Elements and Performance Criteria
- Elements define the essential outcomes
- Establish willingness to address violent and abusive behaviour
- Analyse existing case information about the user of domestic and family violence as the basis for work
- Use questioning to explore how the user understands and locates the responsibility for their violence and abuse
- Encourage the user of domestic and family violence to recognise the advantages of behaving in ways that are non-violent and non-abusive
- Explore the user’s aspirations for future relationships to examine how their violence undermines fulfilment of those aspirations
- Characterise interactions with the user with respect, honesty and a concern for children and partner safety and in accordance with agency/organisation policies and procedures
- Establish focus on user’s responsibility for change and conditions for intervention
- Acknowledge and challenge as the focus for change the user’s understanding of the problems their violent and abusive behaviour cause
- Establish a written contract for the intervention which clearly focuses on the user’s responsibility, the potential for change and the priority of the safety of children and partners
- Clarify and agree on expectations for mutually respectful behaviours and use of language, including challenging by the worker
- Use reflective practice to minimise potential for collusion
- Enact and maintain accountability processes throughout the intervention process
- Recognise, resist and challenge instances provided by the user for collusion
- Examine own practices with the user for their potential to replicate dominant behaviours
- Examine own values and attitudes towards constructions of gender to determine the potential for collusion with the user’s account of their use of violence and abuse
- Maintain processes that ensure gender accountability between workers
- Establish respectful and safe practices
- Establish and maintain practices and strategies that are sensitive to the user’s experiences in relation to membership of a minority culture or experiences of injustice
- Acknowledge respectfully the user’s experiences of injustice, victimisations, prejudice or discrimination while ensuring that any attribution of causality or responsibility for abusive practices to these experiences is challenged
- Assist the user to seek and acknowledge evidence of respectful, just and equitable values and practices in their culture
- Provide opportunities for the user to plan, initiate and monitor changes
- Encourage the user to make and implement realistic plans to cease all forms of violent and abusive behaviour
- Provide opportunities for the user to demonstrate their responsible and respectful behaviour
- Encourage the user to establish and maintain active involvement in ongoing networks of support for responsible and respectful behaviour
- Establish focus on user’s responsibility for change and conditions for intervention
- Acknowledge and challenge as the focus for change the user’s understanding of the problems their violent and abusive behaviour cause
- Establish a written contract for the intervention which clearly focuses on the user’s responsibility, the potential for change and the priority of the safety of children and partners
- Clarify and agree on expectations for mutually respectful behaviours and use of language, including challenging by the worker