Page updated June, 2026.
Perpetrator programs can foster a false sense of hope, increase the perpetrator’s anger and resentment, instill a sense of superiority in perpetrators, equip them with new skills, and provide them with a report or certificate that could be used as ‘evidence’ of change.
— see The Unintended Consequences of Perpetrators Programs for Victims of Coercive Control and Their Children (institutional access required to view the whole article)
Don Hennessy and his colleagues ran a program for perpetrators, but stopped when they realised that the men weren’t reforming and some were becoming even more dangerous to their partners. See here.
Posts at this blog on scriptural precepts for holding abusers accountable
God only did one counseling session with Cain
Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt
Contriving a test to probe whether a hardened heart has repented
Primary Prevention: changing social attitudes that breed and enable domestic abuse
Graham Goulden — Graham does active-bystander leadership training for organisations. For thirty years he was a Scottish police officer specialising in criminal investigation, drug investigation, training, and crime prevention. For the last eight years of his policing career he was a Chief Inspector and a key member of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit.
Tony Porter encourages men to break free of the Man Box (YouTube). Tony founded A Call To Men.
Jackson Katz — Internationally renowned for his pioneering scholarship and activism on issues of gender, race and violence. He has long been a major figure and thought leader in the growing global movement of men working to promote gender equality and prevent gender violence. He is co-founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP), one of the longest-running and most widely influential gender violence prevention programs in North America, and the first major program of its kind in the sports culture and the military.
Resources for men who want to stop hurting the ones they love
Choosing to Change: a handbook for men concerned about their abusive behaviours towards those they love — 36 page pdf. It uses the Response-Based Practice approach to providing socially just and effective responses to violence, oppression, and adversity.
Feeling Angry Playing Fair — pdf book by Ken McMaster
Other posts at this blog about perpetrator programs
Unclenching Our Fists: Abusive Men on the Journey to Nonviolence — book review
Men’s Behaviour Change work — a report from the 2012 No To Violence conference — This post mentions the importance of partner contact.
Men’s Behaviour Change — it’s not about doing therapy with the men
Men’s Behaviour Change Programs — Interview of Danny Blay, broadcast by the Law Report, ABC Radio National (Australia), July 4, 2006.
Paul Hegstrom and Life Skills International — an organization we are reluctant to endorse
I live very rural. The church I USED to attend with abuser who still does (and walks on water) has not even checked to see if I still exist.
Please please offer an information packet I could request to be sent. This would spread the word. I would know it was sent as well and watch for any sign of church outreach etc.
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Hi, Verdigrisblackbird, I’m sorry for my slow reply. I’m moving house this coming weekend.
We do not have an information pack to send to churches, but we do have items that you can send to your former church. With some of these items you can print them out and snail-mail them to the church (that way you could send them anonymously). I’ll leave it up to you which items you send to that church. I do not send out items to churches unless that church or that church leader has specifically requested me to do so.
ACFJ flyers and business cards
Our FAQs are the most frequently asked questions we get at this blog.
One of the items in the FAQs list is As a pastor, what are the most important things for me to know about domestic abuse?. I put it in the FAQs list in the hope that pastors would read it. But in my experience, pastors seldom ask that question and they very seldom ask it of women like me who are survivors of abuse. I wish more pastors would ask that question!
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Hi again, Verdigrisblackbird,. In my previous comment I wrote:
Please don’t take my words as implying that you ought not send items to your former church despite them not having asked you to do so.
My choice not to send out items to churches unless the church has asked me to do so, is because (a) I am busy, and (b) I have found that churches tend to ignore my work and I don’t enjoy the feeling of being ignored. My abusive husbands often gave me the silent treatment. Being ignored by churches, professing Christians, and so-called ‘abuse advocates’ can easily trigger me into anxiety and depression.
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