1. 310: FGDM: Strategies to Empower Families Experiencing Domestic Violence
Friday, September 21, 2018

2. Agenda
Day One
Where Family Group Decision Making and Domestic Violence Intersect
 Assessing for the presence of Domestic Violence
 Determining if a Family Group Decision Making Conference Can be Held
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program

3. Agenda
Day Two
Preparing for a Conference When Domestic Violence is Present
Facilitating a Conference When Domestic Violence is Present
Family Group Decision Making Follow-Up When Domestic Violence is Present
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program

4. Learning Objectives Participants will be able to:
Express the laws and regulations that guides child welfare practice when domestic violence is present throughout the casework process
Specify what questions should be asked to explore the presence of domestic violence within the family dynamic
Determine if Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) is a viable service for the family
Identify participants, e.g. family members, supports, service providers, etc., to attend the FGDM conference
Determine what safety interventions need to be in place, before, during, and after the conference
Describe group dynamic strategies that may be needed to facilitate a FGDM conference
Develop a process for plan monitoring
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program

5. Defining Batterers
A batterer is a person who exercises a pattern of coercive control in a partner relationship, punctuated by one or more acts of intimidating physical violence, sexual assault, or credible threats of physical violence. This pattern of control and intimidation may be predominantly psychological, economic, or sexual in nature or may rely primarily on the use of physical violence.

6. Defining Batterers (cont’d)
Considerable variation in abusive tactics among batterers, which is important with regard to the impact on children.
Definition does not require the presence of beatings, but requires actions intended as threats and the presence of fear.

7. Domestic Violence Statistics
Within the United States, one out of every four American women will experience violence by an intimate partner sometime during her lifetime
Between 2.3 and 10 million children are exposed to intimate partner violence each year in the United States – estimated at 10% to 20% of American children
In homes in which domestic violence occurs, children are physically abused and neglected at a rate 15 times higher than the national average
30% - 60% co-occurrence of child abuse and domestic violence

8. Domestic Violence Statistics (cont’d)
As many as 70% of batterers also abuse their children
Battered women are twice as likely to abuse their children as non-abused women
Children exposed to violence demonstrated more externalizing (temper tantrums, fights, aggressive behaviors and more internalizing behaviors (depression, fears, anxiety, low self esteem) than did children from nonviolent homes

9. Domestic Violence Statistics (cont’d)
Observations and clinical experience suggest that perpetrators of domestic violence are often more controlling and authoritarian, less consistent, and more likely to manipulate the children and undermine the mothers’ parenting than nonviolent fathers
Although battered mothers show increased levels of stress, it appears that this stress does not always translate into diminished parenting. Women who live in violent relationships are remarkably similar to comparison women in their beliefs about parenting, their self-reported parenting behaviors, and their observed interactions with their children.

10. The Values and Beliefs of FGDM
Families have strengths and can change 
Family members should be the primary decision makers for their family
Empowering people is preferable to controlling them
Family members know their family’s best
Children are best raised in families and families should be respected
Mistakes are opportunities for growth and development. Kinpower Associates, New Zealand
All families have the greatest investment in seeing their children safe and successful 
All families have some resources they can count on to help them in times of need

11. Identifying a Purpose What would be the purpose of their conference?
If the referral is a Child Welfare or Juvenile Probation Case, how does the purpose address Safety, Permanency, Well-being and/or Balanced and Restorative Justice? 
Would this purpose motivate everybody to attend? 
Would this purpose be significant enough to have all the family invested in attending? 
Will all that attend mutually agree on this purpose?  
Is this purpose clear and understandable?

12. Visiting the Abuser Mindset
Control and Entitlement
Externalization of Responsibility 
Manipulativeness 
Superiority and Disrespect 
Possesssiveness 

13. Danger Assessment
“Prediction is very hard to do----especially if it is about the future.” – Yogi Berra
Intimate partner violence makes up 40-50% of all murders of women in the United States; however, less than 1% of battered women are killed by their intimate male partners
Access to a gun is the strongest risk factor increasing the woman’s risk more than 5 times
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program

14. Danger Assessment (cont’d)
Being separated from the abuser during the previous year most important risk factor---highly controlling increased risk
Abuser being unemployed increasing the risk 4 times
Threatening with a weapon or threatening to kill increased the risk by more than 3 times
Perpetrator living in the home with a stepchild a increased the risk of death by 3 times
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program

15. Danger Assessment (cont’d)
Over 50% of the victims had no or little clue how dangerous the abuser was
Over 75% of the perpetrators who murdered or attempted to murder their victims were violently jealous
If a woman tells her abuser in person that she is leaving, her chances of being murdered increased 5 times
58% of abusers had been arrested before they killed their partners
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program

16. Danger Assessment (cont’d)
25% had been seen in the mental health system
Only 1/3 of the abusers who murdered their victims were sober at the time
In the one year prior to the homicide:
87% of the victims had been stalked
70% of the homicides, the frequency and severity of the violence had increased in the previous year
50% of the perpetrators had tried to strangle her in the past
The Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program