New Rules Threaten Gender Neutral Domestic Violence Treatment Program

Dave Maupin from the Family Violence Prevention Services program in North Carolina wrote in and wanted to ask for help to fight new domestic violence legislation. The law will effectively shut out FVPS from taking on clients referred to them by the courts - because compliance with the new rules would require them to be approved and monitored by politically motivated domestic violence groups. Click "Read More" below to read his message and information regarding the new legislation which will end up harming men, women, and children seeking to overcome family violence.

Dear Sir/Madam:



I am a psychologist, marriage and family therapist, and founder/director of a
private, non-profit family violence prevention and treatment services program
that has been in operation for seventeen
years and that serves families in western North Carolina. We provide separate
professional counseling groups for men, women, and children. We also offer
couples counseling for intact couples who have completed the domestic violence
component of our program, and a violence prevention curriculum in the schools
(kindergarten through third grade).



I am writing to you concerning a move by the North Carolina Coalition Against
Domestic Violence and other victim advocate groups to legislate standards for
abuser treatment programs. Last October, "temporary rules" were distributed
to all programs in the state that provide counseling for abusers. For a copy
of these rules, please go the NC Domestic Violence Commission website
(http://www.doa.state.nc.us/doa/dvc/abuser.htm).



It is the intent of these groups to have the state legislature make these rules
permanent in this years' legislative session which began several weeks ago. As
a professional counseling program, serving families in which there is violence,
we cannot comply with many of the rules and, as a result, are at risk of losing
our program and nearly twenty years of effective violence prevention and
treatment. (Those programs that are not "approved" will be denied
court-referred clients. That is the population our program is most effective
with, and represents 75% of our caseload).



In the past few weeks we have gone to the state capital to meet with two
groups of legislators who were willing to hear our concerns about the
appropriateness of the rules for family centered programs like ours. We
clearly have the ear of some of the legislators who want to help us. At the
first meeting, we presented our concerns unopposed to fifteen legislators
representing the six counties where our staff reside.



At our second meeting with legislators this past Wednesday, the opposition was
out in force in defense or their anti-family, anti-professional, anti-male
rules. The executive director of the NC Coalition Against Domestic Violence
proceeded to trash most of the points we had made the previous week. It was
unsettling for me and I have known who these people are and how they operate
for many years. At the very least, it must have been confusing to some of the
legislators who are probably wondering whom to believe.



If you would like to help, I have additional
information that I could fax you for your review. Also, I can answer any
questions you may have about our program, its services, and our endless
struggle against these radical feminist groups. I believe your involvement
could help focus the legislators on the need to adopt more inclusive, less
restrictive, family friendly standards for men's treatment programs in North
Carolina.



Thank you for your help.



Dave Maupin

Family Violence Prevention Services

---

Dave also sent me the following, which is what he told the legislative council at their first meeting:



Legislative Meeting, Raleigh, NC - 1/30/01



Thank you all for coming. My name is Dave Maupin. I'm program director for
Family Violence Prevention Services, a private, non-profit, violence prevention
and treatment services program in Alexander and Iredell counties.



Each of you should have a manila envelope of materials relevant to today's
meeting. You will find a description of our services, some of our
effectiveness measures, letters of endorsement, a copy of a recent national
study by the US Dept. of Justice on intimate partner violence, and a paper on
Standards for Abuser Intervention from the state of Maryland.



First, I would like to introduce some of our staff who have taken time off from
their day jobs to come to Raleigh today to meet with you.



Greg LeTourneau - Men's program director

Annette Beam - Women's program director

Yvette Smith - Children's program director

Frances Boerema - Couple's group therapist

Pat Myers - a member of the Executive Committee of our Board



In July of last years' Short Session, legislation was passed that gave the NC
Council for Women authority to "approve" abuser treatment programs. Only those
programs that are "approved" may receive domestic violence counseling referrals
from the courts.



Last October, the Council for Women distributed fourteen pages of "temporary
rules" to all domestic violence programs in the state known to provide
counseling services for male abusers. Program directors were told that public
hearings on these rules would be scheduled at locations across the state for
late November and early December but none were ever held.



In December, applications for approval were sent out to all providers. We
completed our application and returned it to the Council for Women, even though
we had serious concerns. The application was based almost entirely on the
"temporary rules" and was not relevant to professional counseling models such
as ours. Our concerns were similar to other professional counseling programs
across the state whose directors I have spoken with: We were being told whom
we could counsel, how we could counsel, when and where we could counsel, and we
were particularly uncomfortable with the thought of employees from the Council
for Women having free and open access to confidential client records.



Nevertheless, it was made clear that final "approval" would be based on strict
compliance with the "temporary rules", and that our program, and others like us would no longer be permitted to provide the kinds of domestic violence
counseling services through the courts which we know to be needed and
effective.



Nearly twenty years ago, we discovered that, when there is domestic violence,
most women and men want to maintain their relationships together when at all
possible, We developed a family intervention approach that is effective at
stopping violence while keeping families intact. Today, other domestic
violence programs in North Carolina are also working with families and see a
growing need to provide family-based services in this area.



The CARE Domestic Violence Program which operates out of the Department of
Social Services in Cumberland County, and the Family Services program of Gaston
County are two such programs. The Duke Endowment and other human service
foundations in North Carolina have also recognized the importance of family
intervention to solve family problems.



The Intensive Family Preservation Services program, adopted in 1999 by the NC
Division of Social Services, is another example of the family intervention
approach at the state level. Its mission is similar to our own: "To provide
services designed to help families alleviate crises that might lead to
out-of-home placement of children at imminent risk; maintain the safety of
children in their own homes; and assist families in obtaining services and
other supports necessary to address their multiple needs in a culturally
sensitive manner."



The "rules" issued by the Council for Women have been written from a
perspective that is different from our own perspective and professional
experience. The majority of court-referred cases we receive involve intact
families where victims want to maintain their relationships and want to find
ways to solve family problems without violence. We recognize the need for
shelters for women and children in cases of extreme, life-threatening violence.
And we do not want to take anything away from existing domestic violence
programs, but we do want to have the chance to offer families a choice.



The Department of Justice study says that two-thirds of all intimate attacks
are simple assault (pushing, shoving, yelling and name calling), the least
serious form of violence studied. We are here today to ask you to help us amend
these "temporary rules" or to at least postpone their implementation until they
can be modified to reflect the needs of the larger domestic violence population
and the services provided by programs such as ours. Input should be welcome
from providers who have developed effective approaches to stopping violence in
families, whether or not these approaches fit "the mold".



Domestic violence counseling programs should not all have to be the same,
because all domestic violence is not the same, either in degree or in kind.
We, and other service providers have learned that domestic violence is
complicated and that a variety of treatment models are needed.



I've asked each of our staff to speak briefly about their work with families,
and then we will do our best to answer your questions.

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