Innovative Approaches to Stopping Family Violence (2003)

Ken McMaster and Arthur Wells (eds.) HMA, Lyttelton

RRP $29.95 paperback — 280 pages — ISSN 1-877228-97-4

You can now download this book for free - see links below

Stopping family violence continues to be a challenging area of practice. Innovative approaches to stopping family violence explores practice issues facing those working to reduce family violence in New Zealand. It brings together the writings of practitioners dealing with a number of practice difficulties in the field.

The book has three main parts:

• Working with women and children includes a number of key challenges to the field with chapters on engaging with women’s stories, working with women who abuse, working with children affected by violence, violence in same sex relationships, and working with gang women.
• Interventions with men who are violent to women and children involves rethinking the way we construct and intervene in family violence. It develops ideas around effective groupwork with men who are abusive, Maatua Whangai programmes, working with couples, and working with men who are violent to children.
• Issues and challenges of working in the abuse field includes chapters on maintaining our passion and integrity in the work, supervision as a key to safe practice, measuring the effectiveness of what we do, and how to train people for the difficult roles they will undertake.

Written for practitioners by practitioners, this book will be of immense value to those who work in the field and feel the need to extend their knowledge and skills.

This book will be of interest if you:

• counsel those who are victimised by abuse
• counsel those who perpetrate abuse
• work with children witnessing violence and abuse
• are involved in social work or human service training programmes
• study in the human services area
• supervise workers in the field
• work in a policy role related to family violence.

Five reasons why you should have this book:

1. Stopping family violence continues to be a challenging area of practice. Innovative Approaches to Stopping Family Violence explores practice issues facing those working to reduce family violence in New Zealand.
2. It is written by practitioners for practitioners, and is full of ideas about the practice of stopping violence. Each of these practitioners is very experienced in their respective area of work and so together they paint a rich tapestry of debate.
3. You will have the opportunity to explore a number of current debates in the field and reflect upon your own practice.
4. You will gain new understandings into particular aspects of practice. The book includes a broad range of practice ideas and practical dilemmas in working to stop family violence, and is rich in ideas about how to work with particular populations.
5. It is written very much with Aotearoa New Zealand practice in mind and so speaks very directly to our context. The book deals with a number of issues from both Maori and Pacific Island perspectives.