The Family Violence Prevention Program in Mercer is a comprehensive treatment program for perpetrators of domestic violence, providing treatment, counseling and accountability support services.
The program’s mission is to help batterers identify, address, and correct the core issues of their problems. Services enable them to become responsible family members and useful adults. As a result, clients develop skills to help eliminate violent behavior patterns and take responsibility for their actions.
Individuals Served
The Family Violence Prevention Program works with individuals who have demonstrated a pattern of violence against intimate partners, including:
- Any incidents of violence against an intimate partner
- Documented or self-reported spousal assault by perpetrator
- Documented or self-reported spousal assault by victim
- Suspected spousal assault
- Pattern of non-physical abuse
Program Goals
- To eliminate violence and abuse toward intimate partners, as well as abusive and violent behaviors in the family context.
- To assist clients in developing insight into the factors that led to their violence and abuse.
- To assist clients in developing relationship skills, thinking skills and emotion management skills needed to foster healthy relationships.
Program Curriculum
The FVPP curriculum is modeled off of the Corrections Services of Canada and was subsequently accredited by an international expert panel in March 2001.
The program is aimed at helping stop domestic violence while holding batterers accountable for their behavior, challenging irrational beliefs held by batterers, and promote equality and non-violence as valued alternatives to power and control.
The program is intense and highly personalized. This is because it is focused on providing information while simultaneously changing behaviors. As a result, the curriculum offers interventions that are cognitive, behavioral and client-centered. In this way, it is consistent with with the Volunteers of America Delaware Valley commitment to individualized, evidence-based treatments.
Treatment Model
The Family Violence Prevention Program is based on a nested model that views violence against partners as being multidetermined and due to a number of different factors and behaviors. The fact that intimate relationships responding with violence and abuse are a learned pattern of behavior is a key, guiding principle of this model. That is why the model helps clients develop tools that create a new pattern of behavior.
Assessment and Service Planning
Clients receive an individual screening and assessment at the outset of the program. The assessment provides the counselor and multi-disciplinary team with a complete, thorough understanding of the client’s specific needs for services.
The team also utilizes Spousal Abuse Risk Assessments (SARA) and the Domestic Violence Survey. These tools assess a client’s appropriateness for the Moderate Intensity Family Violence Prevention Program. They screen for both risk and need by examining many factors and situations in the client’s life, specifically as they pertain to their intimate partnerships.
Eligibility: Individuals on parole who have a demonstrated pattern of violence against intimate partners
Additional Questions: info@voadv.org