Transforming Abusers through Connections

The TAC Program is a 36 week intervention program designed for perpetrators of domestic abuse. It is technically what the law calls a "batterer intervention program". TAC does not work with substance abuse, nor is it an anger management program. What we address in our curriculum is much more than anger and how to control it. It goes to the core of the systemic thoughts, beliefs and behaviors which encourage and ultimately lead to open abuse. We have some new ideas about how to combat abuse, and we think we can push intervention programs to a higher level of success through them.

TAC is about change, affordability, community and sustainability. We change abusers through comprehensive and relevant curriculum and in an environment where they can participate in the change process and become self-accountable. We believe in keeping TAC accessible and affordable for anyone who needs it, even in the lowest income brackets and for participants who are unemployed. We know that any intervention program does not work alone, and is only one member of a bigger team that must all work together to truly serve the good of the community. We understand that successful programs grow, and to prevent an otherwise good program from collapsing under its own weight it must be sustainable long term.

Abuse and Violence

Domestic violence is a big problem, one that all of us have had some direct or indirect exposure to in our own lives. It not only destroys lives, but has a very real cost in very real dollars to our communities. In 2004, it is estimated that domestic violence cost the nation 12.6 billion dollars and these are just the dollar bills. The destructive effects on the victims and families and the ability for abuse to spawn more abuse into future generations is a profound social problem.

Intervention, victims and child services have made some truly great strides in combating domestic abuse over the years, and our ability to help victims of abuse is extremely good. We right what was wrong and put lives back together when abuse tears them down. Unfortunately, we are not very good at getting abusers to stop actually being abusive. We can heal the wounds, but until we can combat the source of abuse itself, we are just going to keep getting hurt by it over and over. Abusers will find and move on to new victims.

Why DAIPs Fail

DAIPs by and large have not done a very good job at what they set out to do. That is to enact real change in an abusive person to stop their abusive thoughts and behaviors. There are lots of reason why they haven't been very successful, abuse is a tough nut to crack. First off, abuse is done privately and kept secret. It exists in personal relationships and is usually shielded from family and friends. This makes it very difficult to know when it is actually happening. It is also not a single clear-cut act that marks a behavior as abusive. Physical abuse is relatively obvious, but the controlling behaviors and verbal/emotional abuse that often accompany it are much harder to identify and determine abusiveness. Next, abusive behavior is systemic. It is not only systemic in the individual and the relationships that it touches, but it lingers in the subconscious of our communities providing safe havens where abuse can thrive and passing it on to future generations. Lastly, is funding. There is an awful lot of public monies (albeit still not nearly enough) to support victims of abuse, but almost none for intervention for the abuser. Many DAIP groups fail because they either cannot find the public funds to continue operating, and cannot fund themselves effectively due to the large overhead involved in managing the program.

Philosophy

Even the most perfect, transformative curriculum is pretty worthless if no one is listening to it. It is just as important how you educate as what you teach, especially with a population that is resistant to the change you are trying to create. This connection is vital because without a medium for those words to reach someone, all of it falls on deaf ears. At its core, the TAC program is based on respecting the abusers as people. They are people who have made poor and destructive decisions, but people none the less. It is because of this respectful connection that we make with them, that they then feel safe enough to begin the change process. This ultimately includes internalizing the curriculum which leads them to change their beliefs that helped contribute to their harmful behavior towards others. It also creates an atmosphere where the abuser can begin to truly respect themselves. The respect they receive and internalize is required in order for lasting changes to occur. These changes have a profoundly positive affect on the people they interact with including the victims and the community in which they live.

Money

TAC is self-sustaining financially. While it will never make lots of money, it should never need public funding to support it. The participants in the program pay class fees which funds the program completely. These fees are also a part of their change process, and we have found the participants are more invested in the program if they are paying for it out of pocket. A big theme in the TAC curriculum is accountability, and participants are accountable from day one to pay for their own participation.

Software

Our software enhances TAC in 3 important ways. The first is that by managing the day to day operations of the group, it keeps costs low. No filing cabinets, hand-written status tracking or costly reporting on a participant's progress. Our software also keeps the program visible and accountable to the community for which it serves. A successful DAIP works closely with victims services, judges, DAs and child protective services. Having one place where all of these stakeholders can be informed about progress and status of their referred participants is invaluable. Lastly, since all of the curriculum, training materials and group management is done through www.tacprogram.com, you will always have the best and latest of what we have to offer.

Statistics

Its difficult to gauge the success of an intervention program, but we will give you the numbers and impressions that we have gotten from our founding program's clients (the judges, DAs and Oregon DHS workers). The feedback that we have received has been overwhelmingly positive for the benefit TAC provides and the change that it creates in our participants. Most of our participants are sincerely grateful for the changes we have helped them make in their lives and many of them do not want to leave the program after graduating. Our graduates often choose to make major changes in their lives after completing the program, discovering that the changes they have experienced necessitate other major changes in their lives.

While these general impressions are all very positive, its hard to judge the success of the program based on them. We have some additional statistics for our program that speak somewhat to its success, but even they only give a limited picture. All of the following data is as of September 2008.

• Founding program launched on May 8th, 2007.
• 62 currently enrolled participants in 7 groups.
• 57 participants successfully completed and graduated program.
• 43 clients dropped from the program.
  • 39% were dropped for lack of attendance, 14% for lack of payment, remaining for participation or other circumstances
  • 61% of drops happened before their 10th week
  • 84% of drops happened before they got half way through the program (18 weeks)

Even though our program is relatively new and some of the numbers presented above should be looked at cautiously because of the relatively small sample size we have to draw from, they are thus far very promising. Combined with the extremely positive feedback we continue to recieve from our community partners, referring agencies and the participants themselves we feel that our program is truly making the kinds of positive change in our participants that is necessary to stop abuse at its source.