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The place of groupwork in social change

I love group work. I love training people in the effective use of groups. I love the idea that people with similar issues can come together and support each other […]

What does it mean to be accountable?

Last week I was running a masterclass on Disrupting Family Violence, and the issue of accountability versus responsibility arose. I believe that in the DFV sector, we have embraced a […]

Who uses domestic, family, and sexual violence, how, and why?

At the recent ‘Working with Men to End Family Violence’ online conference, Associate Professor Michael Flood from the Queensland University of Technology presented a state of knowledge report on violence […]

Substance Misuse, Trauma and Family Violence

There is often heated debate about the links between these three factors. When a report from the Centre for Justice Innovation (UK) Substance misuse, trauma and domestic abuse perpetration: The […]

Is exposure to family violence a gateway to sexual violence?

I have increasingly been interested in the question of pathways that lead a person to engage in harmful behaviour, such as family violence and sexual violence. While it is generally […]

29% of adults have experienced sexual assault or intimate partner violence in their lifetime

    Every year I look forward to the data from the New Zealand Crime And Victim Survey (Cycle 4 November 2022 – November 2021, N=6,244, response rate 76%). Looking […]

24/7 support for men kicking the behaviour of abusive practices

Have you ever wondered how much learning transfer occurs from the in-room or online session you are running back into the person’s life? This is an issue that has vexed […]

People with brain injuries, developmental issues ‘over-represented’ in justice system – new report by Chief Science Advisor (Justice)

We have always known the challenges of those who are imprisoned in terms of early life trauma due to issues such as exposure the family violence and general violence, drug […]

Disrupting Family Violence Programme Launch!

Disrupting Family Violence & Moving Closer to Family Wellbeing An 18+ session family violence intervention programme for men Family violence has emerged from behind closed doors since the second wave […]

Empathy: The foundation of best practice

We are currently working with Corrections Victoria on a large pilot program implementing aspects of motivational interviewing with custodial staff. This is happening in two prison sites and a probation […]

Compassion… The greatest of virtues

Ranked a great virtue in numerous philosophies, compassion is considered in almost all the major religious traditions as among the greatest of virtues. Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to help […]

Being careful how we see others

‘Me against my brother; my brother and I against my cousin; myself, my brother and my cousin against others’, so goes this old Arab Bedouin saying. It is however problematic […]

Technology… An abuser’s best friend?

Nowadays, the same technology designed to make our lives easier and more efficient, is increasingly being used as a tool to monitor, manipulate, shame and control people easily, and at […]

Men’s Safety Project – A FREE site for men and practitioners

81% of people think it is possible to change people’s behaviour around family violence* So do we… It’s not uncommon for men to struggle with patterns of abusive behaviour in […]

Making behaviour change sticky

Here’s a question… What do you do after learning something new? Answer: I bet you go back to doing what it is that you usually do the whole time thinking, “that […]

Small numbers of family violence offenders create big impact!

Over the summer I received a tweet from the Sentencing Council in Victoria which reported half of reported domestic violence harm was caused by 2% of offenders. The report, by […]

Mindful Facilitation

Have you ever walked into a group session and found yourself in reactive mode to one or more of the participants? Have you ever walked away from a session, knowing you […]

HMA launches new website

We are excited. Today we launch our new website (www.hma.co.nz). Over the past three months we have been working with Wired Internet Group to rebuild our website so that it […]

Anxiety robs us of our empathy

I spend a lot of time working in the criminal justice area with staff around general offending or family violence. The literature from the motivational interviewing field teaches us that […]

Our big successes

People often ask me, “What do you do?”. Putting this into a two minute pitch is often difficult. When asked I say our team is about enhancing community safety and […]

Case study on HMA features on Totara site

As you will know Hall McMaster & Associates (HMA) is a niche consulting agency. HMA provide programme design, training and mentoring to New Zealand and overseas governments in the important areas of criminal justice, family violence prevention, motivational interviewing and parenting. We are […]

Self talk that keeps us stuck

I am currently preparing to run a workshop on motivational interviewing for prison officers who are about to manage a unit for prisoners with mental health issues. In my research […]

Restorative conferences continue to empower victims

I have always been a strong supporter of restorative processes since the time HMA worked on the design of the original pilot programme for the Ministry of Justice back in […]

Restorative conferences for psychopaths

Imagine putting an offender who has little ability to express empathy and a victim together to talk about the impact of the crime committed. I’m not sure about your initial […]

Reintegration of offenders back into the community

The puzzle of what works in the reintegration of prisoners back into the community is a major issue facing a number of jurisdictions. A small study of 26 prisoners released […]

Effective Interventions with Offenders – New Stock has arrived

The view of the 1970s and ’80s – that in terms of rehabilitation programmes, nothing works – continues to exert an influence that is no longer deserved. Over the last […]

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