucial driver orienting the engagement of such men in policy and practice. In the present study, governance structures including implicit and explicit policies and funding arrangements that preclude work with men who use violence were associated with dangerous institutional practices in some agencies. Such practices included requiring women survivors of domestic violence to relay messages between professionals and their violent partners and working “within the shadows” or subversively with violent men. Such practices potentially intensified the risks to women, children, and workers by placing unrealistic expectations on all of them to manage men’s violence alone, disconnected from a web of accountability, including for workers, the support of their organizations.
The study also unearthed examples of emerging practices with violent fathers, thus contributing to the developing knowledge base regarding the circumstances in which programs for violent fathers may be beneficial (Coy & Kelly, 2011; Scott & Crooks, 2007). Engaging fathers in discussions about violence for risk assessment purposes was the most commonly reported practice development arising from the research. Other emerging practices included engaging men in conversations about their fathering experiences and practices, with some practitioners indicating that their agencies have been trialing specific therapeutic programs for this population, such as Caring Dads and Walking With Dads. In the main, participants perceived that these practice changes were yielding positive results. However, as it was beyond the scope of this research to measure the impact of perceived practice changes, their relative impact remains unknown. Future research which elicits women’s and children’s perceptions of their safety and well-being as a result of increased work with fathers who use violence is needed.
The findings of this study also point toward important issues that require prudent consideration if policy and practice are going to be oriented toward working with fathers who use violence. While there was evidence of emerging practices, there was also evidence of dangerous practices. We refer to “dangerous practices” to cover not only the evident dangers when working with men who use violence but also the danger to workers embarking on work which does not have the full backing of their organization. These workers are in danger of “being hung out to dry” should a serious incident occur. Attention is drawn to the potentially serious consequences of insufficient policy and funding arrangements, inadequate governance structures, limited professional supervision, and insufficient safety procedures to support the complex work with fathers who use violence.
The findings of this study also highlight the positive impact that judicial inquiries can have in catalyzing practice changes. For example, practitioners in Victoria and Queensland described more engagement with fathers who use violence than did practitioners in states that had not had recent judicial inquiries. Against the background of the tragic and public murder of Luke Batty by his father, the Victorian government undertook a Royal Commission into Family Violence the state government invested substantial funds toward implementing all 227 of the Commission’s recommendations, many of which focus on “making perpetrators accountable” (State of Victoria, 2016, p. 1). Similarly, the Queensland government also invested substantial funds to implement all 140 recommendations of the Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence arising from the Not Now, Not Ever Report. Many of the recommendations target the expansion of practice with domestically violent men. The injection of funding into the sector alongside the establishment of governance structures supported by the highest levels of government provides the backdrop for practitioners to turn toward working more effectively with fathers who use violence and control.
However, many participants in this study stressed that although it is important to improve practices with fathers who use violence, the paramount consideration guiding policy and practice reform must be the safety and well-being of women and children. For example, many participants stressed that working with domestically violent men in order to hold them to account for their behavior must never be at the expense of providing adequate services that ensure that women and children have access to affordable housing, legal services, appropriate policing and legal protection, adequate financial support and employment opportunities, medical intervention, and social and emotional support.
The findings of this study lend weight to the findings of large-scale reviews of the contemporary Australian legal and social service system (Queensland Special Taskforce, 2015; State of Victoria, 2016) which have highlighted entrenched systemic problems. These problems make it very difficult for women generally, and for women from underserviced communities in particular, to achieve justice and safety from men who perpetrate violence against them. For example, Indigenous women (Day, Francisco, & Jones, 2013), those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (Ghafournia, 2011), women living in rural areas (Wendt, 2009), and women living with disabilities (Frohmader, Dowse, & Didi, 2015) are among the many groups of underserviced women who are not only at risk of experiencing domestic violence but are also at increased risk of receiving an inadequate legal and service response.
Conclusion
This research addresses a gap in relation to the documentation of practices in Australia with men who use violence and other coercively controlling behaviors. The findings report the intersections between participants’ accounts of visibility of, and practices with, men who use violence and control.
Returning to the philosophical question: “When a tree falls in a lonely forest, and no animal is nearby to hear it, does it make a sound?” (Mann & Twiss, 1910, p. 235). This project found that when practitioners chose to see and hear domestically violent men, opportunities arose for them to bear witness and publically legitimize women’s and children’s experiences of violence that had hitherto been rendered invisible. In effect, they illuminated the fallen tree. It is argued that “unless we specifically address who is perpetrating the violence and how it tends to be covered up by society, we fail to go to the heart of the problem” (Feresin, Folla, Lapierre, & Romito, 2018, p. 512). However, bearing witness requires a legal and service system that promotes survivors’ safety, honors their resistance, holds men who use violence accountable, and constructs them as capable of change. In such a system, social workers and other practitioners must be strongly supported by adequate governance structures that enable them to engage in the complex work of bearing witness.
This type of work may begin with what is described as the aboriginal practice of “Dadirri” or “inner, deep listening and quiet still awareness” (Ungungmerr-Baumann, 2002, p. 2). Safety planning and promoting survivors’ healing requires practitioners to take all evidence into account––effectively hearing all sounds and seeing all movements in the forest in order to fully comprehend the terrain. Intervening with fathers who use violence provides opportunities to magnify the previously invisible and amplify the previously inaudible. Seeing and hearing fathers who use violence offers the opportunity to assess not only the risks that violent men pose to women and children but also their capacity to begin a journey away from using violence.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by ANROWS: Australia’s National Research Organisation on Women’s Safety.
