Posts Tagged ‘EmergeDV.com (in Mass)’
How USA Has Standardized, Professionalized and Privatized the Basic Response to Domestic Violence, with Built-in Biases and Strategically Chosen Blind Spots (Quick by-Recall Summary, Publ. Apr. 19, 2022).
which I’d taken from and which was the original focus of this post (only published 4/18/2022):
My sentiments (opinions) regarding USA’s] … Basic Response to Domestic Violence, with Built-in Biases and Strategically Chosen Blind Spots, take a while to express. So did my expressing how the post is organized. Enjoy the ride; there’s content and entertainment (at least my brand), and I trust more insight into current events (in this field) throughout whether preview, intro, or “basic quick summary.” As a blog, it’s still informal in structure, not a book with chapters …//LGH
~~ Quick post preview before I publish this today, April 19. Well, maybe not that quick…~~
This post’s two middle sections deal with the HiAP topic (how the entire topic of violence and abuse is framed, internationally and with intent that nations should make sure to get in line with this approach) and — only because the current arrangements USA, and as the domestic/family violence prevention field (notice I’m not saying “and child abuse” in that phrase) resemble in character and operations the same organizing and multi-layered, multi-sector, multi-jurisdiction arrangements that — until it collapsed and was shut down — were found from the 1970s until the early 1990s at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (“BCCI”). I found and added a few BCCI-summaries, but, people, this is NOT off-topic!
After those two sections, and moving towards the final summary, an extended set of paragraphs and some images/quotes regarding Lundy Bancroft (NOT my original focus in this post) made their entrance, and the bottom section is recognizable by its color. In fact, this is how it starts:
My Basic Summary, Impromptu, By Recall (from the years of looking this up…)
For example, within the domestic violence (prevention and services) field, USA, it’s already been strategized and organized into statewide coalitions (primarily government-funded) with member organizations in each state (and/or territory), ALL tax-exempt and the delegated (and by law, better funded, from the US government at least), “Domestic Violence Resource Network” (on Twitter, I use “#DVRN”), itself a combination of entities and non-entities. The DVRN provides the main theory and information to distribute; the statewide coalitions provide feedback and control operations within each state (via membership status for pass-through grants, typically small).
Several parts of this approach are unfair and lack transparency. Some experts in particular, being more prominent and adept at self-promotion (in addition to positions of prestige to start with), have done irretrievable damage with obsession with behavioral modification (training perps, training judges, training everyone within reach), that is with not handling “domestic violence” as a criminal matter involving attacks upon individual persons, as opposed to establishing and building capacity of a privately run, public-funded (mostly) system-of-change enterprise, with favored “warriors” and specific battle-cries featured and the overall truth — about the economic motivations, conflicts of interest with the public interest — often buried, no matter how many non-brainwashed survivors report it openly, usually individually, and usually without support of mainstream journals or advocacy (tax-exempt organization) groups compliant with the overall “privatization” schema.
Most of us “lone wolf bloggers” regardless of what we’ve researched, said, or know don’t have the public relations “pull” which is, bottom line, also connections to media, and access to the finances.
Moreover, if we don’t play up the “survivor” element in the right way, with the right demeanor and appropriately loyalty to the infrastructure — this includes keeping BIG secrets — we typically don’t have the stable employment, many do not have the pertinent advanced degrees (i.e., lawyers, psych, sociologist, etc.) common to the Family Court Reformists, regardless of what many may have had before the Family Court Fiasco experience involving (typically) years of litigation, broke or funded — the litigation continues…
We face paywalls regularly (journal subscriptions), no way to write off airfare, globetrotting consults or conferences (pre-pandemic or after), and, some having become also fugitives (for lack of the safety they/we didn’t get through normal legal protections or interventions), are often not even in the same public location, and not prone to divulging widely where we now live. “It’s complicated.” This leaves advocacy by the publicity-seekers but NOT personal long-term family court or domestic violence/child abuse issues — how many are even married or parents, or if so have gone through divorces post-welfare reform USA (1990s) or in this century, (CAFCASS was formed in 2001, right?) I often wonder — a wider-open field.
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MY Concerns about the July 21, 2019, Collective Memo of Concern to WHO about (‘What else?’ – parental alienation!) [Aug. 28, 2019]
You are reading:
This must be on my mind, because it came out as I was working on another post which just won’t deliver itself in usable format I feel comfortable publishing yet. I’ve put that other post’s name out so many times now, this time I’ll just skip the reference if you don’t mind….
Things with far more fine-print detail like this:** “no problem.” Putting together generic statements, even ones I’m convinced of and have done my homework before making, sometimes for some reason is personally more daunting. (**referring to the post before its Aug. 29 update, which section, explaining my use of the verb “emerged” which gets into a nonprofit by that name and by association a key theme in at least two countries’ innate system response to the abuse of women — run behavior-change (counseling, intervention, etc.) classes for men taking agency or court referrals — appears at the top. The specifics of that section tie directly into entities referenced in “Dangers of Derailment” and this preview of it, BOTH show how certain things date as far back as the 1970s and 1980s in system set-up. But, after that, get to the bottom segment of this post and you’ll see what I mean by “fine-print detail“!)
Perhaps this concern may stems from personal gut instincts — for example, having endured a decade of domestic violence (but so long ago!) then almost two decades more of an extended/expanded form of it involving the remaining, surviving (so far) immediate family members on MY side, and an assortment of non-relative strangers who chose to get involved in how I separated from abuse and was at the time raising our children — less expansive than he’d had as an ousted, violent,wife-batterer parent — constantly rejecting, debating, and arguing with each basic point I’d raise as a human being regarding.
Whatever the reason, this segment is in better shape than the post from which it “emerged”** (coincidentally, when I copied it, deleted it from there and pasted it here).
** This “Day-After” “discussion” (elaboration) also just emerged on the post.
**(That’s a joke in case you haven’t been reading enough literature about how theories and practices, concerns and psychological beliefs about the cause-and-effect relationship of human [parenting or co-parenting] behaviors mysteriously “emerge” throughout the family court systems in various countries to see how often the word “emerge” is used as a substitute for the underlying truth of who lobbied for what and how…). Let alone the batterers intervention program from Boston called “Emerge.”
…Emerge is one of 17 certified programs in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, programs such as Emerge are called Batterer Intervention, but we try to be clear that this terminology does not speak to the services we provide.
The term “batterer” often has very negative connotations and is typically defined as someone who repeatedly physically abuses their partner. In fact, many people who have come to Emerge report that they have not been physically abusive, but have been quite emotionally, verbally or psychologically abusive. Despite the fact that these forms of abuse are not physical in nature, we challenge group members to recognize that they are still harmful and in fact can destroy relationships.
People coming to Emerge are asked to recognize how they have chosen such behavior as a pattern in their relationships and families and how those choices have harmed others.
Approximately 20% of clients at Emerge are self-referred, although we still see many people who are referred by the court systems or through child protective services (Department of Children and Families).
Does 20% (of how many “clients” in what timeframe?) + “many people” referred through one of only two other named sources = 100%?
20% of what, regarding when? Are there any hard (absolute) numbers (total people run through programs [starts vs. completes], calling for help, stepping in the door for informational interviews, submitting their emails to find out more, etc.) attached to any time frame (like last year, meaning 20__ __?)
Emergedv.com also runs (ran?) a “CaringDads Group which I found as a program associated with the London Coordinating Committee to End Women Abuse (“LCCEWA” |<~~History page) in Ontario, Canada. Look at the geography compared to Massachusetts, US Eastern seaboard (Mid-Atlantic / New England states) (Boston is actually north-east of London, Ontario, Canada) across the national border).
London Ontario Canada (geographic showing nearby US States, bodies of water) ~~(url in window frame at top) viewed 2019Aug26
The purpose is to take CaringDads™ global, of course. It must have just “emerged” as the most logical thing to do in preventing violence against women: Run “responsible fatherhood” (if the context is, within the US) programs. Get public funding to do so.
This light-gray, tiny-font descriptive page refers to 2018 as “next fall”…. From that page, a sub-link titled “Program Model” reads:
Emerge currently provides three annual Responsible Fatherhood Groups. The Responsible Fatherhood Program utilizes an adapted version of the Caring Dads curriculum, a model developed by the Changing Ways abuser education program in London, Ontario** and specifically intended for fathers with histories of domestic violence. Emerge was the first American pilot site for this model in 2002 and has been refining the curriculum since then, particularly by making it more culturally relevant for the men we serve.
Though originally intended just for men who had completed or who were still attending the Emerge Abuser Education Program, these groups are now available to fathers referred by the Department of Social Services, District and Probate Courts, other agencies, and self-referrals. Currently, about 45% are referred by Emerge, 30% from the Department of Children and Families, 15% from the courts, and 10% from others.
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 