DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURROGATE DIALOGUE

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DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURROGATE DIALOGUE

• Carrie O. Banks, PhD.
• Executive Director
• Gayle A. Sheller, MA, MSW
• Program Director

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• Putting the Pieces Together for Healing

Creating a safe, if not sacred, place for people
in painful conflict to tell their story, without
interruptions, has been found through the ages to
be at the core of healing. Dr. Mark Umbreit,
Center for Restorative Justice Peacemaking,
University of Minnesota
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DVSD a unique program founded in 2006, housed at
Washington County Community Corrections in the
Center for Victims Services, Hillsboro, Oregon

• Founder Carrie Outhier Banks, PhD.
• Doctoral Dissertation Finding Their Voice
  Observation of the Surrogate Dialogue Program
  PhD. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George
  Mason University
• Research at Washington County Community
  Corrections in partnership with Domestic Violence
  Resource Center the Family Violence
  Intervention Program

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The Mission of DVSD

• The cycle of violence is difficult to break when
  silence and victimization leave survivors
  confused and uncertain how to cope. Even as
  society has supported shelters and treatment
  programs for those who must flee domestic
  violence, the treatment community has learned how
  difficult the journey of healing is for those who
  survive the trauma of violence (Battaglia,
  Finley, and Liebschutz, 2001).
• Why me haunts survivors and leaves them
  feeling responsible for acts that were neither of
  their making nor by their choice, their
  self-efficacy and trust deeply wounded. DVSD
  exists to help break this cycle and to provide
  not only survivors, but offenders, an opportunity
  to broaden their understanding of the context and
  long-term effects of partner-violence.

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Goals of the DVSD Program

• Provide another step on the path to recovery
  for survivors of domestic violence.
• Offer offenders who have committed domestic
  violence a way of making restitution to the
  community.
• Help prevent survivors from re-entering abusive
  relationships.
• Provide offenders who have abused further
  insight into the costs of their actions to their
  survivors

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Who is in the room?

• Team (usually male/female) of DVSD-trained
  facilitators
• Survivor of domestic/intimate partner violence
  who has completed six months of counseling, or
  comparable group work
• Offender of domestic/intimate partner violence
  who is near completion of a recognized
  batters-intervention program (usually a 52-56
  week program) and fully accountable
• Support person for each client

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Surrogate Dialogue Process

• Referrals by programs or request by clients to
  participate
• Survivor/offender match made by DVSD Program
  Director, in consultation with counselors/clients

• Pre-dialogue interview by team of facilitators
• Dialogue
• Debrief by facilitation team, first the survivor,
  then the offender
• Follow-up interviews

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Social Work Values that guide the work

• Strengths-based self-determination
• Collaborative work with clients and programs
  community networking
• Non-oppressive work and personal empowerment
• Solution-focused Client driven and fully
  voluntary
• Ecological perspective dynamic, belief in the
  human ability to change

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Principles of Restorative Justice

• Dialogue modeled after Restorative Justice
  Violent Offender and Victim Mediation process
  (Dr. Mark Umbreit, Center for Restorative Justice
  and Peacemaking, School of Social Work,
  University of Minnesota).
• 3 parties in every act of violence victim,
  offender, and community
• Dialogue-driven rather than settlement-drivenpurp
  ose is to understand each others experience
• Both an individual and a community process

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Respectful and humanizing

• Sometimes the only way to pay on our obligations
  is to give back to someone else other than the
  one that we have harmed.
• --Marcy Achilles Victim Advocate, Harrisburg,
  PA
• crime is viewed as an experience between
  individuals in the midst of a community
• Susan Herman, National Center for Victims of
  Crime

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Essential to Every Dialogue

• Voluntary at every level multiple check-ins
  with participants
• Sensitive to BOTH survivors and offenders at all
  times, respectful and humanizingwe check our
  judgments at the door and listen to the clients
  with compassion

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Role of Facilitators

• Skills of mindfulness and compassionate listening
  are essential
• Safety, respect, attention
• Able and willing to allow silence so that clients
  retain control and direction of dialogue
• Safe ground with clarity of purpose not
  goal-oriented or outcome-focused

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Theoretical frameworks

• Narrative Reframing the story and the outcomesa
  move from victim to empowered survivor
• Empowerment Supporting survivors in their right
  to self-determination in their own way and on
  their own terms
• Transference use of a surrogate offender who is
  now fully accountable, able to answer questions,
  and bear witness to the dynamics of an abuser

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Counselor comments

• In counseling, the therapist becomes the
  surrogate that helps a person work through their
  experience, while in a surrogate dialogue, a
  person who has been a batterer, but is now
  accountable, is the person who helps the survivor
  feel validated and understood. This is a rare
  experience that would not happen under normal
  circumstances and certainly not with their own
  battering partner.
• --Sheryl J. Rindel, LPC, and Family Violence
  Intervention Treatment provider for many years

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Survivor Comments post-dialogue

• I have more self-esteem than Ive ever had! Im
  more out-going, working, and able to do things
  like share my story with a group. Not so long
  ago, I was so anxious about talking in front of
  people Id break into tears and have to leave the
  room.

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Survivor comments

• We must come together as a society and as a
  community, and we must find ways to put in place
  a system that leaves neither the female nor the
  male on the bottom of a hopeless system of
  oppressionwe have to have faith that (people)
  will changethat may sound risky, and thats
  okay. Historically, powerful change is found
  where risks were taken. Thank youfor blessing me
  with the opportunity to reach a deeper level of
  healing.

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Survivor comments

• It was very helpful to see that (the offender)
  really had an inability to empathizeThis helps
  me understand in a new and different way that, to
  a large degree, (my spouses) behavior was not
  personal. An amazing experienceI didnt even
  know how stuck I still was until I looked back
  after my dialogueI was still in a
  self-preservation, self-defended mode. I needed
  to see that I could flourish and now Im having
  a full life!

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Offender comments post-dialogue

• I found it an important part of my work to find
  a way to give back to the community I took from
  for so long. The problems dont go away. But you
  keep reminding yourself why you arent going back
  (to violence).

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Offender comment

• I was surprised that the dialogue made me think
  more about my responsibility. (The most important
  part of the dialogue for me) was the opportunity
  to express sorrow, express my remorse, and
  release some emotions. Thank you for the
  experience.

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Offender comment

• Accountability is everything. I got a chance to
  help someone. (The dialogue) also gave me the
  opportunity to be accountable for what Ive done.
  (It was important to me) to show her (the abuse)
  was not her fault, and to face up to what Ive
  done. This should be done much more.

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Essential to remember

• Survivor safety and voluntary participation
  always come first!
• Hold deep respect for the hard work each person
  has done in order to come sit across the table
  from another person and tell their story.
• Grief is always presentwhat has been lost is
  relationship, love and self-esteem.

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Questions?

• Contact Information
• Website www.dvsdprogram.com
• Carrie carriebanks_at_dvsdprogram.com
• Gayle gaylesheller_at_dvsdprogram.com