The Batterer as Parent

Moving beyond the narrow clinical perspective sometimes applied to viewing the emotional and developmental risks to battered children, The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics, Second Edition offers a view that takes into account the complex ways in which a batterer′s abusive and controlling behaviors are woven into the fabric of daily life. This book is a guide for therapists, child protective workers, family and juvenile court personnel, and other human service providers in addressing the complex impact that batterers―specifically, male batterers of a domestic partner when there are children in the household―have on family functioning. In addition to providing an understanding of batterers as parents and family members, the book also supplies clearly delineated approaches to such practice issues as assessing risk to children (including perpetrating incest), parenting issues in child custody and visitation evaluation, and impact on children′s therapeutic process and family functioning in child protective practice.

Lundy Bancroft has 14 years of counseling and clinical supervising experience in over 2,000 cases working with batterers. He also served extensively as a custody evaluator and child abuse investigator, appeared as an expert witness in child custody and welfare cases, and led groups for teenage boys exposed to domestic violence. He has been training judges, probation officers and other court personnel on men who batter and on battering’s effects on children. He co-authored articles in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Contemporary Psychology and is co-creator of two nationally marketed curricula, one for working with batterers and one for teen-dating violence in schools. In addition, he completed a study for the state of Massachusetts on approaches to meeting the service needs of children exposed to domestic violence.

Jay Silverman is Professor of Medicine and Global Public Health at the University of California at San Diego. He is a developmental psychologist with 20 years of experience in domestic violence, including direct counseling experience with hundreds of men who batter. He has led multiple, large-scale international and domestic research programs on issues of gender-based violence against women and girls; this work has resulted in more than 100 peer-reviewed studies. His research has included examinations of the social contextual influences on the etiology of male-perpetrated partner violence, the nature and health consequences of adolescent dating violence, history of child abuse among men who perpetrate partner violence, judicial behavior and the experiences of battered mothers in child custody cases, the role of partner violence in men’s transmission of HIV to their female partners, the nature and HIV risks associated with trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation, and the roles of partner violence in unintended and teen pregnancy, coercion regarding abortion, pregnancy loss, and infant and child morbidity and mortality.

Daniel Ritchie, M.S.W., has worked with military veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse and with children and adolescents experiencing a wide range of psychosocial issues including domestic violence. He has contributed to work published in Smith College Studies in Social Work.