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The $24m ‘illusion’ of programmes to stop family violence

A landmark new body of research suggests New Zealand may have spent decades measuring the wrong thing – and asking the wrong people – about family violence. Paula Penfold investigates.

Fourteen men are seated in chairs around the edge of a small, ordinary room somewhere in Auckland, confronting their violence.

Some are here because they’ve been sent by a judge or probation officer. Others were referred by police. Some walked through the doors themselves.

For two hours once a week, for 20 weeks, two facilitators will lead them through facing the reality of their actions; why their partner or children are scared of them.

Jayden* says his behaviour was “pretty bad” and led to one of several stints in jail. He says after a “wretched” upbringing he didn’t know any better. The first time he came here, he wanted to leave straight away.

But he realised he was a “walking time bomb,” so he came back, and began to speak to the group. “I just think this course brings out the vulnerability in men,” he tells Stuff. “Men aren’t normally vulnerable, we hold walls up. You could be the toughest guy in the world, but we all still bleed red and we break.”

Jimmy* was assessed as not being suitable for group sessions, so he’s here for one-on-ones, after a “lot of yelling and abuse” led to a protection order against him. Part of the order was that he had to come here.

“I was pretty egotistical. I was like, ‘I don’t need this. They’re not going to tell me anything I don’t know. They don’t know me’. I was very defensive.”

He says he’s learning not to be. “Just being able to understand my anger. Anger is not the actual emotion. There’s all these underlying factors. Being able to see myself on the tension scale and recognise when I’m starting to get heated up and frustrated, and being able to cool myself down.”

The organisation where we’re talking to these men has been providing stopping-violence programmes for more than 20 years, and it meets all the tests of what the sector says leads to good outcomes: the facilitators are qualified; participants can get one-on-one as well as group therapy; feedback is sought from their partners.

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