Identifying and Responding to Multi-Perpetrator Family Violence and Abuse

IDENTIFYING AND RESPONDING TO

FAMILY VIOLENCE & ABUSE

A Resource Package for Men’s Behaviour Change Service Providers June 2024

This resource was developed through a co-creation process in late 2023 and early 2024, facilitated by Surpreet Cheema and Shannon Harvey, researchers at Relationships Australia NSW. It reflects the combined practice expertise of the co-design team of 23 people across 17 organisations, who contributed through interviews, focus groups and workshops:

Accessible Diversity Services Initiative (Soghra Moradi)

Advance Diversity Services (Shymaa Khalifa and Fatima Sayed)

BaptistCare (Kiran Van Der Male)

CatholicCare Broken Bay (Cathy Zervos and Hayden Tucker)

CatholicCare Sydney (Heggie Atabaki)

Education Centre Against Violence (ECAV) (Stephen Walton)

Ethnic Communities Council of NSW (Fadi Nemme)

Harris Park Community Centre (Patrick Soosay)

Illawarra Multicultural Services (Rida Ghaffar)

Indian (Sub-Cont) Crisis & Support Agency (Menaka Cooke Iyengar and Kittu Randhawa)

Institute of Non-Violence (Hala Abdelnour)

Metro Assist (Jasmine Mguizra)

No To Violence (Jillian Kempton)

Relationships Australia NSW (Moe Jwad and Sian Ord)

Settlement Services International (Linda Baxter and Nancy Sidholm)

Sydwest Multicultural Services (Vidya Mysore and Rabia Shaikh)

Viji Dhayanathan (independent MBCP consultant, formerly RANSW)

We are also grateful for the oversight and expertise provided by the Project Steering Group:

Ally Hijazi, Project Coordinator, Arab Council Australia

Sian Ord, Family Safety Programs Manager, Relationships Australia NSW

Astrid Perry, Head of Women, Equity and DFV, Settlement Services International Kittu Randhawa, Project Lead, Indian (Sub-Cont) Crisis & Support Agency

Suggested citation: Indian (Sub-Cont) Crisis & Support Agency, Relationships Australia NSW & Settlement Services International (2024) Identifying and Responding to Multi-perpetrator Family Violence & Abuse: A Resource Package for Men’s Behaviour Change Service Providers. Macquarie Park: Relationships Australia NSW.

ISBN: 978-0-6458142-2-4

Published by: Relationships Australia NSW, Macquarie Park, NSW 2113

Enquiries: Please contact Dr Glenn Althor at research@ransw.org.au

These resources were developed on the unceded lands and waters of the Dharug nation. Relationships Australia NSW, Indian (Sub-Cont) Crisis & Support Agency and Settlement Services International, along with our co-design team, acknowledge their Ancestors who first walked on this land and pay our respects to their Elders, for they carry the cultural wisdom, the stories, the traditions and dreaming.

With a commitment to Reconciliation, we bear witness to the enduring impact of colonisation in this place, acknowledging the harm of past policies and practices, and the ongoing impact of racism in our systems and institutions today. We commit to walking alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, recognising their sovereignty and leadership towards creating a just society.

About this resource package

Who these resources are for

Organisational support for frontline practitioners

Keeping gender in the frame

Leveraging your existing MBC skillset

Understanding multi-perpetrator abuse as a form of family violence

Which family members may be involved

Involvement of people beyond the family

Who experiences MFVA

Forms of abuse in MFVA

Challenges for identification and response

Case studies

Case Study 1. Ahmad, Sara and their families

Case Study 2. Sanjay, Priya and their families

Identifying MFVA: ecomaps and genograms

Ecomap or genogram

Letting go of assumptions

Prompting clients to disclose other family members’ use of violence

Figure 1. Organisational support

ABOUT THIS RESOURCE PACKAGE

Relationships Australia NSW (RANSW) and Settlement Services International (SSI) began delivering the culturally adapted Men’s Behaviour Change Program (MBCP), Building Stronger Families, in 2019. Through this service and others, we found we were supporting women and children who were experiencing abuse from several family members at the same time, including spouses, parents, siblings, in-laws and cousins. While it was not new information to us that this was happening, we found that the design of MBCPs centred on individuals who were using violence, meaning that there was a gap in service knowledge and awareness around how to respond to violence and abuse from multiple family members.

With the support of a NSW Department of Communities and Justice grant, we partnered with a third organisation, Indian (Sub-Cont) Crisis & Support Agency (ICSA) to together develop resources to support MBCP providers and frontline practitioners to respond more effectively to multi-perpetrator family violence and abuse (MFVA). While recognising that this issue can impact anyone regardless of cultural background, we focused our project on Arabic and Indian sub-continent communities in Western Sydney, reflecting areas of priority need that our organisations were observing in our work. Nevertheless, we expect that these resources can be applied in work with other situations of MFVA, including other migrant and refugee communities, religious communities, or other cultural contexts.

This resource package is a result of a six-month co-creation process with frontline practitioners and service managers. It synthesises research evidence and practice-based expertise and offers suggestions for extending existing practice to respond to this emerging issue.

Who these resources are for

This package has been designed firstly for MBCP service providers and practitioners in NSW, to be used alongside their existing practice and processes, enabling them to work more effectively with people experiencing or using MFVA. This includes MBCP caseworkers and group facilitators, as well as women and children’s advocacy workers.

However, the co-design team included practitioners from a range of domestic and family violence (DFV) and culturally diverse community services providers, who felt that the principles within the resource could be applicable in a range of other contexts.

Importantly, MBCPs are one service within the integrated DFV response, and for them to respond effectively to MFVA, there must also be increased knowledge of MFVA in the police, victims’ services and other health and community services.

Organisational support for frontline practitioners

The resources in this package are designed to be used by MBCP practitioners and women’s

and children’s advocacy workers, supporting them to identify and respond to violence being used by family members other than the intimate partner. However, in developing these resources, the co-design team was clear that frontline practitioners have limited space for action within a societal context of endemic racism and a DFV system designed to respond to intimate partner violence. Where organisations are expecting MBCP or other DFV practitioners to use these resources, they

Figure 1. Organisational Support

Culturally supportive clinical supervision e.g. with a qualified therapist who understands the cultural aspects of their work

Recognition of value of cultural expertise and connections in position descriptions and compensation policies

Increasing cultural diversity within teams, to prevent practitioners becoming isolated as the “CALD worker”

must also ensure that employees who are hired for their cultural knowledge and connections are appropriately supported and compensated, and that strategies are in place to work towards eliminating racism in the organisation.

The relationship between targeted support for culturally and linguistically diverse professionals and organisation-wide support is described in Figure 1 below.

Anti-racism training for everyone, refreshed regularly

Specific training for frontline practitioners in building safety and trust with people from different cultural backgrounds than yourself

Supervisors who are culturally competent in relation to the populations you work with Anti-racism policy, with implementation tracked and progress measured

Explore more:

• Settlement Services International offer a range of online and in-person diversity training options: ssi.org.au/our-services/diversity-inclusion/diversity-training/

• ICSA offer cultural intersectionality training: icsa.net.au/services/professional-development/

• The Institute of non-violence offers a range of support services for the family violence sector, including family violence, gender equity and anti-racism training: ionv.com.au/services/

• The Australian Human Rights Commission Anti-Racism eLearning course: humanrights.gov.au

• The Diversity Council of Australia Racism at Work workshop: dca.org.au

• Evaluation report of the Building Stronger Families culturally adapted MBCP, describing approaches to supporting bicultural workers: issuu.com/ransw/docs/bsf_evaluation_report?fr=sY2EwZDQ3MTg2Mjg

Keeping gender in the frame

NSW’s Practice Standards for Men’s Behaviour Change recognises that “gender inequality and societal attitudes towards women are significant factors underlying the majority of [domestic] violence”1 The Standards also suggest that women’s use of violence is primarily in self-defense or in response to coercion and control. However, in situations of MFVA, the research literature and the practicebased evidence from the co-design team affirmed that women are commonly deeply involved and sometimes are the primary instigators of violence and control against other women (Bates, 2018; Aplin, 2017).

In developing this resource, co-designers had deep discussions about expressions of patriarchy in different cultural contexts and the intersections between patriarchy and other culturally prescribed relational power roles, such as the authority of a mother-inlaw over her daughter-in-law in many Indian cultures, and other cultures. Women’s use of violence and control in the context of MFVA requires organisations and practitioners to reflect critically on how some women choose to use their relative social and cultural power to abuse other women within patriarchal systems (Kandiyoti, 1988). Rather than ignoring gender, applying an intersectional lens can help us to consider how different aspects of women’s

Explore more:

identities and roles intersect with patriarchy, affording some women opportunities to uphold patriarchal power for their own benefit, and to other women’s detriment (Baianstovu & Strid, 2024; Department of Social Services, 2022, p. 72; Crenshaw, 1991).

Leveraging your existing MBC skillset

Working with men who use violence requires professional curiosity and an invitational approach, grounded in strengths-based and trauma-informed ways of working (No To Violence, 2023, p. 17). These are key skills that should remain the foundation of your work to identify and respond to MFVA.

Importantly, maintaining a curious and non-judgmental mindset is an asset when approaching work with people whose cultural background is different to your own. While foundational knowledge of key concepts is important – such as the difference between arranged and forced marriage – it is equally important to not make assumptions based on a person’s cultural background.

The resources in the following section build on your existing skills and resources, to help you explore clients’ broader family and community contexts and identify MFVA.

• ANROWS Insights podcast on using invitational, narrative approaches: spreaker.com/episode/how-do-we-engage-men-who-use-violence--52578687

1 See: https://ntv.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/NSW-Department-of-JusticeMens-Behaviour-Change-Programs-Practice-Standards.pdf

UNDERSTANDING MULTI-PERPETRATOR ABUSE AS A FORM OF FAMILY VIOLENCE

MFVA has received relatively little attention within the broader field of violence against women research, despite evidence that in up to 16% of reported domestic violence cases there is more than one person involved in perpetrating the abuse and that the presence of multiple perpetrators increases severity (Salter, 2014). Salter’s 2014 review of the literature on multi-perpetrator domestic violence, however, also found that girls and women in some ethnic minority groups, and girls and women partnered to members of gangs and organised crime groups, are particularly at risk.

In NSW, DFV is defined as any behaviour in an intimate or family relationship which is violent, threatening, coercive or controlling, causing a person to live in fear (NSW Government, 2023). This definition recognises that violence and abuse can happen in family relationships, including:

• people who are related through blood, marriage or de facto partnerships, adoption and fostering relationships

• siblings and extended family

• the full range of kinship ties in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

• constructs of family within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex or queer (LGBTIQ) communities

• people living in the same house or the same residential care facility

• people reliant on care.

This definition is inclusive of situations where family violence is perpetrated by more than one person, which we refer to as “multiperpetrator family violence and abuse”. Despite this broad definition, however, the DFV service system is largely designed to respond to violence used by a man against his female intimate partner. Many researchers have noted the limitations of existing tools, including prevalence measures and risk assessments, in identifying MFVA and the unique dynamics of abuse in different cultural contexts (Kalokhe, et al., 2016; Salter, 2014). In NSW, practitioners who were part of our co-design team explained that standardised tools such as the Domestic Violence Safety Assessment Tool (DVSAT) focus on assessing risk from a single perpetrator of violence and provide limited opportunity to explore other family members’ use of abusive tactics to extend control.

Which family members may be involved?

In this project, focused on Arabic-speaking and Indian sub-continent communities in Sydney, co-designers described the involvement of

many different family members in situations of MFVA, including:

• husband’s parents, siblings (especially older siblings), cousins, aunts or uncles

• her own parents, siblings, or cousins

• family members living overseas.

While husbands, fathers-in-law and brothersin-law were commonly identified as people who used violence, co-designers also emphasised the role senior women in the family – such as mothers-in-law or older sisters-in-law – often play in perpetrating abuse. A women’s own family members may also be involved in abuse, including pressuring her to stay or return to an abusive family relationship.

Many in the co-design team noted that the distinction between “victim” and “perpetrator” in MFVA could sometimes be more complex than the design of a MBCP suggests. In particular, they gave numerous examples from their own practice where a man’s use of violence against his wife was physically directed or coerced by others, such as his own parents, and was deeply embedded in the familial and cultural context and his own position in the family hierarchy.

Involvement of people beyond the family

While MFVA arises within the context of family relationships, community members and other people associated with the family may also be involved in using violence and abuse to exert control. This may be especially true in migrant and refugee communities, with the co-design team reflecting on the Arabic-speaking and Indian sub-continent communities they work with and noting that people outside the family may also be involved in coercion, but that they may also be sources of support. In considering how victim-survivors of MFVA experience coercive control, co-designers noted the

importance of considering:

• direct and willful action

• incidental activities that impact the victimsurvivor’s agency

• systemic abuse, where there may not be individual intent, but in ‘doing their job’ professionals may compound the effects or intent of the abuse

• actions intended to protect traditional or cultural values.

They identified five key relational groups who may either be involved in perpetrating MFVA or may be sources of support to victim-survivors, as shown in Figure 2 on the following page.

Who experiences MFVA?

Evidence suggests that multiple perpetrators are present in a substantial minority of domestic violence cases, regardless of cultural background (Salter, 2014). While this package focuses on Arabic-speaking and Indian subcontinent communities, the principles can be applied to different contexts where you might work with people impacted by violence from multiple family and community members. For example, young LGBTQIA+ people may experience violence and coercion from parents, siblings and extended family members related to their sexuality or gender. Similarly, women in conservative Christian religious communities where divorce is not accepted may experience abuse from extended family and community members to remain in an abusive relationship.

While MFVA is not unique to any cultural, ethnic or religious group, both the research literature and the co-creation team emphasised the importance of understanding how White Australian cultural values related to family relationships may differ from the familial and community values in other cultures. Understanding these potential differences can impact on your understanding of their experiences of abuse, help-seeking and support needs.

Figure 2. People who may be involved in MFVA

Parents

Siblings

Children

Cousins

Grandparents

Aunts and uncles

Relatives

Family of Origin Partner’s Family

Ex-partner

Step-children

Distant relatives

People from back home

Social groups

Neighbours

Colleagues

Personal Connections Professionals

Community

Parents-in-law

Siblings-in-law

Cousins

Family friends

Partner’s ex

Aunts and uncles

Relatives

Faith leaders

Community leaders

Cultural associations

Landlord

Politicians

Clinicians, health workers, social supports, interpreters, employers, case workers, lawyers, migration agents, government departments, court workers, police

Family of Origin (immediate and extended family members)

Members of the victim-survivor’s family can align with the perpetrator, protect the perpetrator and even take more direct action against the victim. It should not be assumed that the victim-survivor’s own family will support their own, they may have multiple reasons that validate their actions and likely see their actions as in the best overall interest of the victim.

Partner’s Family (immediate and extended family members)

Members of the partner’s family may recognise themselves as aiding and assisting the person using violence, and yet may not consider their own actions to be abusive.

Personal Connections

There were multiple people identified that would have a close connection with the person using violence and with the victim-

survivor, whether inadvertently or actively their actions may be missed all together.

Community

People will turn to their community in some way and the way in which community members use their influence can become abusive. People in positions of authority, power or celebrity hold significant influence over others, which can be a less detectable form of abuse.

Professionals

People who act in their professional capacity have power and influence which can be used in controlling or abusive ways. Co-designers explored various professionals who in their professional capacity had overstepped their boundaries, breached professional guidelines, or simply used their position in ways that involved them in the abuse.

Individualist vs Collectivist cultures

The dominant Anglo-European Australian culture is broadly individualist and service systems to respond to DFV tend to focus on supporting individuals in a way that assumes they will prioritise their own needs. Conversely, in collectivist cultures, individuals will more commonly prioritise the group’s need over their own. This means that families commonly solve problems and take decisions as a group, and highly value family and community bonds, including the needs and wishes of the extended family.

As a result, a significant factor for the family’s wellbeing is that the family’s “honour” within the community is kept intact. This means ensuring that there is no shame or stigma attached to the family or its members, even if it compromises an individual family member’s personal interests and safety (O’Connor, 2022). For example, divorce stigma may mean that a victim-survivor will not only be considering the impact on herself, but also how her decision may negatively affect the marriage prospects of her children or unmarried siblings.

Family hierarchies and collectivist cultures

Across all cultures, family relationships involve hierarchies and dynamics of power and authority play out in a range of ways, some of which can be abusive. For example, regardless of culture, we often see these hierarchies in the ways that adults who perpetrate child abuse and protected by other family members, or in the abuse of older people by the adult children. However, some of the co-design team noted the importance of understanding the cultural expectations of family roles and responsibilities which may be exploited within collectivist cultures, that differ from how they are exploited in individualist cultures. For example, in many cultures of the Indian sub-continent, a man’s parents would expect

–and receive – respect, and even deference, from his wife’s family. Similarly, a mother in law’s role would be to educate and train the new bride into the ways of the household, the needs of her husband and other significant male family members such as father-in-law or older brother-in-law. The husband would adhere to or respect his parents’ wishes, and in some situations be in conflict or caught in the middle between his parents’ needs and wishes, as opposed to that of his wife.

These cultural differences can impact on practitioners’ ability to identify and respond to MFVA. DFV services in Australia are grounded in an understanding of violence as a gendered phenomenon, with gender inequality as the main driver of men’s violence against women. However, this rarely addresses the role some women play in upholding gender inequality and using violence to uphold their relative power within patriarchal systems (Salter, 2014), meaning that women’s use of violence within the family can be missed.

Further, men who have grown up in a more hierarchical culture, with high respect for authority, may have increased feelings of shame and fear that practitioners may judge their culture.

Forms of abuse in MFVA

As in intimate partner violence (IPV), family members engaged in MFVA use a range of behaviours to control and create fear and compliance. Many of these will mirror behaviours that we are familiar with in IPV, but co-designers drew on examples from their own practice to also explain how forms of abuse can be specific to cultural context and the involvement of multiple people. Figure 3, on the following page, provides some of these examples, mapped against the forms of abuse described in the NSW Risk, Safety & Support Framework (RSSF) (No To Violence, 2023, p. 17).

Challenges for identification and response

Co-designers identified several gaps and challenges in addressing MFVA at the

Figure 3. Examples of forms of MFVA

Her mother-in-law threatens to ‘send her back’ to her parents and keep the children in Australia to raise them without her His parents encourage him to take his wife and children overseas and then come home without her

Children’s uncle threatens to get their mother deported if they tell anyone about the abuse

Children’s grandparents take them overseas without parents’ consent

Her mother-in-law slaps her whenever she does something ‘wrong’ with the housekeeping

His father hits him around the head for not ‘keeping control’ of his wife

His father tells him he needs to ‘assert his authority’ over his wife and produce an heir

Her mother-in-law taunts her about not meeting her husband’s sexual ‘needs’

His mother tells him that he’s letting down the family by not ‘disciplining’ his wife

Her mother-in-law constantly disparages her cooking and house-keeping, saying she’s not good enough for their family

She only receives money to spend on the family’s needs and her mother-in-law checks receipts for all her purchases

individual, family and community level, within the MBCP and the broader DFV system, as shown in Figure 4 on the subsequent page.

Her husband’s siblings tease him about her professional identity, belittling her education and skills

Family members laugh at her ‘backward’ cultural practices

Her husband and parents-in-law tell her that if she reports abuse, her visa will be cancelled and she will be sent home without her children

Family members prevent her learning English and always act as her translator

She doesn’t have a car or easy access to public transport, so can only go out if she is taken by someone else in the family

Family members expect her to stay at home and do all the domestic work

Her sister-in law posts derogatory comments about her parenting on Facebook

Her brother-in-law puts a tracking device on her car and shares the location with others in the family

His parents say the whole family will be ostracised in their religious community if his wife divorces him

Her parents misuse religious teachings to depict her resistance to abuse as disobedience and against their religion

A family friend sees her with the children at a shopping centre and texts her inlaws to tell them where she is

Figure 4. Challenges for MFVA Identification & Response

Community cultural norms accept abuse used by people with greater standing in the family hierarchy, making it difficult for women to identify their experiences as (M)FV

Lack of knowledge about their rights and available DFV supports and/or access to supports in her language or culture

Shame and stigma associated with divorce, for herself and her family of origin

Impacts of prior traumas and lack of trust in public institutions

Financial and visa dependence on partner and partner’s family

Individual factors

Lack of culturally supportive refuge accommodation

AVOs often only name the intimate partner, not other family members using abuse

DFV service system factors

Specialist CALD workers are under-resourced, with poor job security and inadequate cultural supervision

Lack of awareness of MFVA in key response agencies, including police and child protection

Ineffective interpreting services, resulting in reliance on abusive family members for interpreting

Immigration and welfare systems reinforce dependence on abusive partner and family members

If there is a no-contact AVO for the intimate partner, workers’ judgement of serious risk from other family members is ignored in referrals to Safety Action Meetings

Family members collude to exert pressure on her not to report abuse or to withdraw a complaint

Community members collude to isolate her from cultural and spiritual resources and community connection

Community members pressure her not to bring negative attention or shame to the group

Family and community factors

MBC program factors

MBC training does not cover MFVA

Referrals into MBCPs rarely identify MFVA

If additional users of violence are identified, MBCPs can still only work with the intimate partners

MFVA is most commonly disclosed by women victim-survivors, not the person using violence

Routine screening and assessment tools focus on intimate partners, identification relies on the skill and knowledge of the practitioner to ask additional questions

CASE STUDIES

These case studies were developed by co-designers from their own practice in MBCP and DFV services, working with people impacted by MFVA. They are amalgamations of real cases, written to illustrate the complexity of people’s experiences and the challenges of help-seeking and response. The case studies can be used to support training to develop practitioners’ understanding of MFVA and are also extended as worked examples for subsequent resources in this package.

Case Study 1. Ahmad, Sara and their families

Family context

Ahmad (33) lives in South-Western Sydney with his wife, Sara (25), two children (2 years old and 3 months old) and his parents. His parents own the home, which Ahmad grew up in, and his brother and sister-in-law live in a granny flat on the same property. Ahmad runs their family business, originally started by his father, and his brother and sister-in-law work in the business too.

Ahmad’s parents came to Australia as refugees from Lebanon in the early 1980s, and Ahmad and his siblings were born in Australia and are citizens. Sara immigrated to Australia from Lebanon when she married Ahmad, three years ago, and is currently on a temporary partner visa. Sara has a cousin living in Brisbane, but no family in Sydney, and she doesn’t feel confident communicating in English.

Growing up, Ahmad saw his father work long hours to establish the family business and earn money to provide for their family, while his mother worked at home, looking after the house and the family. Ahmad – and his parents –expect that his marriage to Sara should work the same way.

Experiences of abuse

When Sara moved into the family home, she was expected to take over the domestic

work that her mother-in-law had previously undertaken, including cooking meals, washing and cleaning for all six adults. She felt that she was constantly under scrutiny, criticised by everyone – but especially Ahmad and his mother – for not doing things the right way, and that the whole family was “ganging up” on her.

She soon became pregnant with their first child, and it felt like things got even worse. Ahmad’s father encouraged him to “punish” her when she “made mistakes”, so that she would learn how to look after her family “properly”. Her sister-in-law came with her to all her prenatal appointments and acted as her translator. Sara didn’t have a drivers’ license and there were limited public transport options from their house, so she had to rely on other family members to take her anywhere.

Sara came home from hospital the day after the birth and soon after was expected to take on all the domestic work again. It felt like no one in the family cared about her physical or emotional wellbeing. Sara continued to experience verbal, emotional, physical and financial abuse from all the adults in the household, and physical attacks from Ahmad. The physical attacks were often verbally encouraged by Ahmad’s father, mother, brother or sister-in-law. She called the police several

times, but Ahmad’s family always backed his side of the story. When she became pregnant with her second child, her cousin flew to Sydney and took her back to Brisbane to live with her. However, Sara’s parents, who still live in Lebanon, pressured her to return to Ahmad and she moved back to Sydney shortly before their second child was born. Sara has experienced severe postpartum depression since the birth three months ago.

Incident that led to the Men’s Behaviour Change referral

Sara’s sister-in-law took her and the baby to the hospital emergency department for treatment following a severe physical attack from Ahmad. The hospital social worker separated Sara from her sister-in-law, allowing Sara to disclose that Ahmad was responsible for their injuries.

Ahmad was in custody while on remand and Sara and the children returned to stay with her cousin in Brisbane. During that time, Sara got messages every day from fake accounts on her social media, telling her that Ahmad and his family know where she is and threatening her unless she withdrew her statement to the police. Ahmad’s family posted about her on social media, saying that she is “crazy” and not fit to be a mother. She told the police about these threats, but they said Ahmad was in jail so he couldn’t hurt her anymore.

Ahmad is now being released and has been mandated to attend a Men’s Behaviour Change Program. Sara is fearful for her life, and for her children.

Case Study 2. Sanjay, Priya and their families

Family context

Sanjay (34) and Priya (32) live in a rental property in North-Western Sydney with their three children (aged 6, 4 and 2 years). Sanjay and Priya immigrated to Australia together from India, with their oldest child, when Sanjay got offered a job here. While Priya worked as a marketing professional in India, she has not been in paid employment since they arrived in Australia five years ago.

Sanjay was recently made redundant from his high-paying job and the family are living off their savings while he looks for employment. Sanjay’s mother is staying with them for six months, on holiday from India. Priya would like to complete a marketing course to update her qualifications and look for work herself, but Sanjay says that they can’t afford it.

Experiences of abuse

Priya only wanted to have two children but was pressured by Sanjay and both their parents to have another pregnancy, because her first two children were girls. They now have three girls, and she is being pressured by Sanjay and his family to get pregnant again, to keep trying for a boy. Sanjay doesn’t know that she had an IUD inserted after the last pregnancy and she is terrified he will find out.

Sanjay became increasingly controlling after they moved to Australia, pressuring her to focus on housework and caring for the family, rather than trying to return to her career. As a family, they are active in their local community, and everyone tells her how lucky she is to have such a good provider in Sanjay. No one in the community knows that he was made

redundant, and he has made her promise not to tell anyone.

Since her mother-in-law came to stay, things got much worse. Her mother-in-law is always putting her down and telling Sanjay to be physically abusive towards her. While Priya is expected to cook time-consuming meals for her mother-in-law, her mother-in-law controls the kitchen, finances, and all other important decisions about the household. Sanjay defers to his mother. With Sanjay at home every day, the physical attacks are becoming more frequent, always triggered by an encouragement from his mother to do so.

Incident that led to the Men’s Behaviour Change referral

During a physical attack from both Sanjay and his mother, Priya was scared they might kill her

and called the police. Sanjay was charged with assault (but not his mother), given a no-contact ADVO and referred to a Men’s Behaviour Change Program. He is living temporarily with a friend, due to the no-contact ADVO, and Priya and the children are still living in the family home with her mother-in-law. Her motherin-law, Sanjay’s family in India, and her own parents in India, are all pressuring Priya to withdraw her statement to the police, so that Sanjay can return home.

IDENTIFYING MFVA: ECOMAPS AND GENOGRAMS

Ecomap or genogram

You are probably already using either genograms or ecomaps as part of your intake assessment process and ongoing casework with men who use violence, and maybe even with women partners and ex-partners too. Within our co-design team, some practitioners used genograms and others used ecomaps. Whichever you use, you can still use these prompts to explore MFVA with men who use violence or women who experience violence.

However, co-designers suggested that ecomaps can be particularly helpful in identifying other family and community members involved in using violence and control, since the tool explicitly seeks to explore the client’s broader social networks and the quality of these relationships. Ecomaps can provide a visual reference of complex family relationships of coercion and abuse, to better support practitioners to work through risk management with clients and colleagues.

Generic ecomap guides and examples

• Social Workers Toolbox: socialworkerstoolbox.com/ecomap-activity/

• Strong Bonds: strongbonds.jss.org.au/workers/cultures/ecomaps.html

• Ecomap templates: creately.com/usage/ecomap-template-example/

Letting go of assumptions

One reason that co-designers preferred ecomaps to genograms was that they felt it helped them to let go of assumptions about certain family relationships, such as who might be most important to the client, how close or distant different relationships may be, and who the client might include in their concept of ‘family’. Ecomaps also create opportunities to consider the cultural roles and responsibilities that may be involved in relationships.

Ideally, ecomaps are drawn by the client themselves and can be added to throughout

your work together. In MBCPs, ecomaps support men to develop the insight necessary to move towards taking responsibility for their behaviours. While they should provide information that strengthens risk assessment and safety planning, it is important that they are conducted from an invitational, strengthsbased and trauma-informed approach, being responsive to the client’s comfort with different topics and building up information over time. Refer to the NSW RSSF Foundations and Key Concepts guidance (No To Violence, 2023) for guidance on safe and respectful engagement with a person using family violence.

Prompting clients to disclose other family members’ use of violence

Whether you do genograms or ecomaps, you already have ways of asking questions to prompt clients to discuss their family relationships. Figure 5 includes some additional prompts, written from the client’s perspective, that may help them to discuss the influence of their extended family and community. These prompts are not intended as a definitive list of questions that must be asked, but rather are examples for you to consider. You should select topics and adapt your questions to the individual client.

Figure 5. Ecomapping prompts for MFVA

Who are the key people in my life right now?

• Who am I in contact with most often - family, friends, community - even if they’re not physically in the same place as me?

• Is there anyone who lives overseas or in another city who is still a key person for me?

• What responsibilities or challenges do I feel in my relationship with these people?

• Who supports me, and who doesn’t?

What does my social life look like in my community?

• What cultural and religious activities do I attend? Where and when do they happen? Do my children come with me, and who else is there?

• What roles and responsibilities do I have in my community? Who holds me accountable for these?

• What activities or events am I expected to attend with family members? How would they react if I didn’t go, or if my partner or children didn’t go?

• Do I regularly make overseas trips? Where do I go and who goes with me? Who do I see when I’m there?

Who has power and influence in my family?

• Who makes the decisions in my family? Who has the most influence in those decisions?

• Who supports my way of doing things? Who challenges me around the way that I tend to do things?

• Who else cares for my children, other than my partner? Is the way they care for them similar to my way of parenting, or do we clash over it?

What values does my family and community hold?

• What values or traditions does my family/culture/community hold? Which of these do I value too? Which of these do I find challenging?

• What’s important to me in family life? Who else in my family values this, and who doesn’t?

• What does a good husband/wife/father/mother/partner/parent look like in my culture? Who in my family would say the same as me, who would say something different?

Ecomap Worked Example: Ahmad

In this example, we explore how you might use these prompts during eco-mapping with “Ahmad” from Case Study 1, to begin to uncover the abusive behaviours of other family members that were described in the case study.

Let’s imagine that Ahmad begins eco-mapping by focusing on two areas: Sara and their children, and the other family members he lives with. It might start something like this:

“I grew up here and I didn’t want to marry someone from back home, but mum wanted to make sure I had someone who would look after us like she did.”

“Haasim and I are together all the time. We work together, live together, and have the same group of friends. Leyla’s Lebanese but she grew up here, like us, so our families have known each other forever and she gets us.”

What Ahmad is already telling you might prompt you to explore:

“Sara has taken my kids away, but in our culture, it’s my job as their dad to make sure they’re raised right.”

• The circumstances of his marriage to Sara, how much choice either of them felt they had, and which family members were most influential in the decisions around the marriage.

• Ahmad’s beliefs about what makes a good husband or wife, and how these are similar or different to his parents’ beliefs.

• Ahmad’s values and beliefs around fatherhood and how those beliefs are similar or different to those of other people in his family and community.

• Ahmad’s relationship with Haasim and Leyla, and how they’ve been involved in what has been happening between Ahmad and Sara.

• What expectations Ahmad believes his parents have of him, Sara, Aliyah and Amir, and how Ahmad feels about these expectations.

In exploring these areas with Ahmad over a few sessions, we can imagine he might begin to share some more information about these relationships. It’s unlikely that he would disclose other people’s abusive behaviours explicitly, but rather share information that may prompt you to ask more direct questions about other people’s involvement, like this:

Leyla (Haasim’s wife)

Haasim (brother)

(Sameed)

(Ieisha)

(Sara’s cousin)

“Leyla really went above and beyond for Sara, driving her to all her appointments and stuff, because Sara can’t drive, even though Leyla works in the business. And now Haasim’s pissed off because Sara pulled Leyla into it by telling the social worker all her lies at the hospital.”

“Dad was pretty tough with Haasim and I growing up. Especially me, because I’m the oldest. But we always knew that was his job, as our dad, and it worked. Haasim and I took over the business, we know our responsibilities. And that’s what I should be doing with Amir.”

“Mum’s cousins still live in Lebanon. Sara’s from their village, that’s how mum set it up for us to marry. Everyone there knows that Sara’s run off, her parents are angry at her too.”

Lebanon: Mum’s cousins and people from her village

Lebanon: Sara’s parents, family in the same village

“When she had Aliyah, Sara tried to put all the housework back on my mum. But mum worked so hard for years, it’s her turn to be looked after. And anyway, mum was always babysitting Aliyah so Sara could get stuff done. Now mum’s devastated that Sara’s taken her babies away.”

Here, Ahmad has shared information and attitudes that would suggest you might explore potentially abusive behaviours from others in the family, such as:

• Whether Sara’s parents or other people in Lebanon are putting pressure on her e.g. to withdraw charges or return to the relationship

• Whether Ahmad’s parents or other people in Lebanon pressured him to marry Sara

• What Ahmad means by Sara having “pulled Leyla into it” and Haasim being “pissed off” e.g. what have they done or said?

• What does Ahmad mean by his dad being “pretty tough” on them when they were growing up, and what is their relationship with their dad like now?

• What are Ahmad’s beliefs about how he should be raising his children, particularly his son Amir?

• How was Sara treated by Ahmad’s mother after their daughter Aliyah was born? Was Sara expected to do the housework while her mother-in-law looked after the children, and why does Ahmad describe the children as his mother’s “babies”?

Some of these might be things you would explore with Ahmad, but for some, it might be more appropriate and productive to share the information with the Women and Children’s Advocate, who can use it with Sara, to support her to identify and disclose MFVA.

RESPONDING TO MFVA: 360 RISK ASSESSMENT, MANAGEMENT AND SAFETY PLANNING

The co-design team identified existing risk assessment tools’ focus on IPV as a key limitation in responding effectively to MFVA. As practitioners, they described ways that they used additional questions alongside existing tools to capture risk from family members other than the intimate partner. In line with this practice, this section suggests ways to extend existing tools, such as the NSW RSSF, to include MFVA.

Extending your risk assessment to other family members

If you have done an ecomap with the client, this should already have begun to prompt risk

Table

Attitudes and beliefs

Upcoming civil or criminal court processes

assessment questions related to other family members. At its most basic, any question you would ordinarily ask in a risk assessment can be asked in a way that includes other family members:

“Haveyouoranyoneelseinyour familydone…?”

However, co-designers also identified some key areas for practitioners to focus on, particularly in risk assessment with Arabicspeaking and Indian sub-continent communities. These are shown in Table 1 below.

Recent separation (or pending separation)

• What beliefs does the family hold collectively that support or condone abuse? How is adherence to these beliefs enforced within the family?

• Are there any ADVOs or court processes which name other family members?

• In what ways are other family members involved in upcoming court processes? Who is supporting who?

• Has anyone else in the family helped him to breach an ADVO?

• Which family members are unsupportive of the separation? Have they said or done anything to try and prevent the separation?

1. Risk assessment prompts for MFVA

Pregnancy or new birth

• What are the family and/or community’s expectations of birthing parents and how are these enforced?

• Does the family make any accommodations for her during pregnancy or after birth, or is she expected to continue with her responsibilities in the same way?

Intimidation, stalking and/or surveillance

Sexual assault or coercion to engage in sexual activity

Threats or behaviour indicating non-return of child/ren

• Does anyone in the family do anything to keep track of the victim?

• Do other people in the community ever report back to family members when they have seen her?

• Has anyone else in the family used technology to threaten or intimidate her, such as pressuring her to drop charges or threatening to report her to immigration authorities?

• What expectations does the family have about her reproductive choices?

• Has anyone in the family put pressure on her to have an abortion, to continue with a pregnancy, or to not use contraception?

• Has anyone in the family threatened to take the children overseas, or is anyone making plans to travel with the children?

360 Risk Assessment Worked Example: Ahmad & Sara

Building on the worked example of eco-mapping prompts in the previous section, even without knowing all the detail provided in the case study itself, you already have lots of information that would suggest you should extend some of your standard risk assessment questions to include other family members. Remember, these are the people we know about so far:

Thinking about risk assessment across the MBCP, incorporating both the Men’s Caseworker and Women and Children’s Advocate, you could collaborate to build up a clearer picture of the overall risk together.

As a Men’s Caseworker conducting a risk assessment with Ahmad, following the NSW RSSF assessment tool, you might begin by asking more about:

Attitudes and beliefs

DFV risk indicators

• Conformity to rigid gender roles: Ahmad’s parents’ beliefs about women and men’s roles in the family, whether these are shared by Sara’s family and/or influenced by others in the community, including people still in Lebanon

• Attitudes that support violence: Ahmad’s dad’s views on physically disciplining children, whether Ahmad agrees with his dad, whether other people in the family or wider community agree

• Pathologising the victim-survivor: Ahmad’s description of Sara’s allegations as “lies” and what explanations others in the family, such as Haasim and Leyla, give for her allegations

• Separation: Other family and community members’ opinions about the separation and how Ahmad knows their opinions e.g. how does Ahmad know that “everyone knows” in Lebanon, what has happened?

Abusive behaviours

Risks to children

• Physical violence: Ahmad’s mother’s expectations of Sara post-partum e.g. if she had to return to housework straight away, was her physical health compromised?

• Social isolation: How the whole family is supporting – or not – Sara’s independence in Australia e.g. why did she have to rely on Leyla for transport?

• Intimidation: Following on from questions around family and community members’ attitudes to the separation, who has sought to influence Sara’s choices?

• Threats to harm children: Which family members want the children to be returned to Ahmad, and what ideas they may have had about how this might happen

• Disruption to relationship with Sara: Ahmad’s mother’s possessive attitude towards their children, how she talks about or behaves towards Sara when the children are present

• Threats of non-return: Any plans by anyone in the family to go overseas and whether they have talked about the children going with them

If you were the Women and Children’s Advocate conducting your risk assessment with Sara, you might consider prompting her to think about everyone in the family, rather than just Ahmad, especially for high-risk indicators. For example:

• Even if she doesn’t believe Ahmad is capable of killing or harming her or the children, is there anyone else in the family or their community that would be capable of that? You might prompt her to think about Ahmad’s dad and mum, Haasim and Leyla, her own family back in Lebanon, and people in her cousin Noor’s family.

• In asking about threats to harm or kill her and the children, from Ahmad or other family members, you might prompt her to consider threats that might have been made online or that she has been told about by other people. These might have been made in the past, or since she fled to Brisbane with the children.

• In asking about escalation, you might ask her to think about everyone in the family’s behaviours, not just Ahmad’s behaviours, and whether overall the abuse has become more more frequent or severe.

Managing risk from other family members in a MBCP

The design of MBCPs means that the service will only have contact with a man using violence and his partner and/or ex-partners, and sometimes with children as well. Since the service cannot work with other family members who may be using violence, the co-design team noted the importance of collaborative working between men’s caseworkers and group facilitators and women’s advocacy workers, as shown in Figure 5 below.

Working with men to reduce risk

• Develop his own strategies to become a safer person with his (ex-)partner and children

• Explore his sphere of influence within the family - how can he safely challenge others to reduce their use of violence?

Collaborative risk management

• Regular information-sharing between men’s and women’s practitioners regarding risk from other family members

• Referral through relevant local pathways where high risk of harm from other family members is identified

Safety planning with women

• Share information about risk from other family members, to incorporate into safety plan

• Plan around places where she or the children could be at risk from other family members, and/or monitored by other community members

• Consider any travel plans and risks related to children being taken overseas

Figure 6. Managing MFVA Risk

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