AMEND, Inc. (Abusive Men Exploring New Directions) - Detailed Report

• Educate the offender about what domestic violence is and its dynamics, in order for him to learn to identify his own abusive behaviors.
• Teach the offender self-management techniques to avoid abusive behaviors.
• Educate the offender on non-abusive, adaptive, and pro-social relationship and interpersonal skills and on healthy sexual relationships.
• Educate and increase the offender's skills in problem solving and conflict resolution.
• Educate the offender on the impact of substance abuse and its correlation with violence.
• Educate the offender on the socio-cultural basis for violence.
• Educate the offender on the legal ramifications of their violence.
• Identify and address issues of gender-role socialization and its relationship to violence.
• Increase the offender's understanding of the impact of violence on child victims and children exposed to family violence.
• Increase offender's understanding of basic parental responsibilities and refer to parenting classes when appropriate.
• Increase the offender's understanding of the impact of violence on adult intimate victims.
• Educate the offender regarding change process he will be expected to go through.
• Help the offender acknowledge responsibility for abusive actions and consequences of actions.
• Identify and offer alternatives to the offender's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that facilitate abusive behaviors.
• Identify and decrease the offender's deficits in social and relationship skills, where applicable.
• Identify and confront the offender's issues of power and control, including sexual abuse.
• Identify and confront the offender's pro-criminal and violent attitudes and orientations (e.g., animal abuse, abuse of children, violence toward non-intimates, sexual offenses, etc.).
• Increase the offender's ability to empathize with the victim.
• Identify the effects of any trauma and past victimization sustained by the offender as factors in his potential for re-offending. The offender's history of victimization should never take precedence over his responsibility to be accountable for violent behavior and potential offense, or be used as an excuse, rationalization, or distraction from being held accountable.
• Educate the offender on the potential of re-offending, signs of abuse escalation, and normative regressing.
• Aid the offender in developing a written re-offense prevention plan that will include antecedent thoughts, feelings, and behaviors associated with abusive behaviors, and alternative options to intervene in a re-offense.
• Provide advocacy services to our clients' partners (female or gay male victims) and children (includes safety planning, 24-hour crisis response, referrals to community resources, and educational support groups).
• Provide counseling to clients' children who have witnessed domestic violence through collaboration with a center that provides it, such as SafeHouse Denver.

AMEND, Inc. (Abusive Men Exploring New Directions) is rated a "3 – Promising Research Evidence" on the Scientific Rating Scale based on the published, peer-reviewed research available. The practice must have at least one study utilizing some form of control (e.g., untreated group, placebo group, matched wait list) establishing the practice's benefit over the placebo, or found it to be comparable to or better than an appropriate comparison practice. For more information on the rating of a “3 – Promising Research Evidence,” please see the Scientific Rating Scale.

Gondolf, E. W. (1997). Patterns of reassault in batterer programs. Violence and Victims, 12(4), 373-387.

Type of Study: Pre-test/Post-test
Number of participants: 840 men
Population:

Age Range: Approximately 30 years on average
Race/Ethnicity: 55% minority, 45% White.
Status (e.g., foster care, CW): Men referred to batterer programs by court order.

Location/Institution: Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, Denver
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations) A comparative multi-site evaluation was conducted of 4 batterer programs in geographically distributed cities (one site was the AMEND program in Denver) to assess the pattern of re-assault. Batterers were recruited and tested at program intake from each site. The batterers and their partners were interviewed by phone every 3 months for 15 months after intake with a response rate for the female partners of nearly 70% for the full follow-up. Results show that 31% of the men re-assaulted during the follow-up. Rates of verbal abuse (70%) and threats (43%) were much higher, but 73% of the women reported feeling "very safe." Nearly half of the men who re-assaulted did so within 3 months after program intake. "Voluntary" participants were significantly more likely to re-assault (44% vs. 29%), as were program dropouts (40% vs. 28%).
Length of post-intervention follow-up: 15 months after baseline

Gondolf, E. W. (1999). A comparison of four batterer intervention systems. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14(1), 41-61.

Type of Study: Pretest/Posttest
Number of participants: 210 men
Population:

Age Range: Approximately 32 years on average
Race/Ethnicity: Not given
Status (e.g., foster care, CW): Men referred to a court-mandated batterer program.

Location/Institution: Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, Denver
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations)Note: This study used the same sample as the Gondolf (1997) study. A multi-site evaluation was conducted in four geographically distributed cities to examine the relative effectiveness of different approaches to batterer intervention. The intervention systems represent a range of court-referral procedures (pretrial or post-conviction), program duration (3 months to 9 months), and additional services (occasional referral or in-house alcohol treatment). At each site, 210 men (mean age 32 years) were recruited and assessed using the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory and Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test. The batterers' partners were interviewed by phone every 3 months over a 15-months follow-up after intake, with a response rate of 77% overall. There was no significant difference in the re-assault rate, portion of men making threats, and victim quality of life across the four sites. The longest, most comprehensive program (the AMEND site in Denver) did, however have a significantly lower rate of severe re-assault substantiated in a logistic regression controlling background variables (e.g., partner's report of "frequently drunk", narcissism score and severe pathology). The findings suggest that differing intervention systems that conform to fundamental standards can achieve similar outcomes.
Length of post-intervention follow-up: Approximately 6 months after program completion.

Gondolf, E. W. (2000). A 30-month follow-up of court-referred batterers in four cities. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 44(1), 111-128.

Type of Study: Pretest/Postest
Number of participants: 618 men
Population:

Age Range: Not given
Race/Ethnicity: Not given
Status (e.g., foster care, CW): Men arrested for domestic violence and referred to court-mandated batterer programs.

Location/Institution: Pittsburgh, Dallas, Houston, Denver
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations) Note: This study used the same sample as the Gondolf (1997) study. Assessed the long-term outcomes of 4 batterer programs (one of which was the AMEND program in Denver) in a follow-up of court-referred male batterers previously arrested for domestic violence. Batterers’ initial and new female partners were interviewed by phone every 3 months for the first 15 months and every 7-8 months for the next 15 months. According to the women's reports, 41% of the men committed a reassault, as measured by the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS), during the 30-month follow-up period (an increase of only 7% over the 15-month re-assault rate). Nearly two-thirds of the first-time reassaults occurred in the first 6 months. About a fifth of the men repeatedly reassaulted their partners and account for most of the reported injuries. The reassault rate for men attending a program for 3 months or more was significantly less than for dropouts. The reassault rates were not significantly different across the 4 programs, despite differences in program length and services.
Length of post-intervention follow-up: 2.5 years after program intake.

Gondolf, E. W., & Jones, A. S. (2001). The program effect of batterer programs in three cities. Violence and Victims, 16(6), 693-704.

Type of Study: Pretest/Posttest
Number of participants: 640
Population:

Age Range: 32 years on average
Race/Ethnicity: 55% Minority, 45% White
Status (e.g., foster care, CW): Men arrested for domestic violence and referred to court-mandated batterer programs.

Location/Institution: Pittsburgh, Denver, Dallas
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations)Note: This study used the same sample as the Gondolf (1997) study. The sites were 3 well-established batterer programs (one of which was the AMEND site). Completing a batterer program reduced the likelihood of re-assault by 44-64%, depending on the specification used. Completing a 3-month program appeared to be as effective as completing a 5.5-9-month program (Note - AMEND is the 9 month program). The findings remain tentative because of weak instrumental variables for re-assault, but do confirm the need for more complex analyses of program effect.
Length of post-intervention follow-up: 15 months after intake.

Jones, A. S., D’Agostino, R. B., Gondolf, E. W., & Heckert, A. (2004). Assessing the effect of batterer program completion on re-assault using propensity scores. Journal of Interpersonal Violence,19(9), 1002-1020.

Type of Study: Pretest/posttest
Number of participants: 633 men
Population:

Age Range: None given
Race/Ethnicity: Approximately 43% White, 26% African American, 24% Latino, and 7% other.
Status (e.g., foster care, CW): Men arrested for domestic violence and referred to court-mandated batterer programs.

Location/Institution: Not given
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations) Note: This study used the same sample as the Gondolf (1997) study. Outcomes measures included the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) and measures of substance use, arrests, and service use. Propensity scores, based on personality scores, Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) scores, and demographics were used to balance program completers and program dropouts. Results show that program completion reduced the probability of reassault during the 15-month follow-up by 33% for the full sample, and by nearly 50% for the court-ordered men.
Length of post-intervention follow-up: 15 months after initiation of intervention.