Major sponsors for Ableton on Air include Green Mountain Support Services, empowering people with disabilities to live home in the community, Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support come together. Media sponsors for Ableton on Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, this is the Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Power Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International, Anchor FM and Spotify. Partners for Ableton on Air include the HOD of New York and New England, where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Vermont, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Center Vermont Habitat for Humanity, and Montpelier Sustainable Coalition, Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx, Roosevelt Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx. Ableton on Air has been seen in the following publications, Park Chester Times, WWW, this is the Bronx.com, New York Power Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, www.h.com, and the Montpelier Bridge. Ableton on Air is part of the following organizations, the National Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences, Boston, New England Chapter, and the Society of Professional Journalists. Hello and welcome to this edition of Ableton on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the different label. I've always been your host, Lauren Seiler. Our meeting is not here today, but on this edition we will focus on social work, and social work in Israel, and many other things around social work. But before we do that, we would like to thank our sponsors, Washington County Mental Health, Green Mountain Support Services, and many others, including the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired, and many other sponsors and partners. We would like to welcome our guest, David Wecker, social worker from Israel. Welcome back to Ableton on Air, because you were on before. Thanks for having me. Okay. For those that don't know, since you are a social worker in Israel, what is the difference between, in your opinion, or there are differences, obviously, what's the difference of being a social worker in Israel and the United States?  Yeah. I didn't know so much about the system here in the United States, but what I can say about Israel, and where I see the difference, is like in Israel, it's a welfare society, like they're taking care of all the citizens from when they start, they have a free health insurance to all the citizens, and then you grow up in a welfare society. Of course, the education is free. Well, what is meant by a welfare society, in this case? You have a lot of rights from the time that you, your birth, at the end of your life, when you became old and you need some help, the state they care on, all the things that you need, most of the things, let's say. There is still a free market there too, but, you know, it's a little bit different. Right? Then from my perspective, the most different is there, you know, because a social worker in Israel, a lot of time, their work is focused on how people can get their benefits, how to help them to get the right treatment, how they can get better, how to help kids that in risk to live in the school, or in risk because of their families, we try to help them in all those fields. Do you teach people, well, okay, you're in foster care as a social worker. Can you explain about that and how that's different in Israel? Go ahead. Yeah, sure. Then, I think that the foster care system in Israel is really wide. Like, they just pass a law that say that even, most of the kids that come into foster care facilities and families, they come from, they come to relatives and the government and the country decide that you want to support that. She help them with money, with treatment, every kid that...  Yeah, they give them direct deposit of money every month and they get, they are guided by a social worker, you know, because a lot of time, the parents, from my perspective and what I see in the field, a lot of the time, parents didn't understand the need of the kid to get treatment, like, you know, a physical... like a therapy from a psychologist or sometimes medicines, you know, because what they pass through, you know, post trauma, you know, all that kind of things, anxiety, depression, then we help the parents to, to get the kids to the right place, to the place that they can grow, that they can become better and this is what we do and I think the most different here from what I read about the foster care system in the United States is like, in the United States, it's less wide and it's more hard to walk because there is facilities that you don't have here. For example? Like in Israel, let's say, for example, if you want to put the kid on a... on another... we have like a wide, wide, wide option of that you can choose which health insurance you want. Then we can, like when we want to move someone, some kid to another, if the family, the foster family want the kid to move to another facility, we can just... we can just call, we call it the national insurance and to tell them, move that kid, we don't need anybody's permission for that and it's make their work a lot more easier for us or even if we want to work with the school system or to get a lot of stuff, it's more easier. Walk me through a typical day or week, let's start with a day. What is the typical day like for you working in the system you work in? Yeah, then the COVID change a lot in our field because they start to understand that you don't have to work from offices, especially in our work because we don't, like most of the time, we are case managing and we try to get the kid the right treatment, the right family, the right direction and because of that we work mostly at home. We start, we work, we write documents, we write reports and we try to, we talking with a social worker that take care of the family, on the biologic family and we try to convince them to, you know, we try to make everything to work for everybody that everybody will know what's going on and that we can decide together what will be the next step and once a month we come in to visit the kids and his family and of course every Sunday we meet everybody in the office because and then we get, like the guidance too, as a professional we need to, you know, every time we believe that we, every time, you every time need to learn. Of course when you work with people, people, it's really a dynamic thing and all the time need to learn how to become better, how to be more professional, what is the last research about that field, you know, we have a lot of special needs, kids that we work with this, you know, there is all the time a new research how you can help kids with special needs to become better, how they can be, take more bigger part in the society then we all the time read and learn about all that things. In your opinion, being a social worker, is it more difficult to work with kids than adults or vice versa or opposite? You know, I work a lot, actually I work most of my life with a teenager at risk, and I work for, let's say for three years, I work with very, let's say, high income, you know, very, like, people that come from very high income families and it was like people that learning in universities and college around Israel are very good and from my perspective, it's not like this one is more easy but the responsibility is less strict. It's less strict. When you work with kids it's really strict and it's all the time take you very much emotionally because sometimes it can be like let's say for example, sometimes it can be a girl that needs autodentist and I am the guy that take care of this and sometimes it takes time to get her the right autodentist and to fix her teeth but sometimes you say because I didn't work enough or I didn't have enough time she didn't get it on time or a kid sometimes we decide on one way or sometimes we need to get a really hard decision sometimes we need to get decision like this kid cannot stay in that family foster family anymore because they don't give him the right condition then it's a it's really, you know, it's a really from my perspective this is the difference when you work with people without everybody have issues in life even like people without you know, with a very tough background and very very good background and they have a very, let's say perfect life even they have some issue but when you come to kids that come for foster family the issues they are very big then your responsibility is very big then you emotionally it can be very hard to decide sometimes it took them out emotionally hard was it more harder let's see if I can phrase this was it more harder through COVID to get services for people than now? Yes, sure because especially for the spatial needs kids for them through COVID sometimes in the very tough time some of the schools even was closed and then we start to see families that you know they start to collapse they start to be broke because it's really sometimes, well in my opinion I think it's more difficult especially with special education kids sometimes can't do internet learning they need that one-on-one type of learning or classroom learning it's very hard to do internet school sometimes for people you're really right about the kids side and the other side is the parents side the parents it's really hard for them to all their the facilities that help them to grow the kids and give them a little bit hair to breathe focus on the walk do whatever they want because a lot of time kids with special needs need extra care and all of this gun for a very long time through COVID then this make a lot of challenges for us we support this family how we make it work even the facilities and it was really hard and we still see like things that going on because of of COVID not because of the disease because of the people being home all day do you think they're too... doing the social work do you think a lot of people have more anxiety being home and not outside and that kind of thing I can answer about that of course it's more when the COVID people without the support of the community it's less immune depression and all these things but what we can see I can tell you that there are more kids that need right now foster families there is more families that don't survive the COVID period we still through it hopefully it will end but we still see the impact of the quarantine and all the time people the kids didn't have their schools and their friends and it's really hard even for the system to carry all this okay so since you've been a social worker how talk about the severity of the severe part is it hard for parents to give up their child and then put them into a foster care system why or why not can you understand my point? I totally understand most of the time in Israel we are really careful with that thing we really believe that kids need to grow in his biologic family but there is a limit to that if parents behave in a way that they don't give the kids basic needs basic needs mean what? food, clothes clothes even emotions sometimes if they torture him emotionally then or let's say they abusing him or in mean of sex or physical then we have like the social worker facilities of the rail that kid need to take action and need to take this kid out but most of the time this is not the case this is like maybe between 5-10% of the time if the parents have a very severe thing and they can't grow the kid we even have sometimes if a parent have let's say cancer for example and she can grow her kids even for a temporary time a foster kid is a temporary solution we hope how is it a temporary solution? because if it's we see that the biologic parents they became fit again to grow the kids then we bring the kids back and we do a lot of effort to try to help the parents too to be fit again to grow the kids but most of the time this is why kids come to foster parents and this is why most of the kids come from like they come from a relative place like they come to a relatives and this make too a lot of difficult because a lot of time if kids come from a place that his parents either was good to him and then he go to his relative then a lot of time it stay the same like they believe that their way is the best talking about foster care now if a child or children you know brother or sister come from a violent home violent domestic violence any kind of violence if there is say two or more children do you find can you find or is it hard to find foster parents that want both the children or children are if it's a brother or sister is it hard to keep them together? actually it's a really good question we really did I ask that right? it's really good question cause we a lot of time try that if there is two brother and sister like you say or brother and brother or we try to put them together but let's say a lot of time specifically in the religious community there is family that collapse and there is six or seven and this is really hard for one family to contain but we try and what I can tell you that a lot of time it can help the kid well being separate? no being together but sometimes it's like it didn't work so well because one kid is really resistant to that family you know we try we do our best that it will work but sometimes the kid didn't want it didn't work together but this is a really good question this is one of the challenge that we try all the time to be better that we can put them together and you know it's really hard for foster family to take two kids together cause one it's really hard you know it's never like you know it's a lot of time I will not say never because never say never but it's it's really tough because kids that come for foster family they come with a lot of challenges and they have a tough background and they have the thing that they go through in their original family and sometimes they move from one foster family to another foster family then we try to make it work and we try that the parent will have enough power to make it work now in terms of the ages of the children is it harder to find foster families or babies or smaller like what are the ages that you work actually kids prefer to take babies because babies they feel that they can grow them from the start and they believe that this way they can help the kids the most and they don't have like a time that they don't know what happened to him if there's a situation where a parent doesn't want the child okay for example you place you place the kid with the foster family and then do you do like a trial period first or you know a trial period yeah yeah part of the family we do it we do it one year how do you say it trial period and trial means to start small we do it with part of the family but we do a really really deep of checking of background we really check the family very deep we call relatives we call the teachers we call reports about the family the foster family that want to get in and just then sorry no okay hold and just then we we start to we start the foster system you know we put them into the foster system but it's really hard to get it's really like yeah this is I hope answer to your question well we have a couple minutes left why is it that in Israel because you told me off camera that in Israel social workers only are only required to have a bachelor's degree and not a master's why is that is there a main reason I think for bachelor's degree you just can work in the facility but you can do like a therapy without master master of clinic if you want to actually treat people in the clinic then you need a master but I think it's like we work with people and they give us so obviously you go to a lot of training yeah we have a lot of training and we work and we all the time learn more and if you want to get some special specialty then you can go to to learn that to learn that in the start you just work with people you try to help them and you know it's never end you all the time learn and it's not like the degree that matter it's how much you learn how much you try to learn the people that you work with okay now there are pros last couple questions there are pros and cons you know bad and good to everything there are things you don't like about your job and things you do like about your job yeah the thing that I like is that you work with people this is really meaningful work you feel how you can sometimes change people lives and this is really feel you you feel how it was like that and now we very successful person and he do so much and you know and this is and you know you work with people that because they come to this they all the time want to help that it's really like a supportive place to work the people that you work with they're very nice they're really professional now the thing that I didn't work it's like I feel that the field need to be like more focus I think it's really hard to like to put what works and what not works with people like with kids with but I think we need to be more more evident proof therapy we need to go with the things that work to help the kids and we need to check it with that I didn't feel that the system is enough well she should go into this but it's still another thing we need to do which is really important especially during with all the violence and things going on in society we need to be a more loving society if we're a more loving society then you being a social worker can do a better job because then then the people that you're placing would appreciate more you know with all the things that are going on it's sometimes hard to do your job when it's not a loving society you need to be a more loving society yeah I think this is really true not just society loving families you know it's part of the problem start there and yeah I absolutely agree you know it's like if we will take care of people and we don't weigh them to collapse and we take them on time then a lot of the problem that became severe will not come up is anything else you want to add about your job or about the social work field you know do you have any advice that you would like to give to people to our viewing audience who want to become social workers yeah then I think it's a really interesting field I think that it will be people will need it more and more and more but I think you need to come to this profession with passion with love like you say and you need to be very modest too and you need to understand that you don't have all the knowledge you need to look on the people in the eyes and to understand what their needs and what their perspective on life and to try to find the common ground that you can work and we also need to not to be afraid we shouldn't be afraid to ask for help from a social worker if we need it yeah I think this is not just a social worker it's really it's really important every field like if you don't know to ask for help it's about modesty like you need to know that you have the you are not whole know you know you all the time have what to get from other people you don't know everything and when you know that you can ask for help and I really agree with that you know I think this is I all the time I think good social worker he asks more than what he's saying well I would like to thank you thank you all for having me Mr. Wacker for joining us on Abledon on Air for more information on Israel and its society if you want to like to find out more information on Israel services the best place to turn to is Nefis Benefis which can be found at www.nbn.org forward slash life in Israel again for more information on social work or any programs that Israel has to find out more information about you can go to www.nefisbenefis.org forward slash il life in Israel again this puts an end to this edition of Abledon on Air for more information on Abledon on Air you can go to www.orkamedia.net our leading is not here today I'm Lauren Seiler thank you to our sponsors Washington County Mental Health Green Mountain Support Services and many others I'm Lauren Seiler see you next time Major sponsors for Abledon on Air include Green Mountain Support Services empowering people with disabilities to live home in the community Washington County Mental Health where hope and support come together media sponsors for Abledon on Air include Park Chester Times Muslim Community Report www this is the Bronx.info Associated Press Media Editors New York Powered Online Newspaper U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International Anchor FM and Spotify Partners for Abledon on Air include Yechad of New York and New England where everyone belongs the Orthodox Union the Division for the Blind and Visionary Imperials of Vermont the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visionary Impaired Center for Vermont Habitat for Humanity and Montpelier Sustainable Coalition Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx Rose of Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx Abledon on Air has been seen in the following publications Park Chester Times www.TheChester Times www.TheChester Times www.ThisIsTheBronx.com New York Powered Online Newspaper Muslim Community Report www.H.com and The Montpelier Bridge Abledon on Air is part of the following organizations The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Boston, New England Chapter and the Society of Professional Journalists


What's good YouTube, this your boy Chihuahua back with y'all again with another art video If you're new to the channel go ahead and hit that like button, comment, subscribe, make sure you click post notifications so you will be notified every time I drop something. Heat! In today's video we finna turn that boy Kodak Black into a Simpsons character without further ado let's jump right into it. First thing I like to do is when I open the W Illustrator go ahead and set my brush, my pressure sensitivity on my brush that is these numbers are both 3, click OK and then I find like a bright color so I can start out with my blueprint, drop the opacity down to at least like 50 and let's click our brush. So the first thing you want to do you want to start out with a nice sketch and you don't want to start on your line work until you're happy with your sketch. Now that we got our sketch laid out of how we're going to do everything it's time to go ahead and do our line work so what you want to do you want to lock that layer add a new layer select the color black move my smoothest up on my brush now we finna go in with the line work, the clean line work. Now that we finished with the line work what we're going to do is we're going to highlight everything we're going to go to object, expand the pinch, go to your path finder and click merge we're going to duplicate that layer, lock the top layer we're going to find a nice skin tone, triangle tool and drag that color over our artwork, right click it, go to arrange and send to back after you do that you want to highlight everything again click merge on your path finder so we can make the color one without line work you want to right click it, go to isolate select group and now change these colors individually. Now that we color everything we finna add one more layer in between for our shadows we're going to jump right into it and there you have it you guys how to turn that boy of Kodak black into a simpson character go ahead and drop free Kodak in the comment section more heat coming soon and I'm out this time.


You're watching FJTN, the Federal Judicial Television Network. Well he's not violent or anything, just lots of yelling. Once he pushed me and then twisted my arm this time. He's a good man. We need him here. I don't abuse my wife. I love her. We've been together since high school. She comes from a broken family. Her father's a drunk and I took her away from all that. How does a man supposed to keep his house together? I provide the money and the discipline. She cooks and she cleans. That's just the way it is. Good afternoon and welcome to the Federal Judicial Center's broadcast on domestic violence awareness. My name is Phyllis Drum and I'll be your facilitator for today's program. The purpose of today's program is to provide you with some tools that you might use if during the course of your regular duties you come across a domestic violence situation. We've packed a lot of material into this program today and each of you should have before you a participant guide. We'll be using this as a reference tool during today's program and you might want to also keep it after the program as a handy resource for yourself. Let's begin by taking a look at today's objectives on page two of your participant guide. The first objective that we'll be looking at today is describing the role that context plays in understanding domestic violence. Our second objective is to use interview techniques for assessment and case planning. The third is to describe characteristics of abusers and victims. And the fourth is to use supervision strategies that promote victim safety and hold abusers accountable for their behavior. To take a look at further and further detail about this topic we've invited to our studio today a group of three probation officers that have experience dealing with domestic violence offenders. Our first is Kelly O'Keefe. Kelly is a senior U.S. probation officer in the Eastern District of New York and Brooklyn, New York. Kelly also serves as their domestic violence resource officer. Next we have Nancy Halverson. Nancy is with the Adult Field Services in Hennepin County, Minnesota. She supervises 12 officers whose primary case loads are domestic violence people. And our third is John Raymond. John is a senior U.S. probation officer as well as training coordinator for the District of Minnesota. John will also be serving as our moderator for today's program. We know that we have a lot of information to cover so without further delay I'll turn the program over to John. John? Thank you Phyllis and welcome to all of you joining us for today's program. As Phyllis stated we have a lot of information to cover today. Before we do that though there's just a couple of comments I want to make about the focus of the program. First of all as officers we all know that our focus is generally on the offender, in this case the abuser and holding them accountable for their behavior. The challenging thing about domestic violence cases however is that we also have to take into consideration the victim perspective and be aware of what those issues are and how to manage them. So today's program will be offender focused but victim sensitive. And then secondly the program will assume that the male is the abuser and the female is the victim. As we all know the most prevalent form of domestic violence is male and female violence. And before we really get into any deep discussion about how we manage these cases we really need to understand the dynamics of domestic violence and really to get started we have to understand the context within which the violence occurs. So to get things started I'm going to ask Nancy can you explain the importance of context and what that means for us? Well those of us working in the criminal justice system are aware that most incidents that pass through our system are based on a single incident of guilt or innocence. But domestic violence tends to occur over a period of time with a range of behaviors and within the relationship. So to really understand the domestic violence and the risks and the kinds of offender we might be dealing with we have to look at the context of the violence. We have to look beyond the single incident that may have brought it to our attention. So when we think about context we really want to focus on three things. The first being the intent, the offender's intent in his use of the violence. What was he intending to accomplish? Was he intending by the violence to for example keep somebody from leaving the room? Was he intending to punish his victim? Was he intending to control or to get his victim to acquiesce and do something that he wanted her to do? So we need to look at the intent, the reasoning behind the use of the violence, what they expected to accomplish. Maybe he just did it because he could. Maybe he did it because it's the way he handles any and all conflict he has. The second area we want to consider is the meaning of the violence to the victim. We have to think, and this is where the victim information becomes critical. We have to think what did this mean to the victim? When he pushed her, when he hurt her, whatever the behavior was, did she feel frightened? Did she feel humiliated? Was she demeaned? Did she feel like she had no options that she had to acquiesce? What kind of feeling did it raise in her? Perhaps it was surprise because it's never ever happened before. She wasn't expecting it. Or perhaps it made her angry because it was a new dynamic in the relationship. Those are the kinds of things to explore with a victim. One example of a behavior that we could look at would be for example sending flowers. A perpetrator sends flowers to a victim. Another victim might interpret that to mean he's genuinely sorry, he's apologizing, things will be better, he wants to keep the relationship together and things will improve. Another victim might interpret that entirely differently and interpret it as a sign that this offender is mocking her, is telling her that the court system can't keep him from contacting her. It might be designed to send terror into her heart. So we really need to look at the effect that the acts have on the victim. The third thing to consider is the effect actually of the violence on the relationship. What happens from here? What kinds of accommodations does the victim make? Does she acquiesce? Does she stop doing whatever it is that her abuser did not want her to do? Does she remain even though she had voiced an intention to leave? Does it lead to isolation? For example, does this act keep her from doing things that she would want to or would ordinarily expect to do? What's the effect on other third parties? The children for example, did they witness it? Were they victims as well? How is the entire family impacted financially and socially by the violence? So those are the three things that we have to think about with context. And by looking at those three things, the purpose, the effect, and the meaning in the effect, we can really get an idea of the different types of perpetrators based on this overall context in which the violence occurs. Well, within that context, you talk about types of abusers. Can you just elaborate a little bit more on what types we might be looking at? You know, I can. I think POs understand that not all perpetrators are equally violent or equally dangerous, but the literature identifies five types. The first being the batterer. The batterer being that person who is violent within the relationship, has power and control issues, expects to use the violence to maintain the family, the relationship and the way he wants. The second category might be the fighter. And this is the person who uses violence interpersonally but also might use violence in various contexts, both socially and we might see him in the criminal justice system for other kinds of offenses too. A one-time assailant is the person who engages in a violent act, but there is no pattern of control within the relationship, no power imbalance within the relationship. It is an isolated incident. The mentally disordered type would be somebody who's suffering from a major mental illness and the violence comes out of that disordered thinking. And the last one identified is the self-defender, and this is the person who uses violence but only in response to violence. In other words, they would be violent towards the person who batters them. Okay, thank you. Viewers, if you would turn to pages three and four of your participant manual, you're going to find a list of the various types and risk factors associated with each type of abuser in your manual. What I'd like you to do is just take a couple minutes and review those amongst yourselves. Maybe think about the cases that you've dealt with and how they fit into those various categories and also pay attention to the risk factors, paying attention to the similarities and differences in each different type of abuser. We're going to just take a couple minutes for you to review that and then we'll be right back. Okay, welcome back everybody. I hope you were able to take a look at those different categories and maybe identify with some cases that you've dealt with and kind of see what you're dealing with and also became hopefully a little bit more familiar with some of the risk factors involved with some of those. Kelly, I know as we were preparing for this broadcast, we had some discussion about the various types of abusers and whether what we were seeing on paper really fit with the reality of what we were seeing on our caseloads and given your experience with the domestic violence caseload, what are you seeing in your caseloads? Are they consistent with what we have here? Well, we've had experience with every type of offender. What I'd just like to say at the outset is not for officers to get stuck in trying to type their offenders, that this is really just a guideline, it's for their information, it's for background about the whole situation. The most common type I think we see is the batterer. Reading about the escalation of violence reminded me of a case we had where we didn't find out about the domestic violence until the husband had thrown the wife down the stairs and broken her arm. At that point she was terrified and afraid he'd kill her and so then she brought it to our attention so that violence escalated there. I also, we've had cases where the violence has escalated all the way to the victim's homicide despite the best efforts of everybody involved so that escalating violence is a key piece there with the batterers. We don't really distinguish between batterers and fighters, we kind of treat those the same. I guess the only thing I thought about with the fighters is that if you've got someone in your case, maybe they don't have the documented history of domestic violence, but perhaps lots of disorderly conducts or they're getting in bar fights or they're just generally violent, I think it is important for officers to probably take a closer look at their intimate relationships and you may have a domestic violence situation in your hand if you look at it a little bit closer. Right, I agree. I can't think though of a one-time assailant off the top of my head. Nancy, do you have any examples of that? Well, in our case loads there are a few and I want to say as just sort of a caveat that actually there probably are very few one-time assailants, but there are and even though the offenders may often say it's an isolated incident and some victims may say that as well, you really have to dig deeper and make sure that the power and control piece is absent from the situation. But the case that comes to mind from our case loads was a case of a guy I supervised who had pushed his wife. They were arguing over money. She had just discovered a $30,000 credit card debt she did not know he had and it was related to his gambling. And a big argument ensued and he pushed her. She was furious. It had never happened before. She called 911, the police came and arrested him and in that situation we were able to identify no imbalance of power, really an isolated incident. The violence was an isolated incident in response to this really significant argument and the intervention strategy at that point is to really to deal with the stressor in his case, a gambling assessment and referral. You know, I'm thinking if I came home with a $30,000 credit card debt, my wife wouldn't be too happy either. The other thing that struck me about what we're dealing with here is the mental health cases that we're seeing more of, it seems like in recent years we've seen an increase in those cases and I'm just wondering in your experience with that increase in those cases are you seeing a correlation between domestic violence cases as well? Well, while we are all seeing more mentally disordered cases we're not seeing more abusers with mental disorders. By mentally disordered we're talking about major mental illness like schizophrenia and we're not talking about personality disorders or lesser disorders. Statistics show that offenders with major medical disorders have the same rate of violence in that population in the general population. It's only really when the severely mentally disordered offender stops taking his prescribed medication or add substance abuse to the mix that the violence may show up and it's near to the people who are near to him so it might be in a family member and that's how that population gets on our charts. You mentioned the substance abuse piece of it and I know just looking at the risk factors associated with the different types of abusers it seems like across the board that that is a risk factor and maybe you could just talk a little bit about the role of substance abuse in domestic violence cases. Well substance abuse is a trigger for acts of domestic violence. It doesn't cause domestic violence in and of itself. If someone has a propensity to domestic violence and you add a substance to that situation you may exacerbate the violence. Physical violence is just one of the behaviors that abusers use to keep their victims under control. It may be present, the physical violence may be present only when the offender is drinking but you'll see those controlling behaviors all the time with these offenders. Well there's one that we didn't spend a lot of time on with the self-defender. Is there anything that you can add there as far as that's something you see a lot of? I don't see, we don't see a lot of that and sometimes I don't think we pick it up really but the self-defender is where the woman is in a confrontation, a physical confrontation with her abuser and she's the one who actually inflicts injury but she's the victim of it. She's the one who's injuring her assailant and if he walks away without an injury it looks like she was the actual assailant. So it's something to keep in mind that it might be just someone defending themselves. Anything to add to that Nancy? Well I think the literature does also say that in those situations self-defending violence can sometimes be very lethal as well so maybe it would behoove us to think about some of the folks in our case of women in particular perhaps who might be in a domestic violence situation that is unrelated to their probation but might be significant in terms of needing to address in terms of the probation issues. I think we've got a pretty good handle on context just understanding what's going on in the relationship what type of abuser you may be dealing with and what we're going to do now is maybe just dig a little bit deeper into the dynamics of domestic violence and probably one of the most commonly used schematics to illustrate the dynamics of domestic violence is the power and control wheel and viewers you'll find that wheel on page six of your participant guide so if you turn there please and Nancy could you just spend a couple minutes walking us through this graphic? Yes the power and control wheel was developed by interviews with hundreds of battered women and the purpose of the interview was to get them to describe their experiences in relation to the violence and its impact on their lives so the wheel is designed to reflect those interviews the surrounding part of the wheel is the violence piece and it consists of sexual violence and physical violence and within it are the other kinds of behaviors that contribute to the overall domestic violence in that relationship some victims have said there may only need to be one violent act and thereafter any of these other behaviors in the middle of the wheel will be enough to maintain that fear or maintain that terror the first spoke of the wheel is the use of intimidation and this can be really overt or very subtle it might be as subtle as a look a gesture, a grimace something that would assign a little note that might have a different meaning to the victim than we might think or it can be very overt such as displaying of weapons or breaking things or injury to pets those kinds of things that are designed to intimidate a victim and remind her of the violence that could be coming her way the second spoke of the wheel is the use of emotional abuse and that would be the put downs, the name callings the victim made to feel like she is less than and that she's not equal and that she isn't in a position to assist herself it's also like really crazy making many victims say that they felt really crazy really demeaned very unable to stand up for themselves the third spoke is the use of isolation as a technique and this is really huge because whenever you hear a client talking about jealousy or a victim talking about he's very jealous the jealousy is a big piece because that jealousy or what they call jealousy keeps the victim from having relationships with other people from maintaining relationships with her family from maintaining relationships with friends and other third parties these victims sometimes are not allowed to go to work or if they do they come straight home they're monitored they're whereabouts they're comings and goings they're discouraged from maintaining normal family relationships like especially with sisters and mothers so the use of isolation is huge and obviously impacts the whole family the fourth spoke is the minimizing and the denying there is this denial really can't be understated this would be the offender who says it didn't happen or it didn't happen like she said or she started it and conveying that to the victim you started it you were violent first you were this well you made me do it really shifting the first saying it didn't happen or it didn't happen like you said or it wasn't as bad or it was your fault so that's the technique there the fifth spoke brings children into the equation and this is the really sad piece and kids get caught in this they witness it they go on to become abusers in some cases because of the witnessing they suffer all kinds of personal and emotional setbacks as a result of it but the abuser can go so far as to threaten to take the kids threaten to kill the kids threaten to take the kids from her if she leaves threaten to kidnap the kids and leave there's all kinds of really difficult dynamics around kids in these situations on some occasions the sixth spoke is male privilege male privilege is that sense that he is the king of the castle and he gets to have things his way it's just the way it is he can decide who goes where, who does what he decides what the discipline is he decides whether the dinner was good or bad it's really about him having that prerogative that is not anybody else's he defines everybody else's roles the seventh spoke is the use of economic abuse many batter women don't have much say in how the money is spent in those situations the abuser controls all the money he would be the individual who cashes his check rather than put it into a joint savings or joint checking account he controls what money is spent and where even if she's allowed to work and she may not be but if she's allowed to work her money still is not her own to spend she would not have the discretion to decide how to spend money for that family all of it has to be decided by him or at least reviewed by him and the eighth spoke is the use of coercion and threats many of the rest reports that I read are loaded with threats and I think we tend to hear them and think well it's just a threat a threat is really one aspect of the entire range of behaviors involved in domestic abuse and some of those threats are very believable to victims other kinds of threats that we are aware of and the coercion involves stuff like if you leave me I will kill myself if you leave me I'll kill you if you leave me I'll take the kids those kinds of threats designed to coerce a victim into being into being subservient doing what the perpetrator wants not upsetting the apple cart or not leaving when we look at all those spokes of the wheel and they may or may not all be present in a battering or an abusive relationship some or all of them may be there we want to look at how intense they are how frequent the severity and also the level of fear that they might cause I mean within to the victim and those are the things that we would consider as we go through the power and control wheel it just does a really nice job of illustrating all the different layers and the subtleties of domestic violence and I was really struck by how useful this could be for officers you know most of the time the people we have in supervision they're not on supervision for domestic violence offense they're on for something else and the domestic violence might bubble the surface later might be something we're aware of but it seems like if you have a handle on this wheel you can probably see the red flags when they come up identify situations as they arise probably ask the right questions about what's going on so you can kind of sort it out and decide how you're going to deal with it so I think it sounds like a really useful tool I think it is I agree particularly when you're dealing with interviewing victims who are not necessarily going to always be so forthright and you know tell you all the details of what's going on in their lives I mean officers really have to be attuned to those telltale signs of domestic violence and kind of staying on this line of discussion we do have a videotape that's going to illustrate some of the things we've talked about up to this point participants what I'd like you to do is stay on page six with the power and control wheel and as we begin to go through the videotape just watch the exchange and check off on the power and control wheel some of the dynamics that you see happening in this scenario and just to set this up for you a little bit what we have here is an officer doing an unannounced home visit to one of his offenders this offender is on supervision for stealing mail from his job as a postal employee he's been on supervision for about four months and there already have been some minor violations he's missed a couple of appointments there's been some other technical violations so the officer is making a visit just to try and get a handle on the situation what the officer finds when he gets to the home is that the offender is not home and he makes contact with the offender's wife, Megan so let's watch and see what happens this is Miller, I'm Dane Williams I'm Jared's probation officer is Jared here? no he probably had to work late he might be tied up in traffic could you come back another time? I really need to see Jared today I didn't show up for an appointment yesterday and I just want to make sure everything's okay Jared usually doesn't like for me to let people in the house when he's gone but since you're a probation officer go back and play quietly with your sister I'm fixing dinner he likes it ready when he gets home I've explained to Jared that while he's under supervision I'll be stopping by here and also by his job when I stop you and I can talk, okay? he didn't say anything about that well, I'm glad we'll be able to talk I can fill you in on some of the details go ahead and make dinner okay I guess it's okay since it's part of his probation so how have things been going with Jared and the family since he's been on probation? okay, I guess he spends more time with us since he doesn't have to work every day how many kids did you say you had? oh, three Michael's five just started kindergarten this year Michelle's three and the baby just turned two Jared wanted another boy this time but I think he likes Andrea anyway sure do keep your house clean Mrs. Miller are you a stay-at-home mom? oh I took a business course in high school before I got married and I liked working but Jared says he can support his family and I should stay home and take care of the house and kids so that's what I do no, you know daddy doesn't like for you to eat snacks and spoil your dinner looks like you hurt your arm how did that happen? I fell on it where's Jared? would you like for me to explain a little bit more about his probation? yeah he never tells me anything well in order for him to successfully complete his supervision he's gotta stay out of trouble with the law he can't use any drugs or alcohol we'll have to bring him in for drug tests from time to time he'll have to attend drug treatment stay employed and pay his restitution he's learned his lesson he's doing good how would you describe your relationship with Jared? oh we've been sweethearts since high school he's always taken care of me since he was arrested things have been hard he can't work every day and you know he lost his job because of this case he's just worried about paying the bills and all do you two ever fight about anything? all married people fight a little what sort of things do you guys fight about? I know there was that harassment charge a long time ago that must have been some fight oh, he doesn't get mad too often me and the kids try to keep him happy and how hard is that? well I keep the kids quiet when he's home and make sure his dinner's ready on time and the house has to be clean little things like that it sounds like it would be pretty hard to do all the time especially with three small children yeah, sometimes that looks painful now how did you say you heard it? oh I was carrying clothes up the basement stairs the basket was pretty heavy I strained my arm I thought you said you fell I did carrying the clothes back up Mrs. Miller, when was the last time Jared lost his temper here at home? a few days ago same day that you hurt your arm why don't you tell me what happened nah, right now honey daddy will be home soon you know he doesn't like to see toys all over the place go on back to the living room have a seat at the table Jared can have a temper he yells and throws things sometimes but he doesn't mean it he's always sorry afterwards and says he won't do it again Mrs. Miller do you feel safe with Jared when he's angry? of course I do well when he's mad he can forget his own strength but he doesn't mean to hurt me he's so sweet to bring me flowers and all I know what sets him off I just have to try harder not to let things happen Jared is angry with you what does he usually do? um, look I know what you're getting at he's not one of those men who beats his wife he's under a lot of pressure and sometimes he just loses his temper you do something to help him with his temper? it's not often how often is it? well he's not violent or anything just lots of yelling once he pushed me and then twisted my arm this time really he's a good man we need him here please don't tell him I told you this he said he's not gonna do it again that's that well I'll talk to Jared about counseling I won't tell him you've told me anything now has he ever hurt or hit the children? he would never hurt the kids he only spanks them when they don't follow the rules he tells them it's for their own good so they won't become spoiled brats when he gets too mad I put them in the car and drive them to my sisters then I come back by myself until he settles down well it sounds like you're trying to please Jared at the same time trying to protect your children yeah most of the time I know Jared's going to be right he's the man of the house he makes the important decisions I just really stand up to him if it's something about the kids Mrs. Miller are there firearms here? no has Jared ever owned a rifle or handgun? no when Jared began his supervision he told me that he had a rifle that he used to hunt deer is that still here somewhere in the house? oh he used to have a rifle that belonged to his grandfather but he gave it back have you noticed that he's used alcohol or drugs lately? he does drink some he likes to go out with his friends is he more likely to get angry when he's been drinking or using drugs? sometimes I try to be extra careful when he's been drinking he's had some pretty bad fights at the bar Mrs. Miller are you able to do pretty much anything you want to do or does Jared decide what you should do? I can do about anything I want I just like to check with Jared first he likes to know where I'm going and who I'm with how does Jared check up on you? sometimes he checks the car to make sure that I've gone where I said I was going has he ever threatened you? no he's a really sweet guy he cares a lot about us and doesn't know what he would do without me and the kids I don't know what he would do if we were to leave Mrs. Miller I'm concerned for your safety now most of the times the hitting and the pushing doesn't get better on its own it'll get worse without getting any help now we'll see what we can do for Jared but what about you? is there someone that can help you when he gets angry? someone that can help you make decisions about your situation? I'm okay I know how to handle Jared do you feel like you're in danger tonight? no well if you ever feel like you're in danger I want you to call 911 right away I'm going to give you one of my business cards and I'm going to put the number of the domestic violence agency in the back here they can help with emergency shelter, safety planning, counseling services put this where you can find it easily and if Jared is ever violent with you again I want you to call me as soon as you get to a safe place okay? well it looks like Jared's late today has he ever stopped anywhere on the way home from work? please trust that I'm not going to tell him that you told me anything but I need to know everything if I'm going to help you and Jared there was McNabb's bar on 4th off Broadway if he's there he'll be there while okay now give him this card it'll tell him to come down to my office first thing in the morning 8 o'clock on the way to work just tell him I stopped by and left that for you okay? okay I'll do that welcome back everybody as you saw Officer Williams did a really nice job with that situation probably got a little more than he bargained for walking into that situation but he did a nice job managing it and got some good information hopefully you followed along with your power and control wheel and noticed a number of the dynamics going on in that exchange and one of the things I noticed was that as he was talking to Megan despite the obvious indicators that the domestic violence was likely going on there was on her part just a lot of minimizing and denying that that was going on despite the evidence mounting as we went along so Nancy as you watched it what were some of the things that you saw that were some indicators for you? I think there were lots of red flags I think Megan's pretty intimidated she's very much trying to toe the line hold things together on that home front not disappoint him do things on his schedule she also talked about is not knowing his own strength that suggests to me that there's some recurring violence even though it may not be hitting if he's using his strength in some way that she was able to say that the stuff about the kids is a concern when things get really bad she puts them in the car and takes them to her sisters I don't know if that's to protect obviously it's to protect them from either the witnessing or from for something I also thought that there's a real isolation thing happening there she doesn't work outside the house anymore although she used to she documents her use of the car where she goes she doesn't let people in if he's not home that sort of directs us towards the isolation concern I also felt that the male privilege thing is pretty obvious he's the man of the house and she does things he does his decision making and she has her duties and that's just the way it is didn't seem to be an equal playing field to me in that relationship I also thought the economic issues were a concern she didn't have the choices about how much money although they don't have much money right now I mean how money would be spent or used there were really I think a number of red flags there and one thing that struck me too is that we talked earlier about risk factors and one of the things that they mentioned was the drug after care condition the fact that he was hanging out at the bar and drinking and I think just a note to the officer in that kind of situation is that that's something you need to be aware of that the stakes may be higher the risk for something happening is going to be greater because of some of those risk factors that are in place there but I think the thing that can be said for that is Officer Williams did a nice job asking the right questions and got a lot of information Kelly I don't know what did you see there that you liked as far as the way he guided that discussion well he used a few basic interview techniques that are very helpful when you're talking to victims of abuse this is not a relationship that probation officers are necessarily used to having so we're used to having relationships more with the offenders and we're sure of our role in that situation but with victims and with family members this is kind of uncharted territory I took some notes this offender has a record of harassment and so Megan's hand was a red flag to that he questioned her carefully and deliberately so as not to put her on the defensive this is all in trying to build that relationship with her he used empathy, he acknowledged her clean house and her dinner making, her keeping all her children in a row trying to please Jared and protect the children he used that empathy to make that connection with her second, he didn't use words like abuse which might immediately put her on the defensive especially when she's trying to protect Jared as well he talked about the power play in their relationship subtly, he asked her describe your relationship he said what kinds of things do you fight about he said what does Jared do when he gets angry he just broached that subject gently and didn't use words that put her on the defensive third, he used a line of questions so that when he began to ask Megan about her hand and then he kind of thought she probably wasn't telling the truth he dropped it but he did come back to it he made sure that he came back to that and there were a couple other issues like that fourth he asked and did a very good job I thought with open-ended and probing questions first he used the open-ended questions and then moved into closed questions these are basic interview techniques he asked how does Jared handle his anger he didn't give her choices does he do this, that or the other thing and answer the question for her he just left it and waited and allowed her to answer the question and then he probed for specific situations like the children, does he hit the children are there firearms in the house then he asked those closed questions the last note I just wanted to make here is about this relationship with victims in many ways it's similar to relationships we might have as probation officers with confidential informants and can be a really good source of information to keep that relationship in those lines of communication over open he also promised her confidentiality which we can't always do with victims but in this case he knew he could independently corroborate what she was saying to him with medical records and police reports and he could get the information elsewhere so he told her not to worry that he didn't have to tell Jared that they had had that discussion but that's not always the case sometimes you can't really control that he just did a nice job of asking the right questions he made her feel very comfortable as you noted and as a result I'm sure he got more cooperation and information from her I guess maybe the point to be made here is if you understand the dynamics of domestic violence you're aware of the context of your actions and use good interview skills you can get a lot of information in a relatively short time so that's a good tool for officers to be aware of Nancy let me ask you this then we've gone about getting some information we suspect that domestic violence is occurring within this relationship how do we go about gathering some more information maybe verifying what we know getting some supporting documentation kind of getting it organized into some useful format that we can use as we move toward maybe confronting the offender about his behavior viewers if you will turn to page nine in your materials there is a list and sort of a framework for organizing this wide variety of information you may be collecting in these situations the first thing to consider really are the facts of the presenting incident it should be kind of an analysis of what was the case here with the most recent violence and the probation officer did that he determined what had happened a few nights earlier may involve figuring out who called 911 what people felt was happening when that happened what were the effects of the violence in this case there was a hospital visit so really looking at the most recent incident the presenting incident to get the detail about it collect that in that first first piece of your information gathering the second piece I think to consider is really the impact as we've spoken of previously of the violence and the abuse on the victim what's the physical impact we got to see that with Megan what's the emotional impact is she intimidated where are things at this point in time any steps she's taking has she sought any order for protection has she received any support services advocacy services in her own right is she taking steps towards possible separation or something I mean those are the things to consider what effect has this most recent violence had within this family situation the third kind of place to put information and to check your information is to look for the presence to have a list of those viewers in the back of our materials and they bear watching because these relationships really are in flux and risk can go up or down depending upon the situation but we really want to look at is there separation is an enormous risk so is there an impending separation is that a piece that may be happening are there other is the violence escalating in frequency and severity there are a number of risk factors to screen for mental health factors suicide is a huge suicidal ideation on the part of the perpetrator suicidal homicidal ideation those are huge risk factors to at least screen for at this part of our information gathering next category would be the presence of substance abuse issues and mental health issues and again the suicidal that kind of thing is huge but obviously the substance abuse and I think we're getting a sense that Jared is reckless he's had some dirty UA's and he's drinking and he knows that he's willing to do that despite a court order so that tells us there's an element there of some serious abuse I think current stressors now this is a relationship that has a number of stressors I think circumstances financially that seems to be huge impact of having to go through treatment having to go through job search having to be on probation if it's a stressor to the abuser it's going to be a stressor in the relationship too so evaluating those current stressors and he did a good job of that he asked about them he acknowledged them so he has taken that inventory as well and the relationship is another thing to consider the reason for doing that is to understand if things are escalating or things are deteriorating significantly in this case he found out that the parties had been together since high school and it probably was not always as violent or as difficult as it's been of late so he made sure to get some understanding about that dynamic in the relationship and then lastly the history of abuse with others Jared has had some bar fights and stuff but she also mentioned he goes drinking with his buddy so he has some male relationships but it's one more piece to consider the history of abuse he has with others so those are the interview items that he was able to identify we also want to make really good use of the records that might be available to us and sometimes the interviewing piece can direct us toward the records that we're going to need to seek out viewers if you'll also take a look at the 11 in your materials there is a pretty thorough list of the kinds of records that you might be able to gather for purposes of your assessment first we want to look at criminal justice records and I would encourage all of us to not look only at convictions but also at those cases which were dismissed and even 911 calls many domestic violence cases and there's a high rate of dismissal with domestic violence cases dismissed it is not an indicator that there wasn't a violent incident so to look at not just convictions but also look at charges and dismissals and even 911 calls and look for a pattern civil court records can be really important orders for protection obviously for those of you who don't routinely do it NCIC has a query that you can make relative to protective orders that's the national registry but each state has their own statewide registry which gets fed into the NCIC so you can get some sense of at least current records state registries will have some history as a rule you might see an individual with a series of orders for protection brought by a variety of women or brought by this same victim more than once so checking for orders for protection things like divorces you can look to see has this person been divorced when, how long ago how many times be an indicator if there have been sequential relationships so civil court records maybe even things like unlawful detainers and money judgment records can give you a little bit of insight into this person's stressors and their situation the third area are social service records and this can be huge if you can determine that there have been open child protection cases perhaps because of the domestic violence or chemical use and abuse or neglect those can be really informative other kinds of social history records would be things like referrals for counseling or other kinds of community based supervision or community based treatment interaction and the fourth category is medical and treatment records people who have actually been referred for chemical health treatment in the past maybe they've been referred maybe there are hospital records there are some of the records that I think we should attempt to access as part of this assessment I think Kelly are both going that's a lot of information you need to think about maybe is there something that officers can do to maybe boil that down and make it something that's easy to manage and look at that might be a good tool for them as they go about confronting the offender to make it more digestible the information that we've gathered can be placed plugged into that little scenario that list I just gave you but one thing that's been helpful for me sometimes is just to make a timeline to start out with a timeline noting the convictions the current ones and any previous ones and then layer in 9-1-1 calls and charges that might have been dismissed and then on top of that you can put in other periods pieces of information that you've got issuance of orders for protection divorces other kinds of things if you can lay those into your timeline you really can get a very interesting and dynamic picture of what's gone on with this individual it also can help you determine if things seem to be escalating or deteriorating it sounds like if you do your homework you got something there that's going to be helpful to you in moving ahead with the case viewers we do have another videotape that's going to illustrate what we've been talking about as far as preparing for the case planning interview what I'd like you to do is just take a minute to turn to page 12 and your participant guide and there you'll find some guidelines on conducting a case planning interview and what I'd like you to do is just kind of keep it open to that page as we watch Officer Williams conduct his interview with the offender Jared follow along and pay attention to what you see Officer Williams doing consistent with what's in your participant manual just to set it up just quickly he's called Jared to his office and he's going to confront him with the information and put his preparation to use so let's watch Jared I left word for you to come down here today because you didn't show up for your appointment on Wednesday well you know I didn't have time because I got busy at work so I could call just an appointment I expect the courtesy of a phone call okay now the breathalyzer shows .04 what is alcohol doing in your system at lunchtime I have no idea I didn't drink anything this morning well what about last night I went out with a few of the guys from work and I had two beers so that must be it Jared I think two beers would be long gone from your system by now I think you had a few more than that I had one by 10 I had two beers and that's it alright well let's talk about something else records from the clerk's office show you have not yet made a payment towards restitution you're supposed to pay 10% of your gross salary each month I'm a little bit behind on that see my wife she hurt her arm and I had to take her to the emergency room so I had to pay for that so I couldn't make the court payment well I'd like to see the ER paperwork from the hospital I need to verify that expense okay no problem alright now can you make a payment from your next paycheck we could set up a court date to amend the restitution order if it's too much look just don't worry I'll make the payment I told you it's just a doctor's bills yeah your wife's arm I saw it was bandaged how did that happen again she fell on the stairs she's like a real drama queen so you know I took her to the hospital and the doctor says it's just a little bruise so when does probation end you know you have three years left alright next topic how's the job going I can't get enough hours on that I mean you know sometimes they don't work because of the weather or they don't need me depending on where the job is he talked to your supervisor and he did say that they can't always use you he said you're doing a good job though but you do have a lot of financial responsibilities and it's important that you remain employed with Casey until something better comes along and did you check out those referrals for employment counseling I gave you they should be able to get you a full time job that pays better than what you're getting now I haven't gone down there yet I just don't have the time it's like you said if there's work I need the money well yeah you do need money you also need a lot less stress in your life as well why don't you try going after work I mean the employment agency is open until seven o'clock they have clients just like yourself who work during the day and go after work now they should be able to help you find a better job in less time with less aggravation why don't you give them a call on Monday and then give me a call let me know how it goes alright I'll go but you know ten years in the post office doesn't exactly give you much experience to do anything else well that's exactly why you should go ask them about training I know they have a heating ventilation and air conditioning program that pays pretty good they have other programs too and my cousin did something like that he made pretty decent money alright I'll check it out okay great now back to those two beers last night now you say you got home about ten o'clock I didn't do any drugs last night well that's about the only good thing we can say about last night isn't it you're not allowed to drink alcohol Jared you're risking your freedom by drinking it shows it's too important to you even if you just had two beers which I seriously question it's still too many does that make sense yeah I see you tested positive for marijuana two weeks ago but I asked the guy if I was positive the guy takes a test and he said that you'd tell me if I was since I didn't hear anything from you I just figured I was alright well that test takes a long time to come back it's much different than the breathalyzer Jared are you smoking pot every day or once in a while look it's just once in a while I've stopped I have, I quit you can test me right now if you want I had the beers I probably had more than two beers but man I quit the weed well I appreciate your honesty Jared you're gonna need to tell me the truth if we're gonna work together but be careful now we'll have a UA test done to make sure the levels of metabolite have decreased enough to show that you quit the weed but you're really pushing the envelope here you've been under supervision for four months already we're going back to the judge with a violation and we're not gonna recommend any sanctions this time but you can bet we will in the future if you don't get your act together what's a sanction a sanction is a consequence of a violation of probation it could be community service could be home confinement could be halfway house placement but the judge does not have to follow our recommendation he could put you in jail remember the day you were sentenced well you could be standing in the same spot in the same courtroom trying to explain to the judge why you drank two beers smoking dope and failed to pay towards restitution alright I'll do better I swear can't we do anything else well there's drug treatment now have you called the treatment program yet I called but there was no answer I called I called twice Jared we talked about this several times you agreed to go now the program is open every day until five for referrals and intake they have treatment groups that meet in the evening for those who work now I expect that you make an appointment today and call me on Monday if I'm not there leave a message they will fax over a confirmation as soon as you have attended your first intake session now you've showed up regularly for your drug test so continue to check for your number and come in on the days you're supposed to got it yeah alright now I learned something this morning that's very disturbing last Friday there was a 911 call to your house about a domestic disturbance your wife didn't press charges but the police report indicates she suffered minor injuries and that you were drunk and uncooperative that bitch she's the one who told you this stuff isn't she calm down Jared calm down when you're in this office I expect that you use language that's appropriate when you refer to your wife I found this information out independently okay now the police report if you check this out copy the police report with the 911 call and you can see you know I did not ask your wife anything and she did not tell me anything I did learn some other things though according to your pre-sentence report you have a previous charge for assault against your wife in which you were allowed to plead to harassment that was a long time ago and nothing's happened since then I had a couple of beers and she got all mad I work hard to support her and those kids and this is the thanks I get look she came at me all I did was back off so that she wouldn't hit me and she fell down the stairs she was yelling and crying the kid was crying and it was the nosy neighbor who called the cops the cops they didn't arrest me because they knew nothing had happened what a pain in the ass the old lady falls down and I get blamed for it use your wife's name okay Megan's as clumsy as a cow she's hurting herself all the time your wife is not a cow that's bullshit Megan hurts herself just so that she can blame me all right now Jared the police report is clear that your wife did not hurt herself all right there's threats, violence and intimidation to get her to do what you want her to do I don't abuse my wife I love her we've been together since high school she comes from a broken family her father's a drunk and I took her away from all that how does a man supposed to keep his house together I provide the money and the discipline she cooks and she cleans that's just the way it is Jared a man is not allowed to use abuse and violence to control his wife and kids okay domestic violence is a crime now one of the terms of your probations you're not allowed to commit any more crimes and if you're battering your wife and kids you're committing a crime yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever all right well I'm not going to argue with you about this I want an expert opinion I want you to go for a domestic violence assessment when we get the report back then we'll figure out what to do no way I'm not crazy I'm not going for any assessment whatever that is I don't batter or whatever you call it my wife I don't batter anyone everybody has the right to get mad every now and then you would too if you weren't making the money you're used to and the wife and kids and bills are down your throat all the time man if I could just make more money things would get better I know that you're under a lot of pressure financially but I don't think making more money is the answer to this situation with your wife using violence against your wife and children at any time is against the law the assessment that I'm asking you to participate in will assess the extent and severity of abuse within your family and the risk for future problems it will involve interviews with you and Megan as well as a review of court and other records it will give us some recommendations to improve the safety of your family I'm going to schedule a court hearing and ask the court to impose a special condition that you participate in a domestic violence assessment and any treatment recommended as a result of the assessment contact your lawyer today and tell him we'll be in court soon you can explain to the judge why you shouldn't have this assessment after hurting your wife after the police were at your house and you were drinking that night okay I'll go but it was her fault she fell you know I pushed her but I never punched her well maybe once she was coming at me and a woman you have a right to a court hearing before the special condition is imposed and you have a right to be represented by counsel at that hearing or the court may impose the condition without a hearing if you waive it now this waiver that I'm asking you to sign includes the condition that the court would impose please read this waiver carefully and sign it if you understand it and you agree that the condition can be imposed without the hearing alright now let me warn you that if you hit your wife or otherwise harm her or anyone else it is a violation of your probation and I will ask the court to issue a warrant for your arrest is that clear? keep your hands to yourself alright now I want to see you again next week at the same time here's an appointment card and a list of things that you need to do here alright now make the first payment on your fines and court costs by the end of the month no drugs or alcohol and make an appointment at the drug treatment agency today I gave you the name and address do you still have it? good alright call me on Monday to let me know when your intake appointment is go to the employment agency on Monday after work and remember no violence of any kind to anyone including your wife and kids we're going to call the domestic violence agency now to set up an appointment for an assessment I'll dial and you talk hello yeah this is Jared Miller welcome back well once again Officer Williams does a nice job managing that situation I think he's like my new supervision officer role model I think I have to try and be a little bit more like him I think the point to be made here is that he did a really nice job of being prepared as we talked about earlier he had a good handle on what was going on and asked the right questions Kelly as you were watching that what are some of the interview skills and some of the things that you saw that you like that Officer Williams did well there are a few things he used some of the same techniques that he used with Megan but this relationship and the tone of the interview was very different his relationship with Megan he's very empathetic and helpful and the interview went like that with Jared however he's supportive but he makes it clear that there are things that he expects Jared to do and he'll certainly enforce consequences if they're not done first of all he didn't allow Jared to blame Megan he didn't allow Jared to minimize the behavior and both of these things are very common among abusers secondly he confronted Jared's denials with information that was very questionable like UA reports police reports, medical reports he had the documentation to refute his denials I liked when Jared denied smoking pot and Officer Williams let it go for a while and then when he came back to it he said he gave him a choice do you smoke pot a little bit or do you smoke it every day because that allowed Jared to his guilt will talk if it's caught off guard a little bit but meanwhile Officer Williams had what he needed which was the admission that Jared did smoke pot third he was very clear about his expectations for Jared and the conditions of his supervision he not only told Jared what he expected to do but gave him a very firm and tight timeline I thought next week you must do this, you have to call me after you call the treatment facility he didn't argue with Jared I thought Jared baited him a couple times to try to get him into an argument and he just didn't take the bait when Jared started to lose his temper he knows that this individual has a propensity to violence because of everything that's gone on so when Jared starts to lose his temper he changes the subject temporarily knowing he's going to come back to it but it gives Jared a chance to cool off a little bit finally he didn't collect finally he didn't collude with the abuser he didn't allow him to call Megan names he didn't commiserate with any personal information he just didn't collude with Jared at all so those are the things that I saw yeah I agree, anything to add Nancy on that end no I think he was very specific and I like that I'll dial Utah it's a nice way to end it what we're going to do now we've used our knowledge of dynamics of domestic violence to gather some information we've got supporting documentation we've confronted the offender about his behavior and kind of moving toward case planning how are we going to respond and intervene in this situation first of all what we need to understand is that there are three goals in terms of case planning that we need to really be mindful of that we don't do anything and those are the first thing you want to do is to stop the violence and secondly you want to hold the offenders accountable for their behavior and lastly you want to work to change abusive behavior and thinking patterns so giving what we know up to this point Nancy what are some strategies that officers can use really to manage these cases in terms of you know intervention well with them when you supervise the case or when you're doing your case planning you want to first look at sanctions and whatever is an appropriate sanction to the behavior and the level of offense you need to look at that first I would say that you should be cautious about home confinement in domestic abuse cases if the offender is going to be confined with their victim that would be a concern but sanctions whatever is appropriate conditions and special conditions you already have in place in this case the officer had a no use condition he had the ability to do home visits he certainly had the ability to mandate office visits he had the ability to test, breathalyze and urinalysis use those things you might ratchet up the frequency and the intensity make it a more intense surveillance but use the conditions you have and use them fully if you have treatment conditions and so forth that you can direct the person towards appropriate treatment do it, do it quickly make it happen sooner rather than later and in the tight time frame that we saw Officer Williams use the third thing would be to really consider some appropriate intervention strategies for a domestic violence situation and that would involve a look at the kind of perpetrator you have, the kind of risky poses and what level of intervention is appropriate we'll talk about that in a second the fourth thing is to maintain contact with the victim and I think that's the tough part for probation officers we're used to, you know when we've talked before we've said we're comfortable in our role with offenders, we're less so with victims but you really need to do that here and it should not always be us responding to their call with a concern it should be us initiating the contact on a check in basis doing it on our terms not always theirs that would be the fourth piece about the supervision is that victim contact I want to go back for a minute something you said about the domestic violence intervention programs and I think this is an important point we don't want to gloss over not everything works with every offender and it kind of gets back to understanding the context and what kind of offender you're dealing with what kind of abuser you're dealing with can you just spend a little bit more time talking about what's appropriate in which cases viewers you might look at page 14 and 15 in your materials we've tried to just define several kinds of common treatment interventions for your use there there are different interventions depending upon the kind of abuse that's going on but basically there are three types the first is education based programming and education based programming is more geared towards the person who is the low risk offender of violence maybe not the entrenched power and control model those programs are often based on a format of presentation around certain things like emotional regulation good better communication parenting issues followed by some discussion 10 to 20 hours in length perhaps and appropriate for that type of offender a low level offender the second type of programming is a more heavy duty therapy based program and there will certainly be educational concepts in that format however it will also be geared towards each participant understanding the power and control dynamics and incorporating some changes into their own behavior and as you would expect those programs are longer you know anywhere from 20 to 60 or even more hours in length maybe as many as 2 to 6 months of therapy so that would be the second kind we do see referrals for anger management on occasion but I think we have to be cautious about those and really understand the content of the program anger management is really about emotional regulation and it would be for that person who is angry in a lot of contexts not just in the family so in a person who has got road rage and drives around with high blood pressure you know that's an example but and it may be appropriate in conjunction with domestic violence counseling as well the thing that I would encourage us to all avoid is any couples counseling when we have an untreated batter in that setting because it really can put the victim at risk but before we move on I would like to say just a word about working with a provider and on page 17 in your materials for that but really look at the programs in your jurisdiction see what's out there if there are state standards in your community for regulating program content and so forth try to go with a program that meets those state standards or guidelines or license whatever might be appropriate make sure you get a lot of releases and good documentation it doesn't pay to use programs that won't provide you with any information and so you know negotiate that up front and get all that information from them and to them they'll want information from you arrest reports and any information that can assist them the third thing is to really understand and make sure your clients understand what the rules are so that if they can't follow them what the consequences might be if it's too much and you're out your client needs to know what that might mean for their probation the fourth thing would be to really understand the curriculum if you can understand the curriculum you can then reinforce those concepts in your interviews with your client how is your self-control plan going what sort of escalation have you had over the past week how did you deal with it because you understand what the program expects and how he is doing his assignments and what he's supposed to be gaining I think it's just something we don't think enough about as far as which offenders should be referring to which programs I think it's important information to get out there I'm going to shift our focus just for a minute I know earlier you mentioned victim and maintaining contact with the victim and I got to say I think this is probably one of the biggest areas of frustrations for officers involved in these cases as you stated earlier I mean we know what to do with offenders and we know how to deal with non-compliance the waters get a little muddied when we're dealing with victims we're not sure what our role is we don't really know how to handle that sometimes and it can be an extremely frustrating thing to deal with Kelly I want to direct this to you because I know you just completed a training program not too long ago in your district for your officers around domestic violence and maybe you could just talk for a minute about some of the questions and comments that they presented to you as a result of that training I did have an opportunity to speak to six different groups of officers and I think we've addressed most of the concerns that they brought up around this issue but there were two questions that kept coming up over and over again one of them was why does she stay why doesn't she just leave and the other one was what if she's calling me to tell on her husband but it's not true what if she's calling just to get him in trouble and the violence is not occurring what if I don't believe her so those were the two questions that came up over and over again to relate to the first one in particular just looking back on recent cases we can do all the things we've been talking about in terms of making sure the victim's safe and trying to make the appropriate frozen confronting the offender on their behavior and implementing proper sanctions and the next thing you know the next day they're calling them and they're back living together it's just terribly frustrating Nancy maybe you got some good advice to really help us stay focused a little bit without having that question come up all the time even if you know the answer you still have to keep reminding yourself viewers if you want to take a look in your materials on pages 20 through 22 there's a list of victim risk issues but I think it's really helpful to review those in consideration of why victims make the decisions they do there are lots of risks for her and some of them are not what you might expect you know she has the obvious risks that are this risk of injury risk of social alienation loss of her children all those kinds of things but you can add to that just risks in life how does the violence and reporting the violence might affect her housing, her ability to work her schooling, her immigration in addition to that there are lots of risks with going through our criminal justice system most victims as we know don't call the police because they want a divorce they call the police because they want the violence to stop and they look to the system to help stop the violence not necessarily to end the relationship and some victims look for help in assisting with the end of a relationship but many times that's not the purpose so if we assume that's the purpose or assume that should be their purpose we are actually I think setting ourselves up for some disappointment the other area that I think is huge is the issue of separation risks which are listed on page 23 of your materials it may not be safe to leave and it may not even be a good decision to leave so to expect it or to direct our you know our efforts toward that might actually be a bad thing so I think most of the domestic homicides have occurred in the context of estrangement or separation so it may not be a good decision to leave so just to bear that in mind when you do it it's really about us participating in a process of safety for her accountability for our client and not to have any expectations about the outcome of the relationship well maybe we could deal with the second part of that question I think that Kelly brought up what if you just don't believe the victim what they're telling you well and some victims don't always sound believable I mean we're assuming that they're gonna you know there again we have some assumptions that may or may not be valid but we're not the finders of fact courts are the finders of fact and in order for her to bring a violation that's credible and it has to be provable and we have some you know we have to follow whatever procedures we have but I would also caution you to remember that lots of times victims have very inflated views of what the probation officer can and can't do they may assume they may have a false sense of security they may assume that you can somehow you know whip him into shape and make this whole thing better to listen be empathic but to then remember that we need to remind them of how what our limitations are what we can and cannot do so there is no sense of false security because we can't ensure their safety and I guess maybe what I'm hearing from you is probably some of this is normal in officers as they deal with these domestic violence cases should probably expect recanting and maybe returning to the relationship and those kinds of things and maybe patience and persistence will pay off eventually stay focused on the process I don't think it will make it any less frustrating but maybe we could just talk a little bit about given the frustration and some of the challenges of these cases what are some things that officers can do to kind of stay focused on the important things as we move through these cases well we talk in our office about the way not to mess up is to really don't get thrown off course by that predictable behavior some recants and retreats expect it prepare for it do what you need to be prepared and keep focused on the safety goal but secondly again don't sweat the fate of the relationship you have no control over that third you want to stay focused on your offenders behavior and his accountability and fourth your assessment has to be ongoing these relationships are fluid you may think you know patched up one day and the next day it's not but it's a constant process of assessment and last changing behavior is a slow process requires a lot of accountability people don't change easily good advice thank you we're eventually coming to the end of our program here I guess is there anything else that we didn't cover that requires comment can either of you think of anything about the moments of the program here that we need to cover I just wanted to touch on the frustration of these cases and the fact that there's three people involved in this relationship and all have differing goals the officer just that's the officer the offender and the victim and the officer just wants the offender to adhere to the conditions of his supervision right the offender just wants to keep doing what he's doing and the victim just wants the violence to stop not like Nancy necessarily for her marriage to end so we have three people in this relationship that may have diametrically opposed goals about the whole situation and I think that's where a lot of the frustration lies I just oh I'm sorry I just wanted to say one other thing about about when you have someone calling you giving you information the wife calling you and giving you information and that is you know we have these this happens on cases all the time on all different kinds of cases people calling us trying to rat out our offenders and we need to not let the fact that this is a domestic violence case muddy that water we deal with that the way we would deal with any other piece of information of somebody just calling out of the blue to rat out an offender so you try to independently corroborate and you take the action as necessary but I just don't think we need to because it's a domestic violence case that we need to get you know stuck in place some good things to keep in mind thank you we're to the end of our program I know I learned a lot just getting ready for the program and our discussions together as we got ready I'm light years ahead of where I was before now and I hope viewers that you walked away with something as well that helps you stay focused and maybe reduces some of that frustration as you have these cases and have to manage them just a couple things to keep in mind the importance of understanding the dynamics of your skills always being aware of those red flags and what to do with them you're going to be okay so thank you for your time today I would also encourage you to use that participant guide as a resource there's some good resources in the back websites and articles use that as you have these cases and need to refer back to it thank you very much and I'm going to throw it back to Phyllis John thank you so much Kelly Nancy that was a terrific program I know that I learned a lot sitting here and listening to it and also working with you people where we were planning out the program viewers thank you for turning in and tuning in and I'd also like to remind you to please fill out your evaluations we're most interested in hearing your reactions to today's program and that wraps up the program thank you have a great day


Do you have some direction for them? She's doing it in the camera! She does that on my computer too. I'm like... I don't think she looks in there really. She looks like Steven Spielberg himself. I'm annoying. I love her so much.