Introductory Training: Counseling Abusers

Emerge conducts a 3-day Introductory Training three times per year at the Best Western Tria, near the Emerge office.

This course is intended for anyone working with families affected by domestic violence. Past participants include batterer intervention program group leaders, supervisors and administrators, social workers, victim advocates, correctional staff, psychologists, violence prevention educators, substance abuse counselors, healthcare workers, probation and police officers, clergy, military personnel, and program managers. 

Participants will learn the Emerge curriculum and how it compares to other models. The training is structured to be highly interactive, including several participant role plays. This interactive structure allows participants to acquire and practice skills to be used in leading groups. For participants who work with victims and don't intend to lead groups, this training will help to inform them about what happens in abuser education groups. The course meets BIP group leader training requirements in Massachusetts and in many other states. Over the past 6 years, over 1,000 people from 45 states and 15 nations have taken this course.

Topics Include:

• Overview of legal, medical, & psychological responses to battering

• Intake and assessment procedures

• Overview of First Stage Curriculum

• Interactive exercise: abuser tactics of control

• Interactive exercise: negative vs. positive self-talk

• Methods and rationale for conducting partner contacts

• Substance abuse overlaps

• Assessing for dangerousness and lethality

• Overview of Second Stage Curriculum

• Comparison of different treatment models 

• Illustrative role play of two different treatment models

• A panel of personal accounts of battered women

• The empowerment model of helping battered women

• Battering in lesbian relationships

• Role Play of partner contact scenarios

• Role Play of Second Stage Group co-leadership

• Working with under-served populations of  abusers

• A panel of Emerge program participants

• Mental health responses to abusers

• Program Management and Group Supervision

Course tuition is $250 for the first person, and $175 for each additional person from an agency. Tuition includes continental breakfast and refreshments, as well as an Emerge program manual and a compilation of supplemental readings.

This program has been approved for 22.5 hours of continuing education credits for Social Workers as well as 22.75 hours for Mental Health Counselors, Marriage and Family Therapists, and Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselors.

Our next Introductory Training will be held on June 11-13, 2008. To register for this or other Emerge trainings, CLICK HERE!

If you have questions about this training that are not answered on our website, please call our office at 617-547-9879.