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Photo By Jymi Bolden
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Amend Director Jim Beiting says it takes about a year
to “unlearn” abusive behavior.
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When Michael J. was sentenced to a year of domestic violence counseling in 1999, he didn't think he needed it. He'd never hit his wife or his son.
"When I was given a paper that said (the program) was for people of domestic violence, I was confused," Michael J. said. "In my opinion, (domestic violence counseling) was for those who put their hands on people."
Michael J. is going through the last four weeks of the city's only domestic violence batterer intervention program, Amend. It's part of the Cincinnati YWCA's comprehensive approach to curbing domestic violence.
Michael J. was placed in the program last year as the result of an attempted arson charge -- not a domestic violence charge. Weeks of his wife threatening to leave him culminated in his attempt to set their house on fire by piling what was left of her clothes in the trash and lighting them.
Upon recommendation from a probation officer, Michael J.'s judge sentenced him to a year in the Amend program.
But it wasn't until five to six months into the program that Michael J. realized the counseling might benefit him. Luckily, he was sentenced to remain in the program for a full year -- had he been required only to attend Phase I, which lasts 20 weeks, his internal denial might not have been conquered.
Amend Director Jim Beiting said the longer a batterer is in an intervention program, the better. And it takes at least a year "to unlearn" abusive behavior.
Awareness of the harm of domestic violence began in the late 1970s, and the Cincinnati YWCA branch has been at the forefront of the issue ever since. In 1976, the organization held a public hearing on domestic violence and published a questionnaire in a local newspaper to determine what women needed most in response to the problem.
In January 1978, the Alice Paul House of Peace opened its doors as Cincinnati's first women's shelter. It was full within a week.
In 1980, the Levi Straus Foundation, which had supplied funds for the Alice Paul House, asked now YWCA Executive Director Charlene Ventura if the organization would be interested in establishing a comprehensive approach to domestic violence. Of course it was, she said, so the foundation sent her to Boston to study the country's first batterer intervention program, Emerge.
Returning from Boston full of ideas, Ventura, then the YWCA's public relations and development director, submitted a proposal to the Levi Straus Foundation for a similar program. It was accepted, and Amend began in 1982.
"The Amend philosophy tries to identify what's at the root of the behavior," Beiting said. "It says it's a learned behavior and holds batterers accountable for their actions. Domestic violence is a power and control issue as opposed to a psychological cause, where it would be diagnosable."
But trying to find what's at the root of individual batterers' behavior is tough within a limited budget. Last year, the Cincinnati YWCA spent 49.4 percent of its budget on "Protection from Abuse," according to its 1999 Financial Report. That includes funding for two shelters, transitional living and Amend -- and funding isn't distributed equally.
"Our priority is to get services to the women first, to get them in a safe situation," Ventura said. "The residential programs cost more."
Beiting agrees with Ventura but also stresses that current trends in batterer intervention require a bigger budget. New developments in batterer intervention need programs to tailor counseling to treat the individual instead of the old "one-size-fits-all" model, according to a 1998 National Institute of Justice study.
"Treatment for the 21-year-old who commits mostly verbal abuse is not going to be the same for the 37-year-old who is committing physical abuse on his fourth victim," Beiting said.
Amend, while trying to individualize treatment, groups its members largely by age, Beiting said. The goal is to help individuals feel comfortable, and socializing men according to age seems the most natural and viable approach with respect to resources.
That puts Michael J., in his late 50s, with an average 15-year age gap between himself and his group members, but he said he relates well with them.
Although Michael J. echoed Beiting's desire for more individualized treatment, he praised the Amend program for helping him manage his anger and recognize his triggers.
"If I had not gone into the program, I could've gotten to the point where I struck back," he said. "And I (would've gone) all the way." ©
