Establishing more supportive services for abusive men would increase the safety and wellbeing of their partners and children, according to a joint report from a pair of London anti-violence agencies.
Anova, formerly Women’s Community House and Sexual Assault Centre London, and Changing Ways released on Wednesday the report which makes six recommendations to better protect women and children in London-Middlesex from domestic abuse.
Among the recommendations is one to provide short-term housing to men while they receive counselling and work on their issues.
“We wanted to explore some innovative new ways of providing service to those dealing with intimate partner violence in our community,” said Anova Executive Director Jessie Rodger. “We know that individualized intervention and service for men decreases the risk for women and their families, and that the system of intervention we are using now, does not.”
Other recommendations laid out in the report include more safe housing choices for women, more supports for women who choose to stay in their home, and expand accessible therapeutic services for children and families.
The agency's recommendations aim to achieve three goals - enhancing safety and housing choices for those living with intimate partner violence, reducing the number of male abusers, and increasing the level of trauma-informed services for children.
“Our findings from this project demonstrated an overwhelming willingness of our community to look at doing this work differently,” said Changing Ways Executive Director Tim Kelly. “As a community, we are prepared to work together to engage men at risk of causing harm to their families in a range of prevention and supportive services, with the goal of keeping women and children safer.”
The report calls for a committee to be established to investigate how to implement the recommendations, find a site for men to reduce short-term homelessness, and to pilot the changes.
Anova and Changing Ways conducted "extensive consultation" with families living with domestic violence, police, public health officials, shelters, and the Children’s Aid Society in order to compile the report.