Education Groups for Men Who Batter

Ellen Pence is one of the original organizers of the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. She has worked within the battered women's movement at local, state, and national levels since 1975. As an international lecturer, author, and producer of several training videos on community responses to battering, she has influenced much of the thinking in the criminal justice system on this issue. Ms. Pence is currently a graduate student at the Ontario Institute of Education in Toronto.Michael Paymar, a licensed social worker, has worked with men who batter in jails and in educational groups since 1981. He is currently the coordinator at the National Training Project of the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project. He has produced several training videos and accompanying manuals for police, court personnel, and facilitators of men's groups. Mr. Paymar, who holds a BA degree in Education from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, served eight years on the Duluth City Council. He has lectured extensively throughout the North America.

Pence and Paymar are right on target again. Their analysis of battering is excellent and their approach... is straightforward, useful and clear. [The book] tells you what to do with abusive men and how to do it well. [The authors] challenge practitioners to do their work in a manner that is compassionate yet never colluding. Accountability and safety to battered women and creating a process of change for abusive men are central to its success. - Susan Schechter, author of Women and Male Violence ""Drawing upon years of experience...Pence and paymar have written a practical and conceptually sound curriculum for batterers' groups. This book offers an effective guide to both the beginning facilitator and the experienced clinician for engaging batterers in the lifelong process of changing their intimate relationships, from those based on coercive control to those based on equality. [They] accomplish this task without compromising their commitment to advocacy with battered women."" - Anne L. Ganley, PhD, Domestic Violence Program Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Center ""Presents the most comprehensive and successful methods for working with men who batter. Mixing discussion, self-analysis and opportunities for learning new behaviors, this well-mapped-out- intervention strategy helps counselors hold men accountable while teaching non-abusive behaviors."" - Fernando Merderos, Executive Director of Common Purpose, Boston, MA ""Education Groups for Men Who Batter is a curriculum and a methodology which unequivocally identifies the exercise of violent and coercive tactics against women in intimate relationships as intentional, strategic behavior...[It] is an essential training tool for all actors in the justice and human services systems. Only when tactics of control are seen as intentional intimate terrorism can these systems construct responses effectively to end the violence."" - Barbara J. Hart, Esq., Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence ""Presents the leading approach to undoing men's abuse of women...The Duluth Model has pioneered an approach based on the experiences of abused women and consequently tailored to their circumstances. It tackles the social dimensions of woman abuse more directly and decisively than any of the psychological or skill-building approaches circulating in the field."" - Edward W. Gondolf, author of Men Who Batter, Battered Women as Survivors, and Psychiatric Response to Family Violence ""The Duluth Model Has Inspired activists all over the world, and its principles are being followed in programs in several countries. We predict that this book will become the standard text for those who work with men who batter."" - Rebecca Emerson Dobash and Russell P. Dobash authors of Violence Against Wives; Women, Violence and Social Change; and Women Viewing Violence

• ContributorsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionTheoretical Framework for Understanding BatteringThe Project DesignThe CurriculumRole of the FacilitatorA Facilitator's Guide to Weekly SessionsEvaluation of Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs, Melanie ShepardBatterers' Programs, Battered Women's Movement, and Issues of Accountability, Tineke Ritmeester Conclusion: Ending the Violence Appendices Index