Early Intervention with New Fathers
Pregnancy and new fatherhood are a key transition time for men. During this developmental period, we believe they may be particularly ready to consider and commit to involvement in ending violence against women and children. We are developing several projects that seek to engage men in violence prevention and to promote positive partnering and parenting. Among our projects in development are: (1) a social marketing campaign to promote positive support for pregnant partners and to reduce psychological abuse that has been linked to postpartum depression; (2) developing adjunctive interventions for men whose pregnant partners have experienced earlier trauma and (3) preventive interventions to improve men's ability to positively parent in the first months after the birth of their children, to prevent physical, sexual and psychological abuse during this period and to engage in more supportive behaviors towards their partners.
Engaging Men in Violence Prevention
One missing link in much of the work to prevent domestic violence has been large-scale engagement of men to provide anti-violence messages within their informal networks. Many national and international organizatons have developed materials to be used in such efforts and individual organizations have emerged to take these materials and apply them in their own communities (see links to U.S. and International Organizations and Programs).
Missing in many of these efforts is systematic research on how to best engage men in such violence prevention activities. We are collaborating with networks of men working in the field to develop rigorous tests of such engagement practices.