BBC article on domestic violence - 'family based' solutions - why is it making me uncomfortable?

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68942471

Front page BBC.

First family were 'helped to stay together' despite the man being controlling and abusive.

Second family is a male victim of abuse.

I looked into the organisations 'for baby's sake' and 'Foundations'. Part of the latter's approach involves seeking to push an American organisation in the UK - 'Fathers for change'.

Is it just me who finds the focus, omissions, and dynamic of this reporting and the underlying drive slightly off?

Why do I have the feeling this is about getting women to shut up about dv? It looks like it has aspects of MRA movements to me. But maybe others have different perspectives?

From the article -

Amy and Peter were referred to For Baby's Sake by social workers when they were expecting their first child.
At first, Amy, 23, admits she struggled to accept they had a problem, but she says "looking back, it was really difficult".
"I would always be waiting by the phone," she explains. "And I'd be worried about doing certain things just in case I didn't answer the phone, in case it would upset him."

They had a problem? Awful reporting, if that is the journalists phrasing. If it is the victims phrasing, it demonstrates that both parties are still minimising the abuse. The one on one counselling and support ‘Amy’ accessed should have helped her understand she was/is not to blame for the abuse, that ‘they’ do not have a problem, and that the problem and responsibility for the behaviour lies solely with her abuser.

I found the 'balanced' presentation very strange too. It sends me off on a conspiratorial sense that a new narrative is being pushed that 'women are as dangerous as men'- and that this ties in with reporting men's crimes as women's somehow.

A cultural, drama triangle, victim-persecutor reversal.

Very odd to me too, that they chose these two scenarios.
How, in the second scenario the man left his partner, but that the woman stayed with her abusive male partner in the first (more physically dangerous) scenario.

Surely this sends a particular message to women in the same scenario who read this article?

I think these last few years have played with my mind and made me distrustful of so much.

I don't want to feel that cynical- but an article like this does set me off.

(So yes, possibly similar response, Arabella)

I'm also very dubious about the efficacy of counselling/therapy for these incredibly complex patterns; whilst the family/relationship continues.

Exactly this from @Ponderingwindow :

these abusers tend to be very skilled at putting on a good show for short periods of time. Playing up that everything is wonderful. Their true nature comes out again eventually

It's bad enough for a child to live in a violent/abusive home- under what tends to be extreme secrecy.

My imagination goes to the nightmare scenario of a child seeing professionals/therapists charmed and duped. (It's bad enough knowing friends and family are blind to it).
I think this would foreclose any likelihood of that child trusting in any professional help outside the home, or in adulthood after leaving.

Although I do recognise the deep complexity of how and why women often stay in these situations, and PP's argument that in that situation, this approach might be aiming to mitigate that. But naming this as a reality would send a different message than the one these two scenarios did (especially as it discussed helping the man to leave his relationship).

Although I am totally behind something that really does address the impact on children of growing up (utterly trapped) in abusive homes- In the main, several aspects of this made me feel a bit uneasy.

I will probably look into it more- as it might just be clumsy journalism. Also, happy to hear more counter-responses.
Just wanted to feedback my similar response to OP.

Thanks, DameMaud. I had a look at the two organisations - one 'For Baby's Sake' was founded by a very wealthy businessman and looked like a personal crusade. The other 'Foundations' was a bit more opaque, in my view.

https://foundations.org.uk/

Surely counselling is NOT recommended for an abusive relationship. My concern now is that he gets to say "look I did the counselling, you have to stay with me".

It made me uncomfortable too, but if you think about it on a population wide basis, most women won't leave a relationship like this, and if they do, the man will probably go on to form a new relationship. So it has to be right to try and fix the problem in the abuser's behaviour.

I think I would support interventions like this provided they were targeting couples early on where there are signs of a risk of abuse rather than abuse already occurring.

But I'm also concerned that abusers could exploit a programme like this to show "I've changed" and dupe professionals. So I'm on the fence basically.

Just cam on here to say exactly the same as you

When I was having help from Rape Crisis my counsellor told me she had been doing outreach work in schools. One child was a problem. I'll not tell the whole story but it turned out he was behaving the way his father did. As is more often than not the case. I can't help but think earlier intervention is a better option. For girls too, to at least see what a healthy relationship is like.

I actually had a different response. If you focus on this quote:

Peter says it helped him understand the impact of witnessing domestic abuse and coercive control during his own childhood.
"I was thinking, 'there's no problems here,'" he says. "'This is how I've grown up, I've seen relationships handled. It's no one else's business'. But then upon some deeper reflection, I noticed the impact I was having on her, I realised things need to change."

To be honest as a mother to a son and having seen some of the boys he has grown up with at school etc. I feel for many of these kids. In this I heard Peter a willing to change. I mean, if the right way isn't modelled how will a young man know how to do it right?

Hmm
Agree leaves a question.
I had a professional try to coerce me /dd then a teenager into mentalization based family therapy to get her to see her dad my ex. Her justification for no contact was solid. The professional was trying to convince otherwise.... their method would restore relationship..... it was unnerving.

Well, maybe. But as I said, if a relationship has been founded based on an abusive, coercive, controlling dynamic, I am unconvinced that it will ever be possible to rehabilitate it.

I would have thought the name of the organisation explains exactly what it is.

That parents should put their children first, and that means in this insatnce women having to continue to live with a violent male, while they learn not to be a violent male that is their "duty".

And even if there are statistics to show that in the long term children benefit from parents staying together, how is that justified if the real cost is to women's lifes, mental health and physical safety.

https://forbabyssake.org.uk/faqs/?_gl=1a5h02u_upMQ.._gaMzg0Mjk5OTE2LjE3MTUxMDA5ODU._ga_2SNC7SWXW4*MTcxNTEwMDk4Mi4xLjAuMTcxNTEwMDk4Mi4wLjAuMA..

In terms of the BBC news story surely the most important part it:

It's one of the organisations being evaluated for a project aiming to identify the best way to support children and families experiencing domestic abuse.

I cant see any information about the projects doing the evaluation, and whether for instance they are talking to women's aid, and children's charities.

If anyone knows who it is, and is it being done on behalf of Government, that would be really useful to know.

I agree with @AReasonablePerson

This scheme allows them to access vulnerable women and children by working with the family not against the abuser.

If we can intervene early enough, we may be able to save some men from their own entrenched behaviour, and thus their victims.

Some of these men are vulnerable to intervention at this point for the very same reasons they ramp up the control and abuse- the desire to keep their family close. They need to be taught that their assumptions about themselves and relationships are not acceptable, that the way to keep partner and child close isn’t by ramping up control like their dad did, but by respecting her.

Sorry - I think I have managed to answer my own question.

The research is being carried out by this group (Goverment funded) https://www.eif.org.uk/about/who-is-eif

It has now merged with another group and is called Foundations https://foundations.org.uk/

And looks like they have put out a press release today, which the BBC has just reproducted (which in fact is what most news paper articles are).

https://foundations.org.uk/our-work/publications/the-reach-plan/

This article also made me feel uncomfortable for all the reasons already listed.

But I wondered if this article was deliberately written this way to encourage those in abusive relationships to engage with the programmes, which may actually provide a more robust line against abusive behaviours that what appears here. If men see a BBC article that suggests the programme helped the couple stay together then maybe they'll be more willing to let their partners use their services and that way the women get the help they need.

That's my hope anyway.

Lundy Bancroft, who wrote "Why Does he Do That?" spent decades running group counselling for domestic abusers, and came to the conclusion that the vast majority do not want to and are not going to change, because there's nothing in it for them. Very naive to assume that these men actually care about their babies 🙄.

was deliberately written this way

Suspect it is just a copy and paste job.

Very few news outlets have reporters, let alone investigators.

Given that children are murdered by a male parents or a (male) step-parent more than any other group, AND it's riddled with guilt language (you're a Bad Mother if you don't Think Of The Baby), this seems quite likely to have bad outcomes.

There's theory and there's real life. Let's be realistic here.

This. It's what I would expect of a deeply religious, conservative society who try to get the woman to stay and guilt trips her if she doesn't give the guy a chance, that she should tolerate so much to keep the family unit together.

A DV article with only the POV of two men - wtf??

because there's nothing in it for them

Exactly, their behaviour works for them.

And when it's their babies who are taking away their victim's attention from The Most Important One ...

Sorry, I should have said the ONLY important one 🙄

Thanks for the link Arabella.

I do feel somewhat reassured after a brief look through.

I can't argue that research into how best to work in this area is not needed.

Also, I absolutely see the value of addressing intergenerational trauma/breaking the cycle.

And yet, the presentation of the scenarios in the press release, still rests very uneasy for me; as does my point still stand about the potential for, and impact on children and partners, of false engagement in the process. Which would actually go against the aims.

I suppose there is the possibility, that the founder (of BabiesFirst) may have been moved to set this up based on his particular trajectory ('personal crusade')- and there could be (as there often is) a blindspot about the motivations and potential of others in apparently similar situations.

So my doubts remain around working through an abusive partner's own trauma history- whilst still in the relationship. And as other PPs have pointed out, without recognising that genuine change is often not possible.

I'd have to read the link info again to get a better sense of the approach and ethos.

Obviously, the intention of the project is to protect children, but it's clear from the range of responses here that it is raising alarm bells.

Would be good to hear thoughts from any professionals experienced in working with this area.

I keep meaning to read the Lundy Bancroft book.
Thanks for reminder crackofdoom

As with so many areas right now, I think I see that tension between good intentions and harsh realities in this.

Lundy Bancroft is my hero. In my opinion all women should read this book.

Some one the relationship board a while back linked to some research into if perpetrator of DV can change. The research found some people/men who genuinely wanted to want and who put an awful lot of effort into changing could but none of them could stop being abusive if they stayed in the relationship where they have previously been abusive.

As with so many human problems (eg the environment) there's an irreconcilable tension here between the greater good (redemption, rehabilitation, breaking the cycle of violence, things that are hard work and take time to achieve) and the enlightened self-interest of the individual (the best advice to the victim is surely always to get out right now?).

I know lots of victims don't want to leave, and in that case there's nothing to lose by trying to mitigate the behaviour, but I'm not very optimistic, and it does feel like expecting women to fix everything (I see the male victim didn't feel under that obligation).