Intimate Partner Violence and Fatherhood Intervention in Residential Substance Abuse Treatment

The proposed stage 1 intervention development study is designed to address two significant co-occurring issues for fathers with substance abuse (SA) problems: Intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment (CM). SA treatment programs are an important avenue to reduce family violence because SA treatment alone does not result in an end to these behaviors. Currently available interventions have had little success in reducing male IPV. Fathers for Change, an integrated outpatient intervention, shows promise as an intervention model targeting the intersection of SA, IPV, and CM. The intervention uses men's roles as fathers as a motivation for change and targets factors that are known to trigger SA, IPV and CM: hostile cognitions and poor emotion regulation. An intervention of this sort has not been integrated and tested as part of a residential substance abuse program for men. This project is a pilot study of 60 fathers randomly assigned to Fathers for Change or a Parent Education Program (PE) comparison. The initial feasibility of the Fathers for Change will be assessed by comparing it to PE in the areas of: participant completion rates, hostile cognitions, emotion regulation, SA relapse, IPV, and CM risk behaviors (negative parenting). Change in hostile cognitions and emotion regulation will be examined as the mechanisms through which Fathers for Change reduces relapse, IPV and CM risk behaviors.