Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs: Program Leaders on History, Approach, Research, and Development

Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs responds to the intense debate about the approach and effectiveness of batterer programs, especially in light of the “evidence-based practice” movement. But it does so through a collection of 24 interviews with batterer program founders and leaders who have been working in the field for 25 to 35 years. In the process, it answers many of the misconceptions and misrepresentations of batterer programs, and highlights their contributions and development. It also offers recommendations to researchers and the field in general that would help strengthen the work overall. More specifically, the book is a follow-up to the author’s research-oriented book, The Future of Batterer Programs: Reassessing Evidence-Based Practice (Northeastern University Press, 2012). That book critically reviewed the research on batterer programs in light of the demand for documentation of program effectiveness and documented the effective role of batterer programs in an intervention system. It also exposed the need for “evidence-based practice” research to include the feedback, interpretations, and critique of practitioners who have their own “evidence” to contribute. In Gender-Based Perspectives on Batterer Programs, a summarizing introduction and conclusion on leadership frame the set of leader interviews. The collection of interviews represents an archive of the experience and wisdom of long-term workers in the field—many of whom are on the verge of retirement. This “database” should help researchers develop more meaningful studies, and ground research results in actualities of the work. Ideally, the interviews will also help practitioners realize their commonalities and better represent themselves to their critics and public in general.

Edward W. Gondolf is professor emeritus at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is also research associate and former research director at the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Research and Training Institute (MARTI).