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Hiatus House To Stop Providing Partner Assault Response Program To Abusive Men

Thursday February 19th, 2015, 8:37pm

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File photo of Hiatus House located at 250 Louis Avenue

After 16 years of delivering the Partner Assault Response Program to abusive men in Essex County, Hiatus House says that they will no longer provide this service effective March 31st, 2016.

The program started in  2000 when Hiatus House entered into a funding agreement with the Ministry of the Attorney General.  The agency said that at that time they believed that the program would provide an opportunity to engage men and encourage them to pursue longer-term treatment to end their abusive behaviour.

Thom Rolfe, Executive Director of Hiatus House says, “We have always believed that abusive men can change and we have also learned over the last 35 years that change takes time. It takes at least 6 to 8 months for men to stop being physically abusive, and longer for them to stop being emotionally and psychologically abusive”.

Rolfe says that recent Ministry changes in 2014/2015 to the  program have left them with an educational program that provides little more than criminal sanction to abusive men.

“We believe abusive men and their partners deserve more. Hiatus House, which also operates a 42 bed emergency shelter for abused women and their children, believes that if we truly want to stop women abuse in the Province of Ontario we must offer something more significant and substantial to abusive men. Abused women do not necessarily want to permanently leave their abusive partners. They do want the violence to stop. By not providing adequate treatment options for abusive men we do a tremendous disservice to abused women and significantly increase the risk of serious injury and death to abused women and their children.”

He says that at least 40 % of the women currently in the shelter refuse to be involved with the criminal justice system because they have found it to be ineffective in helping to stop abuse.There are extremely limited options for treatment for abusive men in Ontario at this time. The current criminal justice system response is minimalist at best, and seriously flawed in its ability to effectively address this issue.

Hiatus House says they will focus its efforts on the redevelopment of the long-term treatment program that is necessary to help men truly accept responsibility for, and end, their abusive behavior.

They say that this announcement means that several long-term staff will no longer be employed at Hiatus House.

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