Looking forward to 2022

At HMA, we have certainly experienced a few curve balls over 23 years of business. The 2011 Christchurch earthquake saw the floor we owned in a high-rise building come crashing down. Thank goodness none of our team were injured. I almost lost my shirt on that one as we waited for insurance companies to settle our claims. I remember a crucial question at the time was, “Do we continue the HMA brand or not”. Several people rallied around me through that difficult time, clarifying what HMA could contribute moving forward. We decided to continue with the mission of ‘Working with passion and integrity to bring out the best in people’. These ideas have been the touchstone of our work.

More recently, with Covid closing the borders, we have quickly pivoted to doing business differently. The joke in the team is that I have spent more time in one place (Otautahi/Christchurch) during the past year than I have during the past thirty. Our carbon miles are way down, which is a bonus, although we have been an early member of the CarboNZero offset program. The other upside is that this has provided more space to consider where HMA is best positioned as we continue to live with a greater degree of uncertainty. 

To that end, we have been working on four inspiring projects which we will be rolling out during 2022. 

The first is a website app to support men who are undertaking behaviour change interventions for family violence. This application will be an individual resource, nuanced for each man working to disrupt family violence in their lives and create family/whanau well-being. It will be a resource that agencies will be able to license to support their change work in an ongoing manner. Much of the practice relies upon a once a week connection which is insufficient for deeper level change. The tool will assist in building a community of interest that can continue post-intervention. 

The second relates to capturing my thinking regarding the intervention journey with men who engage in violence within their households. Having worked in family violence for over 40 years, I have been privileged to be able to think
deeply about the practice and train people in evidence-based interventions. This has been a passion rather than a job. As we increasingly understand the background factors that make men more likely to engage in abusive practice/family violence in their relationships, our practice needs to reflect that. Many men don’t engage well in behaviour change, indicating that we are not listening well to their lived experiences. Anyone who has sat with a group of men who engage in family violence will know that many have experienced trauma growing up (just add up those ACE’s – adverse childhood experiences). Therefore, it is little surprise that we see the behaviour we do when we add toxic masculinity to these experiences. This does not excuse current behaviour but may go some way to contextualise and identify the keys to disrupting entrenched behaviour.  I am currently writing a book on intervention practice for family violence, which should be launched around September 2022. 

Thirdly, I have been passionate about up-skilling facilitators to engage in best practice for most of my professional life.  I will be running a number of masterclasses during 2022. The themes will include Motivational Interviewing Approaches to Working with Family Violence, Onboarding for Family Violence Intervention Work, Engagement and Assessment Skills around Family violence. These will be limited to 16 participants per course so we can engage in in-depth conversation and experiential learning. In addition to meeting online via Zoom, the curriculum will also involve self-paced eLearning. 

Our fourth and last big project for 2022 is the redesign of the HMA Disrupting Family Violence program. There will be three versions of the current program design for different audiences. Version 1 is a 50-hour program designed for community providers. Version 2 which includes 75 hours of intervention work, is for medium risk men within a custodial environment. A 100-hour version will also be available for a higher risk cohort. Matching intervention dosage with risk profiles is consistent with evidence-based research. 

We see 2022 as a significant year for consolidating and developing further the work of HMA. We will keep you informed of further work as it emerges. Let’s hope we don’t encounter any curveballs over the Holiday/New Year period.