Fathers for Change for Substance Use and Intimate Partner Violence: Initial Community Pilot

• Date: 01 December 2015
• Author: Carla Smith Stover
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12136
• Published date: 01 December 2015

Fathers for Change for Substance Use and Intimate

Partner Violence: Initial Community Pilot

CARLA SMITH STOVER*

The lack of focus on the role of men as fathers within intervention programs for men with

histories of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) or substance abuse is of significant concern

given the large numbers of these men who are actively parenting and coparenting children.

Fathers for Change is a new intervention designed to fill this gap. Eighteen fathers with

co-occurring IPV and substance abuse were randomly assigned to Fathers for Change or

Individual Drug Counseling (IDC). They were assessed at baseline, post-intervention and

3 months following the 16-week intervent ion period. Men in the Fathers for Change group:

(1) were more likely to complete treatment; (2) reported significantly greater satisfaction

with the program; (3) reported a trend toward less IPV; and (4) exhibited significantly less

intrusiveness in coded play interactions with their children following treatment than

fathers in the IDC group. Results indicate further evaluation of this intervention in a

larger sample is warranted. Limitations and directions for future researc h are discussed.

Keywords: Fathers; Coparenting; Intimate Partner Violenc e; Substance Abuse

Fam Proc 54:600–609, 2015

Intervention and treatment programs for men with histories of intimate partner violence

(IPV) and/or substance abuse rarely focus on the men’s fathering and parenting of their

children nor do they address the ongoing coparental relationship they will have with the

mother of their children. Batterer intervention programs (BIPs) often devote some group

session content to the impact of violence on children and substance abuse treatment pro-

grams may include discussion of parenting issues, but they are not a major component of

treatment. The lack of focus on the role of men as fathers within intervention programs

and a dearth of specific parenting or coparenting intervention for men with these co-

occurring issues is alarming; especially given that more than 60% of men entering BIP are

fathers (Rothman, Mandel, & Silverman, 2007; Salisbury, Henning, & Holdford, 2009). In

community samples, more than half of women who experience IPV continue living or

having frequent contact with the male perpetrator due to shared children (Hunter &

Graham-Bermann, 2013; Israel & Stover, 2009) and many victims report their child is

positively attached to their aggressive father (Israel & Stover, 2009).

Contact with fathers can have positive benefits for children who were previously

exposed to IPV (Hunter & Graham-Bermann, 2013; Stover, Van Horn, Turner, Cooper, &

Lieberman, 2003). Fathers with histories of IPV often continue their presence within the

*University of South Florida Tampa, Tampa FL.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Carla Stover, University of South Florida

Tampa, 13301 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa, FL 33612. E-mail: carlastover@usf.edu.

This study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) K23 DA023334. The author

acknowledges Rodney Webb III, MA, for his work on this project and thanks Drs. Thomas McMahon,

Caroline Easton, Nancy Suchman, and Steven Marans for their mentorship and guidance throughout the

development and execution of the intervention and study.

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Family Process, Vol. 54, No. 4, 2015 ©2015 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12136