Intervention with Fathers at Risk for Maltreating Their Children

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Intervention with Fathers at Risk for Maltreating
Their Children

• CPA, Montreal, June 2005
• Karen J. Francis (University of Western Ontario)
• Tim Kelly (Changing Ways, London, Ontario)
• Claire V. Crooks (CAMH Centre for Prevention
  Science)
• Katreena Scott (OISE, University of Toronto)

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Goals

• Highlight the need for provision of service to
  maltreating fathers
• Guidelines for providing service
• Challenges in assessment and evaluation
• Caring Dads how one community mobilized
• Caring Dads Helping Fathers Value their
  Children
• Preliminary evaluation results and future
  directions

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Why have maltreating fathers been overlooked?

• A social and systemic bias that places
  responsibility for parenting on mothers and views
  mothers as more amenable to change than fathers
• Maltreating fathers often have hostile attitudes
  and there may be a reluctance on the part of
  service providers/child protection workers to
  engage them in a meaningful productive manner
• Resources for programming are limited

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Why Services Specifically for Abusive Dads?
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Why work with maltreating fathers?

• Fathers are responsible for a significant
  proportion of child maltreatment
• Mothers constitute over half of reported child
  abuse and neglect investigations
• Likely a misrepresentation due to the high number
  of single parent mother lead families
• Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse
  and Neglect, Trocme et al., 2001

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Why work with maltreating fathers?

• Two parent mother/father families fathers are
  investigated in 71 of physical abuse and 69 of
  emotional maltreatment cases
• Sexual abuse father/stepfathers are over three
  times as likely to be investigated as
  mothers/stepmothers (24 vs 7)
• Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse
  and Neglect, Trocme et al., 2001

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Why work with maltreating fathers?

• Help prevent mothers from being placed in
  untenable positions to protect their children
• Mothers are often required to monitor, or prevent
  the childrens fathers access
• Mothers may be viewed by the children as the
  person preventing their fathers access or
  visitation

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Why work with maltreating fathers?

• Providing intervention may be in the best
  interests of children in a variety of ways
• Program support for child protection orders
• Intervention program can provide independent
  support and feedback to child protection

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The Value of Intervening with Maltreating and
At-risk Fathers

• Fathers seldom leave the emotional landscape of
  their children (Peled, 1998)
• children missed their fathers
• children often experienced a conflict of
  loyalties

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The Value of Intervening with Maltreating and
At-risk Fathers

• Fathers who leave one family seldom end their
  involvement with children in general
• By age 4, the odds of abuse for children with a
  step-parent in the home are 2.6 times as high as
  for children with two biological parents
  Radhakrishna et al. (2001)

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Children killed by parents in Canada, 1974 to
1992 (Daly Wilson, 2000)
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Why work with maltreating fathers?

• Providing intervention to fathers has the
  potential to increase paternal accountability and
  responsibility

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Working with maltreating fathers

• Practical Experience and Availability of Programs
• Intervention focus on high risk mothers
• Most maltreating fathers are referred to
  traditional parenting support and educations
  program

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Cautions for working with maltreating fathers

• Fathers may use of program to gain leverage in
  custody and access
• Fathers may use of program material to harass
  childrens mothers
• Funding of program may come at the expense of
  services addressing the safety needs of women and
  children

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Why not traditional parenting programs?

• Most parenting support and education programs
  assume a skill deficit and tend to focus on child
  behavioral management techniques which include
  reinforcement strategies, punishment/discipline
  and anger management

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Why not traditional parenting programs?

• Many maltreating and abusive fathers present
  overly controlling behavior, a sense of
  entitlement, and self-centered attitudes
• The development of child management skills should
  not be an initial focus of intervention

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Why not traditional parenting programs?

• What do you mean? I cant spank him, touch him
  or anything. Howm I supposed to control him?

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Why not traditional parenting programs?

• Many abusive and maltreating fathers present a
  paradoxical relationship between perceived power
  and use of power-assertive strategies. These
  fathers
• are highly reactive to the possibility of lost
  control
• more likely to attribute negative intent
• engage in more control-oriented appraisal
• are more likely to derogate children
• are more likely to be abusive and coercive
  Bugental et al.

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Why not traditional parenting programs?

• Accountability is not a focus of most parenting
  education programs
• Intervention for maltreating fathers needs to
  collaborate with child protection services and
  the criminal justice system
• Intervention for maltreating fathers needs to be
  child protection focused not father focused

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Why not traditional parenting programs?

• Most traditional parenting programs presume a
  basic level of cooperation and consistency
  between parents

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Critical Principles and Guidelines
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Critical Principles for Intervention with
Maltreating and Abusive Fathers

• Intervention focus must be on abuse of the child
  and counter the attitudes that support the
  abusive behaviour and focus on the development of
  their capacity to support their childrens
  emotional and physical needs

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Critical Principles for Intervention with
Maltreating and Abusive Fathers

• The focus of the intervention must be the abusive
  and maltreating fathers lack of recognition and
  prioritizations of childrens need for love,
  respect, security and autonomy-- Not their
  inability to control their childrens behaviour.
  

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Critical Principles for Intervention with
Maltreating and Abusive Fathers

• Interventions with maltreating and abusive
  fathers must consider the experience of the
  childrens mother and address the relationship
  between abusive fathers and the mothers of their
  children.

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Critical Principles for Intervention with
Maltreating and Abusive Fathers

• Men's abuse of children's mothers must be
  recognized and addressed as part of intervention
  for fathers.
• Because women may also be victims of mens
  abusive behavior, outreach must be offered to
  provide women.

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Critical Principles for Intervention with
Maltreating and Abusive Fathers

• Intervention must be completely clear that abuse
  of children includes abuse of childrens mothers
• I cant really do anything to her she bruises
  so easily if I just grab her. I have hit her
  she got a black eye. It was just a left jab. I
  didnt even hit her hard. She played that up,
  wore it like it was a badge.
• I was pissed off at her, so I took her to court
  to get custody to get her back for her mind
  games.
• I get their mother to take care of the
  discipline. Im more laid back.

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Critical Principles for Intervention with
Maltreating and Abusive Fathers

• Interventions with abusive and maltreating
  fathers must address abuse through systematic
  undermining of the mother-child relationship
• I tell them not to listen to their mother.
• If she asks I tell her I dont trust her mom, I
  dont love her.

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Critical Principles for Intervention with
Maltreating and Abusive Fathers

• Inventions must recognize that men may not
  initially ready for change
• Programs must be integrated in a system that can
  enforce the intervention
• Partnerships between intervention, child
  protection and criminal justice system are
  crucial
• Intervention must not work in isolation of
  broader community
• Intervention must be vigilant of collusion

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Challenges in Assessment and Evaluation
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• Recent meta-analysis results for child
  maltreatment interventions
• What does this study tell us about assessment and
  evaluation?

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Sources of Information

• Child Abuse Potential Inventory Form VI
  (Milner, 1986)
• Parenting Stress Inventory Short Form (PSI-SF
  Abidin, 1995)
• Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory 2
  (APPI-II Bavolek Keene, 1999)
• Interview

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Interview Abuse, risk and related constructs

• Child management
• Problematic anger regulation
• Threatened by child misbehaviour
• Parentification
• Conflictual and/or violent relationship with
  mother
• Knowledge of and connection to child

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CAPI
PSI
AAPI
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Interview information

• Physical punishment is not right. But at some
  point, they need a slap on the ass, at some time,
  to let them know that dad and moms word means
  something. Before I kicked my kids in the ass to
  get them to do something that was wrong. But
  they need a slap on the ass at least.
• I only spanked my older son twice. I explained
  to him why I punched him.

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Appropriate Child Management

• I try to reason with him as best I can. I tell
  him to put his hand in the door when he slams the
  door. He wont, so I tell him why not and he
  says itll hurt. So I tell him thats what
  happens to the door.

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Emotional Support

• Well if were talking on the phone and it sounds
  like hes getting upset or Im getting upset Ill
  say the boss is coming and Ill end it, Ill end
  the phone call.
• When he gets mad, like when he got put in the
  foster home, we just dont see him much til hes
  calmed down.

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Parentification

• He knows if Im upset. Hell say Want to lay
  down in my room, dad? And hell kind of take
  care of me bring me another beer if the other
  ones empty.
• When we were split the kids would call me but I
  wouldnt take their calls.

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Assessment Summary

• Information from different sources can be
  completely divergent
• Serious concerns about validity of widely used
  measures
• Requires a careful multi-modal, multi-informant
  assessment

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Caring DadsHow one community mobilized to
address this gap in services
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Caring Dads Program

• Housed at Changing Ways London Canada
• Started in 1984 to providing a specialized
  intervention program for voluntary and court
  ordered abusive men
• Range of services offered
• Woman abuse perpetrator program, voluntary and
  mandated
• Violence prevention program for court referred
  pre-contemplative offenders
• Specialized partner contact program (woman abuse
  program and maltreating fathers program)
• Court mandated sex offender program for men
• Violence prevention program for non-domestic
  violence court referred men

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Caring Dads Program

• Started in 2001 at Changing Ways in London
  Ontario Canada
• 2002 Emerge (Boston) became an early pilot site
• 2003 Expanded to 4 additional sites in Ontario

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Caring Dads Program

• A high number of men referred to Changing Ways
  for abuse in intimate relationships were also
  identifying as fathers
• Changing Ways January-December 2004
• 454 men referred through courts or community
• 338 self identified as fathers
• 516 children involved with our clients
• 104 clients involved with child protection

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Advisory Committee
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Partnership Focus
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Caring Dads Program Coordinator
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Collaboration Model
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Therapeutic Goals and Strategies for Intervening
with Maltreating Fathers
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Caring Dads Program

• 17 week program 2 hour sessions
• Groups of 8-12 fathers
• Two-three facilitators (male/female)
• Facilitator backgrounds
• Referrals

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Caring Dads Program

• Increase fathers awareness of the impact of
  their abuse and neglect on their children
• Enhance motivation to change
• Challenge and reduce attitudes and perceptions
  that contribute to child maltreatment
• Support improvements in child/parent relationship
• Support reduction in father involved parental
  conflict
• Increase father cooperation in parenting
• Reduce father induced harm to the child/mother
  relationship

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Caring Dads Goals and Strategies
Goal 1 Engaging Men
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Caring Dads Goals and Strategies
Goal 1 Engaging Men
Goal 2 Child-Centered Parenting
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Caring Dads Goals and Strategies
Goal 3 Recognizing Challenging Abuse /
Neglect
Goal 1 Engaging Men
Goal 2 Child- Centered Parenting
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Caring Dads Goals and Strategies
Goal 4 Rebuilding Trust and Planning for The
Future
Goal 1 Engaging Men
Goal 3 Recognizing Challenging Abuse /
Neglect
Goal 2 Child- Centered Parenting
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Goal 1 Engaging Fathers

• Most clients are mandated
• Rapport provides basis for more challenging work
  later on
• Client hostility is a typical presentation
• Motivational interviewing techniques
• Acknowledging clients experiences as children
  and adults
• Enforcing group norms

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Caring Dads Session 1-3Genograms Creating
common ground
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Caring Dads Session 1-3

• Fathering Circle Paradox
• Creating discrepancy
• How I see my father
• How my children see me as a father
• How I would like my children to see me as a
  father

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Goal 2 Child Centered Parenting

• Developmental stages
• Knowing your child
• Recognizing childrens versus adults needs
• Continuum of child-centered to adult-centered
  (abusive) parenting strategies

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Caring Dads session 4-7
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Goal 3 Awareness of and Responsibility for
Abusive Behaviours

• Cognitive-behavioral strategies
• Direct confrontation at rationalizations for the
  abuse and neglect they have used
• Work through many examples and employ whole group
  in problem-solving

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Caring Dads sessions 8-12

• Domestic Abuse
• Intervention Project

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Caring Dads sessions 8-12

• Understanding the links for yourself and your
  children

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Goal 4 Rebuilding Trust and Planning

• Recognition of the long term impact of child
  maltreatment and neglect
• Realistic expectations for child / parent
  relationship
• Encourage help seeking behavior
• Relapse prevention

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Caring Dads sessions 13-17
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Evaluation and Future Directions
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Preliminary Evaluation

• Difficulty establishing outcomes
• Results of pilot
• Changes pre-post
• Looking at subgroups
• Process versus outcome
• What we know about assessment

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Future Directions

• Ongoing Caring Dads program outcome evaluation
• Development of sensitive measures
• Distinguishing between abusive and non-abusive
  fathers
• Distinguishing among groups of abusive fathers
• Providing service for adolescent fathers

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Working with Maltreating Fathers Summary

• Father perpetrated child maltreatment requires
  more than the development of a new set of child
  controlling skills
• Child maltreatment has damaged the relationship
  between the father and his children and their
  mother and must be accounted for by the fathers

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• Requires a specialized intervention that
  addresses the nature of abuse and neglect and the
  impact on children
• Requires a specialized understanding of the
  dynamic intersection of woman abuse and child
  abuse
• Community collaboration is critical

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• I used to think that kids just needed a good
  whack. Now I think they just need an adult to
  make an effort.

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Contact us _at_

• www.caringdadsprogram.ca
• kjfranci_at_uwo.ca
• timkelly_at_changingways.on.ca
• ccrooks_at_uwo.ca
• kscott_at_oise.utoronto.on.ca
• Acknowledgements
• CAS London
• Changing Ways, London
• Counterpoint, Toronto
• EMERGE, Boston
• Fathers who have participated in the program and
  research

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