G. Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme (IDAP)
The programme includes work with known victims and inter-agency risk management.
Programme aims:
- To reduce the risk of violent crime and abusive behaviour towards women in relationships by helping perpetrators change their attitudes and behaviour
- To reduce the risk of all violent and abusive behaviour in the family
- To increase the offender's ability to respond non-abusively, to change abusive beliefs and empathise with victim(s)
- To give offenders a greater sense of personal responsibility for their violence
- To help offenders accept that they exercise choice in the way they behave
- To increase the offender's ability to identify high-risk situations and to manage effectively these in the future
Who is suitable?
Male offenders who:
- are heterosexual
- have been assessed as a medium to high risk for relationship violence as indicated by severity and/or pattern of abuse using the Spousal Abuse Risk Assessment (SARA)
- have committed at least one act of violence against an intimate partner
- have basic literacy, language competency and comprehension skills
- are willing to sign a consent form which will include the sharing of relevant information with the offender's spouse/partner
- are assessed as suitable in a court ordered report prior to sentence or by the offender manager prior to release on licence
Who is not suitable?
- Female offenders
- Offenders in same sex relationships
- Offenders with serious mental health problems
- Offenders who are judged unable to meet the learning outcomes because of, for example, severe drug dependency
The programme involves:
- Contact with the victim or current partner by a women's safety worker [WSW]*.
- Risk management through continual assessment and information sharing with other agencies including the police
- Group work and individual sessions with the offender
- Four individual pre-programme sessions
- A rolling programme of 27 two-hour groupwork sessions and six individual sessions
- At least four relapse prevention sessions with the offender manager
*NB Women’s Safety Worker - The Women’s Safety Worker element of IDAP may or may not be a separate contract with its own linked requirements derived from the IDAP WSW’s manual.
