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Working with people who don’t want to work with you

  As part of MINT Oceania, we were thrilled to recently host Michael Clark, co-author of Motivational Interviewing with Offenders: Engagement, Rehabilitation and Re-Entry (Guilford, 2017), in Aotearoa/New Zealand, during […]

Are you ready to seriously consider change?

For those of us working in the area of behaviour change and intervention around domestic, family and sexualised violence (DFSV), ‘Are you ready to seriously consider change?’ is the crucial […]

An all too common story

Another woman was allegedly murdered by her partner (link). This all too common headline should give us pause to reflect upon why, in 2024, violence against women remains so prevalent […]

Engaging with young people at risk

  I spent time this week working alongside staff from the Youth Development Unit at Whenuapai Airforce Base in West Auckland.  They run a six-week program for young people 18 […]

I am not going to quit now!

I turned 65 in August, so I, along with my partner Suzanne, took a significant break from our work lives to reflect upon our next steps. When that magic number […]

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 […]

Reflecting upon a lifetime of trying to disrupt domestic and family violence

I’m in a contemplative mood at the moment. I recently reached the tender age of 65. For many people reaching this age comes with a degree of angst, uncertainty, and […]

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 […]

Once a week or all week?

How do we increase the dosage in our men’s behaviour change programmes? How do we ensure learning transfer of the work we do in programmes continues after the session? How […]

What our young boys / men are subjected to

Forty years ago, I joined a number of projects that worked with the restraints that gendered restrictions placed on boys and men, and how these flowed through to behaviour towards […]

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 […]

The gendered weight of desistance

The question of who does the social and emotional heaving lifting in relationships is a central question to the gender question. It is in my view that this is a […]

Hi from the No To Violence Conference in Adelaide

    Hi from the No To Violence Conference in Adelaide. I am enjoying the opportunity to meet in person with old friends, meet new ones, and engage in thoughtful […]

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 […]

On the road again – Our focus on Youth DFV

    It was with some trepidation that I got on a plane and headed from New Zealand to Australia. The last time I travelled out of New Zealand was […]

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 […]

The role of trauma in DFV

How often have you wondered, “Why does he hurt the people he says he loves?” I know I have. Having spent the past 40 years trying to come up with explanations to that question, if there is one thing I have made sense of, simple reasons don’t consider the vast diversity in the population of men who use violence within their families.  

A third of domestic violence killers in Australia are middle class

    Statistics presented at Australia’s National Research On Women’s Safety (ANROWS) conference by Hayley Boxall from the Australian Institute of Criminology, saw that a third of domestic violence killers in […]

Looking forward to 2022

  It is a truism that life often throws us curveballs. At HMA, we have certainly experienced a few curve balls over 23 years of business. The 2011 Christchurch earthquake […]

We are sad

As you can imagine, the situation in Christchurch is incredibly sad and distressing for us as a nation right now. New Zealand has a long history of taking in refugees […]

Well done Gillette on taking a stand against the impact of rampant sexism

You may be aware of the furore around the new Gillette ad on masculinity. It has certainly lit up the internet. I am always interested that when traditional notions of […]

Winner! Outstanding Performance in Carbon Management

At HMA we tend to get around a bit. Given the large amount of work that we do throughout New Zealand and Australia, this is not surprising, but it comes […]

How technology will disrupt behaviour change interventions

I spend a lot of my time thinking about the best way to help with behaviour change. Don’t get me wrong, I am one of those people trained in face-to-face […]

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 […]

17 years six months

I was looking at my LinkedIn profile and was surprised to discover that 17 years and six months was the length of time since Suzanne and I formed Hall McMaster […]

17 year anniversary – a time of reflection

Over the past couple of weeks I have been getting a number of congratulations on LinkedIn acknowledging my work anniversary of leading the HMA team. It is amazing to think […]

Aviva and Pillars do our sector proud

Big heads up to Nicola and team at Aviva being named the region’s top charity in the medium-to-large category at the annual business awards in Christchurch last night. Aviva (formerly Christchurch […]

Thanks for doing what you do

I am often asked why I keep the pace on doing what I do. My response is: “It is all about you.”  What sits behind this for me are the […]

Best practice for family violence intervention

Sit around with a group of family violence practitioners (not those perpetrating violence) and ask them to describe what best practice looks like and you will get a range of […]

The things dads give us

My dad died on Boxing Day eight years ago. The day we buried him next to my mother, was the day I stopped smoking for good. Every Xmas I take […]

Men and boys do have a place in violence prevention

“Engaging boys and men to prevent violence against women has been identified internationally as one of the top 20 ‘practice innovations’ in violence and injury prevention during the last 20 years. Violence […]

‘He just gets me’ – The layering of psychological abuse

“He makes me laugh. He makes me cry. He makes me feel beautiful. I love him like I have never loved anyone before. If he doesn’t get out do I […]

What kills more women aged …

What kills more women aged 15 – 44 each year than malaria, HIV, cancer, accidents and war combined? You guessed it – violence. I was therefore incensed when I read […]

Back to school – not quite

Next week will see me back in the classroom working alongside third year social work students at CPIT (Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology) exploring the issue of how social policy […]

International Award for NZ Probation – well done

I picked up this story in the latest Corrections News. You will see our connection with it at the end. Late last year New Zealand Corrections received the International Corrections […]

A personal message from Ken

I wanted you, who have been our loyal supporters, to be aware of what has been happening at HMA over the past 18 months. Why? Because you are important to […]

Supporting cutting edge child protection – Practice First NSW

Practice First, is a new model for child protection service delivery in New South Wales. Since March 2012, the Practice First model has been operating in Bathurst-Mudgee Community Service’s Centres […]

Way out West – reflections from WA

When you have the privilege of working with the same team of people over a period of several years, you see practice shifts and change in exciting ways.  This has […]

Christchurch CBD – the destruction before the rebuild

1,300 buildings down in the CBD, 300 more to go. This is the story of the CBD in the garden city. As the photo (taken on Friday 7 September) attests, […]

Show us the money

Many of you will be acutely aware of the frustrations that we have experienced over the past 18 months trying to settle with our insurers regarding Westpark Towers. Two things […]

Accountability based practice – What does it look like?

Last week I had the honour of being asked to present at the Violence Against Women Conference: An Inconvenient Reality, in Brisbane. I told the audience that we can be […]

CarboNZero – our story

We have been members of the CarboNZero programme for the past five years. Last Thursday we were pleased to host Richard Gordon (Acting CEO Landcare), Landcare CarboNZero team, along with […]

What are we teaching our sons (and daughters) about being good men?

If I ask a group of men, “Where did you guys learn about how to act as an adult?”, they are likely to answer, “The family.”  They are absolutely correct. […]

Battered man syndrome cuts jail sentence

My eye caught an article by Victoria Robinson in the Sunday Star Times (17 June 2012) about Toa Tuau, 31, who was sentenced to five years and six months in prison […]

10 helpful qualities for rebuilding futures

I look out my window (from our temporary Ferrymead office) as a four story apartment block next door is demolished. My office actually looks onto the back of the building […]

9 things a trusted friend won’t tell you

I have been thinking recently about a dear friend of mine who died a while back. It was the anniversary of his death recently and at this time of the […]

From Ken’s Desk April 2012

It is amazing that we are now at the end of the first quarter of 2012. Since we came back from the Christmas holidays and summer break our HMA training […]

Integrated Practice Framework – NZ Department of Corrections

Just under three years ago a consortium of HMA and Able Training began work on training design for the rollout of the integrated practice framework. This has been one of […]

The six cornerstones of motivation

Last week HMA hosted the International Symposium on Motivational Interviewing: Beyond an Effect Size: Innovations in Thinking & Practice in Auckland, New Zealand. Besides being a rich opportunity to share […]

Motivational interviewing – the tension points

Attending the International Symposium on Motivational Interviewing: Beyond an Effect Size: Innovations in Thinking & Practice, was such a stimulating experience that it got me thinking about where MI sits […]

Making the most of the time we have

Remember Robin Williams in the film ‘Dead Poets Society’. Robin Williams plays a teacher with a great thirst for life who encourages his student through the rallying cry “carpe diem” […]

Can men who use abusive practices really change?

Don has been struggling with abusive behaviour all of his life. He was adopted at birth into a family who treated him badly.In this family he saw and experienced it […]

5 reasons to mandate guys to DV programs

I worry about some of the debates that are occurring at the moment in the family violence arena. Unless we are very careful we can roll back  the hard earned […]

Western Australia always a wonderful experience

Recently we took our team back to Perth to support the program work undertaken by WA Department of Corrective Services. During this trip we were able to trial a number […]

From Ken’s desk September 2011

A friend to our work will be sorely missed    On July 24th 2011 Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson died (aged 64 years) after a short illness. Judge Johnson […]

From Ken’s desk July 2011

The challenges just keep on coming. Recently, Suzanne Hall and myself as directors of HMA, met with the other floor owners of Westpark Tower to discuss the fate of our […]

From Ken’s Desk December 2010

A week ago another tragedy hit the South Island of New Zealand. This is of course on top of the 7.1 earthquake that shook Christchurch on 4 September. I am […]

From Ken’s Desk November 2010

Whenever I meet people, and talk about the work that I do in designing intervention programmes and training people in programme delivery for those who offend, the question is, “What […]

Family Violence increasing in the aftermath of the earthquake

How people cope with stress in the face of adversity is one of the questions that has vexed human service workers over time. In the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake […]

From Ken’s Desk August 2010

Imagine this. It is 4 April 2010 and you are having a party. As things happen someone at another party said that you had stolen a car (a mistaken belief) […]

Strength Based Batterer Intervention: A New Paradigm in Ending Family Violence

The field of family violence has always had people who hold strong positions in relation to the lens (frame) that they bring to understanding the issue. As a consequence this […]

Doing parole differently

When you are involved in a field of practice for as long as I have (nearly 30 years – I know I am showing my age), you have the advantage […]

Thanks for the publicity

I generally keep away from commenting on issues in the media. I am more comfortable with behind the scenes work of creating effective interventions to intervene with family violence and […]

Do boot camps work? Actually they don’t.

There is little doubt that youth crime is a costly problem for our society. I applaud the debate that is emerging to find workable solutions to what are complex issues. […]

We have come a long way

This year the big hand on my life clock moves to one of those auspicious times. I am not saying which one – you will have to guess for yourself. […]

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