Building better relationships court ordered course.

[TishaMelissa]

Has anyones ex been court ordered to do this course, did they complete it? What was the outcome?

Is this order for child visitation?
just one of you ordered to do the course?
any court ordered course needs to be done! Judges don’t like to be messed about!

Abusive ex has been recommended by an expert to do it. Just waiting for our final hearing.

I was just wondering if this is similar to the DAPP and he has to do the suitability assessment etc.

Yes, court ordered for visitation.

I used to work for probation, the offence must've been significant to get this programme or it's not his first. It's 29 weeks long mainly 2.5 hour group sessions with 121 reviews with a key facilitator in between. Some of it is quite powerful especially the sessions around impact to children. It can actually raise risk in a relationship if a group member is living with a partner while completing it, which is why the victim and Abby current partner will be offered the support off a diversion abuse safety officer (this is voluntary it's not you who's been sentenced).
IME for those who genuinely want to make change this can be the first step in that road, but the numbers who actually do are tiny. Minimisation, denial, victim blame etc are rife.
He will slay be subject to a community order or a suspended sentence and may also have other requirements such as drug testing, mental health treatment, GPS trail monitoring, rehabilitation activity, community payback (community service) amongst many others.
Don't rely on it to change everything OP even if he gets through it, it's still down to him.

BBRP is usually ordered through the criminal court and is nothing to do with visitation, there are other DAPPs and in dinner areas children's social care will ask for feedback from probation and the programme to assess child contact

He would need to do a suitability assessment he would need to take accountability for his abusive behaviour, have an index offence of a domestic abuse related violent offence or harassment , Mal Comms, beach of restraining order or similar, he would need to have a probation conducted OaSys assessment with an OVP (offending violence predictor) of medium or above

I've only known it through the criminal courts.

Its been recommended by an expert witness to complete as part of the family court. He does have convictions and cautions for domestic abuse.
My understanding was it was mandated by the probation service so unsure why its been recommended when a DAPP is more appropriate..I thought DAPP became obsolete?

Thank you for your comments, super helpful

Probation officer here. BBR is an accredited programme run by the Probation service and prison service. Agree with @SgtJuneAckland summary above. It can be imposed as a requirement as part of a Community order, a suspended sentence order, or men can be ordered to complete it in a prison setting prior to parole - by a criminal court, not by family court. who is the expert witness who has recommended it, is it a psychologist? Usually probation or psychology would make this recommendation (in a criminal court or to a parole board). Never heard of it in family court.
it isn’t an option to impose it unless there was a significant pattern of abuse and they are assessed as suitable via risk scores as outlined by @SgtJuneAckland above, it wouldn’t be something imposed for a one-off (in case he tells any future partners that) or to “look good” in family court;
it tends to be for more serious domestic abuse offenders and failure to complete it can lead to the person going to prison. It is a good programme but whether or not he changes depends on him. It can be very hard to shift the types of attitudes that underpin domestic abuse, in my experience, because they tend to be very entrenched, deep rooted and often men don’t really think they’ve done anything wrong - deep down, they think women should be kept in line and caused the abuse by stepping out of rank.
Stay vigilant and if you’re offered support from a women’s safety worker or equivalent, I would take it. Good luck.

Thank you, that's hugely helpful. Yes a psychologist has recommended it. I'm surprised as I can see it is a course offered by the probation service.

Is there any alternatives to this as I can see that in the family court only the dapp or bbrc are the only approved courses cafcass would recommend.. however know there have been cuts to the dapp and bbrc isn't proposable via the family court. What is the alternative...

Be aware that depending on the experience/field of the expert witness, it's possible that they could have recommended it without knowing whether or not it's actually possible for the individual to undertake.

I've had situations where expert witnesses have recommended certain types of courses or treatments that don't actually exist in the real world, because they're only commenting on what they believe the individual actually needs, and not required to have knowledge of what services exist or can be commissioned.

This is hugely helpful in terms of cross examination of the expert. I have a lengthy call with my barrister soon so I will mention that.

I just wanted to understand what the alternatives were as currently I can't see any. In addition, the recommendation is that he completes the course in its entirety with course facilitator providing evidence of positive feedback. It has to be completed before any contact progression, but my concern is what is the alternatives if its not available.

I am an experienced facilitator for this programme. Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions about the programme.

Oh thank you xxx so helpful. I will do that now x

@TishaMelissa Tbf if you've got a barrister they'll almost certainly be aware of it. My experience was in public law (children's guardian/care proceedings) and I used to get so frustrated of recommendations for DV perp courses, or specialised types of therapy/MH support/family therapy which just didn't exist. Even if someone had five figure sums sat around wanting to spend it, there weren't services in the region with the specialism to provide it.

I'm sure my barrister will be aware of the cuts to funded places to the dapp also and it no longer is offered or referred by cafcass.

Is there an actual alternative as I can't see one that's court approved?

Sorry I'm not aware of anything though that's not to say there couldn't be (I'm not up to date on all the changes, though I haven't heard of anything new in our area).
The type of cases that I dealt with, if the type of course wasn't available it would usually fall on the local authority to come up with some kind of alternative to placate the judge - but that's a little different as the local authority initiate the proceedings and had a duty to show the they'd taken reasonable steps to support.

If you don't get an answer on here I'm sure you'll get one when you speak to your barrister, they're most likely to be aware of what is typically happening in similar cases in your area.

As has been mentioned above, there are different courses available in different areas. The Caring Dads Programme, offers similar scope - improving parenting, understanding effects of domestic abuse in children, being a better partner. But not everywhere does this

Depending on the area you live in, there may be other perpetrator programmes. Where I live, a domestic abuse charity runs an accredited perpetrator programme. Also in the area, probation trialled delivering BBR to people who hadn't been ordered to do it through criminal court (I think the criteria was that their children needed to be on child protection plans due to DV, and the parents living separately).

You might be best to call your local authority's MASH team to ask them what is running in the area as they should have up to date knowledge.

BBR and DAPP were used interchangeably in my area, as BBR was the programme funded by Cafcass before the MoJ withdrew the funding, at least in my area.

The course needs to be RESPECT-accredited. There are different courses which can be accessed privately such as Choose To Change or Up2U. All RESPECT-accredited courses are only available to people who openly accept their abusive behaviour and take responsibility, even if privately funded.

I agree the best point of contact to find out more about locally accredited services is probably the local authority, though the RESPECT website may also help.

There are other courses run by different organisations that vary by area - someone’s mentioned caring dads, I’m aware that Barnardo’s also used to deliver a DV perps programme and there will be others I’m sure. However would say I’m not
sure if they are all accredited and that calls into question how effective they might be -
as any organisation could put together a course and say it’s a programme but it doesn’t mean it’s underpinned by any up to date research or evidence that it reduces risk.
I’ve worked a lot on long term prisoners and the parole process and what I would say is that sometimes prisoners have completed programmes run by charities or other organisations but that these aren’t accepted by probation or the parole board as sufficient offence focussed work to evidence a reduction in risk. So for example, a prisoner with significant DV offending who has completed caring dads as their only intervention wouldn’t usually be considered by probation/parole boards to have completed relevant offence focussed work, because the programme isn’t accredited and therefore isn’t recognised as reducing risk). Unless he is subject to a current conviction and community or custodial sentence as part of that, I’d be surprised if he can do BBR - although interested in the post above that mentions a trial locally for BBR to be completed by people not on probation so I’m happy to be corrected on this.

in my area, Cafcass contracted the Probation service to deliver BBR for anyone directed to complete DAPP via the family courts, so I suppose for Probation it was a bit of work on the side for which they received extra funding.

The key, as said, is whether the programme is accredited.

I also will always remind judges that any perpetrator’s course is only one piece of the puzzle and won’t erase the trauma experienced by the victims, even if completed “successfully”.

This is all really helpful.
I wonder how many men do go on to actually finish it and show measurable change in their future relationships.

Could you give me more information on this course please