Conference Goals & Core Values

Conference Mission

To support and enhance batterer intervention program efforts by building bridges of cooperation and capacity within and between systems and community processes for preventing violence against women and children by men.

 

Conference Goals

The primary goals of this conference are to:

• Provide group facilitators and batterer intervention program staff opportunity and space for respectful dialog, sharing perspectives, learning and networking with colleagues.
• Provide opportunity for groups who have not historically been included in these gatherings to dialog, share perspectives, learn and network among themselves relative to intervening with men who batter in their respective professional fields.

Conference Core Values

• The safety and wellbeing of domestic violence victims (primarily women and children) is the first priority.
• Working to stop men's battering of women has at least three dimensions: program response, systems response, and a wider societel response. This conference seeks to include all three dimensions.
• Batterer intervention programs cannot stop battering by themselves. An accountable criminal justice system provides a consistent back-up to nonviolence and community partnership.
• Each cultural group best knows their own strengths and vulnerabilities. 'Culture' and 'identity' are complex ideas that describe who we are. Gender, race, class, orientation, age, ability and other elements combine to give a snapshot of a person's reality.
• Effective ways of stopping men's violence against women and children address both culture and identity. This conference spotlights the knowledge and experience of those who are marginalized by dominant culture.
• We are the community we want our communities to be. Dialogue about our differences models the respectful behavior that we expect of the men we work with. Effective dialogue includes listening and understanding more than having to be understood.
• Research and evaluation can show us what works, and where we need to focus new light. This conference identifies research that guides practice and uncovers new ways to evaluate our work.