Co-Parenting After Divorce and Separation in Context of Intimate Partner Violence Webinar Presenter: Emily Becher Hello and welcome to a webinar about co-parenting after divorce and separation in context of intimate partner violence. This is a webinar that is a part of the Parents Forever professional development program. We originally recorded this webinar about a month and a half ago, at that time I had a co-facilitator Brandon Jones, who also worked with me. He was unable to be a part of this re-recording of the webinar, so for those of you who participated in the original one, that’s what happened to Brandon's slides and Brandon's work. So, for this webinar, I’ll just present my portion of the presentation, which is more a theoretical and empirical background to the topic of intimate partner violence in context of divorce and separation. My name is Emily Becher, I am a research fellow for the Parents Forever program. I work full time on research and evaluation in support of Parents Forever. My background though is related to intimate partner violence, my dissertation in the department family social science, was about intimate partner violence and I worked for a few years at the domestic abuse project and I have interest in intimate partner violence both as a research topic and also has a clinical topic in terms of interventions for parents and families. To start out, when we talk about conflict, and we talk about intimate partner violence, I think it's important to distinguish what do we mean by what's normative conflict and what do we mean by intimate partner violence. When you talking about couples who are going through divorce or separation most of the time they have conflict and most of the time that's pretty normal, and most of the time this conflict does not cross the line into what we refer to as intimate partner violence. For many of these couples and families the conflict decreases naturally over time, and while, but in some situations there may be some continued conflict that goes on through the years that never really goes away. And this could be related to, let’s say custody, if you and your co-parent didn’t get along when you were together and now you are divorced and separated and you expect to co-parent with each other, to a high degree as in a joint custody situation, there may be some expected normative conflict that happens in those situations. So we're still talking about conflict that doesn’t cross the line into what we we’re referring to as intimate partner violence. So kind of leads into the question of what is a partner violence and so we talk about it first we’re talking about physical violence, you know, hitting someone with a fist, an open hand, hitting someone with an object, kicking someone, biting someone, hurting someone physically, restraining them physically. Also included is sexual violence and so and we're talking about couples who are going through divorce or separation. Sexual violence is often intertwined with intimate partner violence. Intimate partner violence is also the threat of physical or sexual violence and so you know perhaps one partner hit another partner years ago but the continued threat of of another incident of physical violence or sexual violence is enough to keep that person afraid and so the threat aspect of intimate partner is also very important. 1

That can be very important when you’re talking about couples who are going to divorce or separation in the courtroom, if people are having to face a judge and one partner looks at the other partner in a way that no one else sees as threatening but there's a whole history to that relationship behind what the book means for someone how has been a victim, that look may be quite threatening and very scary. So, that’s important to be aware of. And this also connects to the social-psychological and emotional aspect of violence. When you’re talking intimate partner violence there is always a psychological and emotional aspect to the violence. If someone hurts you physically they are also hurting you psychologically and emotionally but often what hurts worse is the psychological and emotional abuse and so this can include things like stalking, isolating your partner from their friends, from other people in their life and their family. Denying them access to basic resources you know, food, medication, humiliating them, controlling what that person can and cannot do. Intimate partner violence is extremely common and in our society. A third of women and a fourth of men report a lifetime prevalence of experiencing rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. Almost half of women and men report a lifetime prevalence of experience in psychological or emotional violence from an intimate partner. And so it's important to know that, I mean, when you're out in the world almost half of the people that you're interacting with have probably been the victim of some form of psychological or emotional violence by an intimate partner at some point in their life. When you’re talking about couples where there’s separation this increases the risk for intimate partner violence in a couple different and unique ways. So for example, women who get divorced or separated report that they experience intimate partner violence at three times the rate as other women. One sample of divorcing and separating women, 25… in different samples, there were three or four different samples of divorcing and separating women, the rate of intimate partner violence ranged from 25% to 65%. I mean that’s a… we are talking about a quarter all the way to almost 2/3 of the sample of people. And so what that indicates is that for people who are going through separation or divorce a large group of them may be experiencing intimate partner violence incidents. That’s what you need to know, I mean intimate partner violence is destabilizing to the couple and so naturally because abuse and violence hurts and doesn’t help strengthen a relationship. And so to know that when people are going through divorce or separation some of them are going to walk through doorways with intimate partner violence in their story. But in another way intimate partner violence and separation are associated, so separation first of all does not end the risk of intimate partner violence for many victims, in samples of women who had ended a relationship with a partner who was abusive to them and this was physical violence for in different samples 11% to 39% can experience continued abuse after the relationship was over. And what this means is that you we this preconception that when people are in violent relationships, if the relationship ends the violence ends and that's actually not true for many couples. For many couples the violence continues. 2

In another interesting and scary way, separation also increases the risk for intimate partner violence around homicide so people who have been in a relationship with her silence and now they're going to a separation that is a risk factor for the victim to be murdered by their former partner. And in fact the risk of homicide for women is highest in the several months after separation. And then in another way another sort of twist on it for some people who have had intimate partner violence after they separate the violence ends, for some people in this one sample 37% of the violence did not get worse, it stayed the same. For some that 24% on that intimate partner violence became more severe and interestingly for 39% in this one sample the intimate partner violence started during the separation process. So this important to know, all of these pieces, so if there is a relationship with intimate partner violence the separation process may not end the violence, it actually could worsen the violence for a period of time. And for some people the separation may be the start... you might see the beginning of violence during that separation time. So when you’re talking about this increased risk for violence during the separation process, one person who has done work in this area is Michael Johnson. He approaches intimate partner violence through the lens of typologies. And what that means is he has kind of created these types, these types of violence in relationships. And so one of those types is the separation instigated violence where there is no history of intimate partner violence, and that typically in these situations the violence is perpetrated by the partner who feels that they are being left and being rejected. Other subtypes that Michael Johnson outlines is the intimate terrorist/coercive controlling violence subtype and so that's where you would see a high pattern of power and control--a variety of abusive tactics--so physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional abuse. There's a high likelihood of serious injury and high levels of fear and intimidation. Often when I talk about this subtype I refer to the movie with Julia Roberts in the 80s called “Sleeping With the Enemy” and if anyone has seen that movie I mean that is a very good example of someone who's in a relationship with an intimate terrorist. The next subtype that Michael Johnson outlines is violent resistance and this is when you have a victim who is in a relationship with someone who is an intimate terrorist who is abusing them and they decide to use violence in an attempt to both defend themselves but also to prevent future violence. And so an example that I often use with this is if you know that your spouse is at the bar drinking and you know that when your spouse drinks they beat you up pretty severely when they get home and the moment your spouse walks through the door and you see that they are drunk you hit them over the head with a frying pan in an effort to avoid what would come. The next subtype that Michael Johnson talks about is situational couples violence. And this is where, this is the type of violence that I think we most often see on reality television. So this is when you see people slapping each other, pulling each other's hair, destroying property, throwing clothes out on the lawn. And it's described as occasional violence that emerges from arguments or fights. And there is no broader pattern of controller abuse or at least it doesn’t appear to be a broader pattern of controller abuse. And both our partners are equally likely to perpetrate versus in these other types that I’ve talked about, instigator violence and intimate terrorism, it is very clear that there’s a primary perpetrator. And even in violent resistance it’s very clear that there's a primary perpetrator and that the victim is using violence in an effort to 3

defend or prevent violence from their perpetrator. I mean obviously intimate partner violence matters. I mean we care about it for the fact that it harms a lot of people and a lot of people's lives. But also deeply impacts people's parenting and that's a huge part of why it's important to think about when we’re talking about Parents Forever™ or any other divorce education program. Parents who perpetrate against their partners are particularly with long-term patterns of abuse like the intimate terrorist kind of model are more likely to also use those same abusive patterns against their children. So there's a high level of co-morbidity between intimate partner violence and child abuse, because of those those things. And then parents who exhibit coercive controlling violence or frequent use of violence during conflict are poor role models for their children. Children learn from their parents about emotional regulation, about how to treat other people, about intimate relationships themselves, how to have relationships with other people, how to have romantic intimate relationships and so this type of modeling can often lead to the intergenerational transmission of violent behavior. Parents who have been victimized also makes it a problematic parenting because they're traumatized. And in most often these parents will improve with time and support and help, and intervention. But there may be a small minority of parents who have been so deeply traumatized and hurt by their experiences with intimate partner violence that they may not be able to parent effectively to cut chronic behavioral health problems. So one way to think about this is how does that intimate part of violence or history of intimate partner violence, how does that play into developing parenting plans and what custody situations should happen between parents. Because there is a spectrum of violence and so not all violence is the same. And so what are good ways to think about the spectrum of intimate violence and parenting plans during the divorce and separation process. And one option is that the PPP screening with the PPP, the triple p screening, refers to is looking at three aspects of the history of the relationship and the current relationship between the co-parents and the type of intimate partner violence that happened between them. The first piece - potency, the second piece - pattern and the third p, who is the primary perpetrator and is there a primary perpetrator. So, what does potency refer to? I mean, potency of violence refers to the level of severity, the dangerousness, and the risk of lethality. And so this includes things like have there been threats in the past of homicide or suicide. Are there weapons available -- guns and knives -- and are they accessible. How extreme or serious was the previous violence, were injuries caused, and if they were how serious were they? Is the perpetrator of the violence...do they seem obsessed you know with the victim or the other co-parent as being the person that needs to be blamed, for causing the problems, or should be focused upon as the target of blame. Does someone, does the perpetrator of violence have a history of mental illness and a specific mental illness to watch out for are things related to thought disorders, schizophrenia, paranoia, or severe personality disorders. Is the person under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Or do they have a history of substance abuse and how long has that history of substance abuse been, if they are in recovery how long a period of recovery have they had. Does the perpetrator express a high degree of depression or rage or extreme emotional instability. So that you would interpret that they had a high likelihood of acting irrationally or unpredictably. Is the party recently separated or experiencing other stressors, so that is the separation very recent and are there other stressors that are happening at the same time like loss of job, eviction from home. Did one of the parents 4

lose child custody or both are there severe financial problems, things like that. All of those things can affect the potency and the risk of lethality in a situation. The second “p” refers to pattern and this has to do with that long-term pattern of coercive control that I mentioned related to intimate partner violence. And so the first thing to look at is there a history of physical violence including a destruction of property, were there threats to hurt themselves or someone else. Were there assaults and batteries, there sexual coercion or rape. Does the perpetrator have a disregard for contempt for authority? And you would see this in their refusal to comply with court-ordered parenting plans, if they’re violating protective orders, if there's a criminal arrest record. How fearful or intimidated is the partner or the victim. How much fear are they demonstrating? Is there a history of emotional abuse and attacks on self-esteem? Does it, when looking at the history of the relationship did one person make all the decisions about things like money or how people and spend their time, how the children should be taken care of. Has a partner in that situation, and the history of the relationship been isolated from outside contacts, you know, prevented from working or seeing their friends or family. Is there some evidence of obsessive preoccupation or sexual jealousy or possessiveness of the partner. And so this would be from who you think is the perpetrator towards the person you think is the victim. And after separation, have there been repeated unwanted attempts to contact the partner. I mean is there stalking, has there been hostagetaking threats or attempt to abduct the partner or child. Have there been multiple petitions or litigation that appear to have the purpose of controlling and harassing the person who’s being victimized. So is the perpetrator using the court system to re-victimize the other co-parent. The third “p” is who is the primary perpetrator, who is the primary aggressive if there is one. And so some of the ways you can look at how to answer that is after talking to both parents after interviewing both parents, you know who provides a more clear, specific, implausible account of the violent incidence. And the person who is the perpetrator would be the person who denies, and minimizes, and rationalizes the incident. What motives are used to explain why the incident or incidents occurred. Victims sometimes use the language that suggests that they were trying to placate or protect or avoid or stop the violence whereas the perpetrator will describe their intent as being one control the other or punish the other. Or react to something bad that the other person did. And when you look at the two co-parents or the two former spouses, what's the difference in size difference in size and physical strength of each party relative to the amount of damage or injury resulting from the incident. So perpetrators who re larger or who are able to have specific training and skills in combat are often able to cause greater damage. Are the types of injuries or wounds suffered were they likely caused by aggression by the perpetrator or defensive acts by the victim. If the incidents involved mutual combat, meaning both people were involved, were the violent acts or injuries by one partner far greater than the other. And so this is where knowing that subtype about violent resistance is important because in those situations, people who are violently resisting their abusive partner, they will say that they were only using enough force to defend and protect. Whereas when a primary perpetrator is retaliating they are more likely to escalate the use of force again with that intent to control or to punish or to react to something harmful or bad that they perceived that the victim did. And finally has either partner had prior protective order issued against them 5

and was this in this relationship or a former relationship. And this would indicate if the perpetrator had a history of perpetration in the past. So you've done the 3p screening process so what's next, what are the types of parenting plans that are available to you? How would you use the 3p's to determine what parenting plans were appropriate. So, if you've done the ppp screen and you have low ratings across all p’s and if the violence has occurred in the past, if there's a long history of nonviolence, and there have been examples of successful parallel parenting and an absence of coercive control and abuse this would be an appropriate situation for a co-parenting-type model. So, this is where both parents are highly engaged in the care of their children, they communicate heavily about the care of the children, and that high level of communication is encouraged. The second model is parallel parenting and so this is where both parents are involved in their children's lives but there is limited, if any communication happening between the parents themselves. And so this type of model is more appropriate when you might see some moderate to low ratings on the potency and pattern p’s but there's no primary perpetrator that has been identified. If there is a history of coercive control there is long-term evidence of progress or the successful completion of treatment, there's no current threat of violence or abuse against the co-parent or the child and the child exhibits no current symptoms of trauma or distress related to past violence. The next type, and again this is a spectrum, so going from parents who are both involved and both highly involved and connected all the way to the opposite end. So the next option after parallel parenting is supervised exchange. So this type of parenting plan model is appropriate when there are moderate ratings on all three of the p’s, the p’s—potency, pattern, and primary perpetrator. But it seems that the risk for violence is only there if the parents engage and, this is important, there are no threats or concerns about wellbeing for the child if they are in the care of only one parent. Supervised exchange is when you have an appropriate and neutral monitor that manages the drop off, pickup situation of the children. The next model after that is supervised access so this is where you have moderate high ratings on the 3p's but now it's when a parent is considered at risk for child abuse or abduction, when the child has been traumatized by past abuse but has asked for contact with that parent, the contact with the parent in a safe context is seen as beneficial and the child is not distressed about the idea of seeing their parent. This is sometimes an appropriate situation for when a parent has not yet met the conditions for improved access so let’s say that they need to go through treatment and they haven’t gone through treatment yet. And it’s also only appropriate when there is appropriate and neutral supervision available. So what supervised access is, is when one parent still has access to the child but it’s only when they're being supervised and so you would need an appropriate and neutral supervisor available to monitor that experience. Finally, the last and most far away from the co-parenting model type of parenting plan is the suspended contact. So this is when the parent doesn't have any contact with the child. And this is appropriate when there are high to very high ratings on the 3p screening. There is current 6

child distress or refusal to go to supervised visits, the parent who perpetrated violence shows no remorse or willingness to change, threats there been threats or attempts to hurt or kill the child, there's been a conviction of serious assault or homicide of a family member. And there is a severe access active substance abuse or mental illness window treatment that the perpetrator’s currently going through and this model, this suspended contact model is obviously about keeping children safe and keeping victims safe, but it is not for use, it’s not appropriate when supervised visitation is inconvenient or if the custodial parent refuses to make a child available for the terms of visitation , but they don't seem to have a justified caus. So you’d only do suspended contact when it's about safety not when it's when other models might be more appropriate but they are less convenient. So in terms of some feedery behind all of this Jennifer Hardisty has done a lot of work on women who experienced intimate partner violence and separation or divorce. And what she has identified as a set of risk factors, a set of protective factors, mediating variables, outcomes and health outcomes for mothers and children. So risk factors include things like demographic variables, background characteristics, what were the levels of conflict at prior to the separation of divorce. What did type of violence happened in the relationship, so was this intimate terrorism, was this a situation of couple violence. Some protective factors are were things like time since the separation. So the more time had past since of separation the more protective that is. Whether there's a new partner in the picture, that's protective. The availability to the former partner so if the perpetrator and victim live far away from each other that's protective. And the use of resources and protective strategies so the more that someone has been a victim is able to use their resources and use protective strategies that is a protective factor. So then some mediating variables are things like satisfaction with the parenting plan and custody agreements and boundary ambiguity. And that's a very important thing that I’ll touch on a little bit. And so the risk factors and protective factors and mediating variables variables interact to create some outcomes and that includes things like the quality of the co-parenting relationship and if and how much violence happens after the relationship has ended. And then whether or not that violence is continued that leads to health outcomes for moms, their physical and mental health, and children's physical mental and behavioral health. So as I mentioned, the risk factors include things like demographic and background characteristics that’s things like larger families there's risk factors for larger families, on how young the children-- that seems to be a risk factor for post-separation intimate partner violence. How young moms are, how much education they have, whether they're working or not, how long the relationship was, whether they were married versus unmarried, whether they are single versus having a new romantic partner. Characteristics of the relationship that arrest factors are things like, how much hostility happened at the separation, at the time separation how much disagreement is happening over child custody or support and again this boundary ambiguity the idea which I will touch on afterwards to explain because it's really important. How much fear moms have and again how much contact perpetrators and victims are having. We talked about resources and protective strategies. So moving along to boundary ambiguity because I think this is a really unique contribution of Jennifer Hardisty's work I think it's important to know. What is boundary ambiguity? Well essentially one of the things we talk 7

about in Parents Forever™ is the ability to understand and recognize and accept that the rules that you had within your family when you were an intact couple are changed and different now that you are no longer a couple. So now you are co-parents but you are not in an intimate relationship and so therefore the boundaries between you are different and they need to be respected as such. So if you are co-parents you can no longer act, whether or not your coparent is dating, what they're doing with their personal life, that’s none of your business. The only thing that you have to talk about with your former partner is co-parenting. So this idea of boundary ambiguity is the blurriness between these roles. So, yes the relationships has ended but maybe I’m having a hard time seeing how being, I’m still of a partner, I’m still co-parent even though the relationship has ended. And so I’m concerned about things that perhaps I shouldn’t be concerned about. I’m concerned about things like who is my partner, who is my co-parent dating. What are they doing with their life. Maybe I think that we’re going to be able to get back together. I’m unable to separate my role as a co-parent from my former role as a spouse. So, and we call that differentiation, being able to separate roles from one another. So in one study with 25 divorced mothers who had a former abusive spouse, the fathers who were able to separate their role as father from their formal role as spouse managed to co-parent far more positivel. The mothers in that situation didn't need to use the legal system because they felt they were able to resolve issues within the co-parenting relationship in appropriate ways. This is in contrast to fathers who continue to use co-parenting mechanisms to try to control their former spouses and they experienced, the co-parent, the women experienced thier coparent, their former partner, as continuing their abusive behavior. And the women still had fear for themselves and their children. So examples of this were using things like using pickup and drop off as a time to interrogate and insult their former spouse, or a refusal to pick up children if the former spouse wasn't going to be there. In those situations mothers felt compelled to use the legal system to force their former spouse to behave non-abusively whether that was through enacting a supervised visitation plan or a child support enforcement. And these men who were unable to, who had difficulty with boundary ambiguity, they refused to let go of their relationship with their former spouse in order to create a positive co-parenting relationship for the sake of their children. So, what I’ve presented to you is pretty much the best of what we know about intimate partner violence as it relates to divorce and separation. But there are lots of limitations to the literature and what we know. There is a lot that we don't know. So for example the majority of previously recited literature that I’ve talked about is based on a wealth of evidence about the impact and trajectory of intimate partner violence in the lives of...for heterosexual relationships where there is a male perpetrator and a female victim. We simply just do not have enough research about what co-parenting looks like in context of intimate partner violence when you are talking about a same-sex couple or a couple where the man was the victim and the woman was the perpetrator. So, while it may seem like much of the literature I presented talking about men being perpetrators and women being victims, that’s primarily because that is what the researcher is on. There is no research about co-parenting after separation and divorce for same-sex couples or for when a man was the victim and the woman was the perpetrator. So, we need that—we need that research. So if you're out there listening to this webinar, please do that research so that we can talk about what these experiences are for these other types of 8

families, these other types of couples and co-parents. And in addition to that, given the focus in existing literature on how to best protect women and children, and there’s obviously still a lot of work that needs to be done on that topic, there's so little on what fathers experience either as a past or present perpetrator or victim. So let's say for example, father had perpetrated against their spouse in the past but then they were able to remain to nonviolent for a long period of time and were attempting to heal and create a better co-parenting relationship and a better parenting relationship. Well that’s a story of a father I would really want to hear and unfortunately we don't have that story. Same thing for a father who had been victimized in the past by a female spouse or a father who is in a same-sex relationship who had been abused. We just don't have those stories and we need them on to be able to add some information and add some depth to information that we do have. So, that is the end of my presentation. Thank you very much for listening with me today. Here are my slides--you are welcome to look at my PowerPoint and if you have any questions please contact me I’m in the Extension Center for Family Development. My email as listed right there it’s [email protected] or you can call me at 612-624-3335. I look forward to connecting with you. Thank you so much and have a good day. Goodbye.

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