Family violence: Fathers assessing and managing their risk to children and women Joan Pennell ⁎, R.V. Rikard, Tia Sanders-Rice Center for Family and Community Engagement, North Carolina State University, USA abstract article info Article history: Received 30 April 2013 Received in revised form 15 September 2013 Accepted 6 November 2013 Available online xxxx Keywords: Domestic violence Child maltreatment Fatherhood Risk assessment Risk management Qualitative comparative analysis All too often, child protective workers fail to identify domestic violence, thus, endangering both child and adult fam- ily members. A potential solution is engaging men who abuse in assessing and managing their own risk to family members. This was the aim of a psycho-educational fathering program developed and tested in the southeastern United States. Over the course of the group, the men set goals on how to relate to their children and to their current or former partners, and they reflected on their achievement of these goals. The men's self-appraisals were support- ed by their caseworkers' assessments. A comparison of child protection data before and after entry in the group showed an extensive decrease in the families assessed with child protection findings and with household domestic violence. The evaluation used a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) that identified configurations of conditions overlapping with child protection outcomes. Some of the men's characteristics included in these configurations ran counter to predictors usually associated with child maltreatment and domestic violence. The evaluation results point to the unique contributions that QCA can make to risk assessment. © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction In assessing risk, child welfare agencies face competing demands. On the one hand, they are mandated to investigate child maltreatment and intervene to prevent recurrences. On the other hand, they are expected to engage families in collaborative processes to address their needs and concerns. The complexity of these demands heightens when fathers abuse their partners, putting both the mothers and the children at risk of future harm. A potential strategy for mitigating the recurrence of family violence is to support the men in assessing and managing their own risk to family members. This was the aim of the Strong Fathers program that was de- veloped and tested in North Carolina, a state in the southeastern United States. The program was a parenting group for men with a history of committing domestic violence and whose families received child pro- tection services. The overarching framework of Strong Fathers moved away from crime-centered risk approaches (Baird, 2009) to engage men in solution finding (Hoyle, 2008). Guided by this theory of change, the program en- couraged the men to specify their change goals, develop skills for reaching these goals, and reconstruct themselves as responsible fathers. The program evaluation examined the extent to which the men, from their own perspective, attained their goals. The men's self-assessments were checked against state administrative data on child maltreatment and domestic violence. Given the blurred and shifting boundaries on goal achievement, the evaluation used a qualitative comparative analysis and categorized the degree of achievement into fuzzy sets (Ragin, 2000; Smithson & Verkuilen, 2006). This methodology also made it possible to identify configurations of conditions predicting child protection findings and domestic violence before and after entry into the Strong Fathers pro- gram. Because the program focused on changing how abusive fathers relate to their children and their partners, the authors begin by reviewing the prevalence and interaction of co-occurring domestic vio- lence and child maltreatment. 2. Co-occurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment The US state administrative data show that 25.1% of child victims in 2011 were exposed to domestic violence (US DHHS, 2012). These data further indicate that 16.7% of child fatalities were associated with domes- tic violence, a higher rate than for either alcohol abuse at 5.7% or drug abuse at 12.8%. Although fathers usually spend less time with children than mothers, they were identified as involved in 47.7% of parent- perpetrated child maltreatment and 49.7% of parent-perpetrated child fatalities (US DHSS). These agency figures underreport the rate of co-occurring women abuse and child maltreatment. Victims, especially women of color and indigenous women, often hide the abuse committed against them. The women may fear that child protection will use their victimization as grounds for removing children from their care, or they may fear that the workers will give them an ultimatum to leave the perpetrator with- out regard to the impact on the family (Douglas & Walsh, 2010). A US study (National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being) interviewed female caregivers who had been investigated as well as Children and Youth Services Review xxx (2013) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author at: Center for Family and Community Engagement, North Carolina State University, C.B. 8622, Raleigh, NC 27695-8622, USA. Tel.: +1 919 513 0008. E-mail address: jpennell@ncsu.edu (J. Pennell). CYSR-02296; No of Pages 10 0190-7409/$ – see front matter © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.11.004 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Children and Youth Services Review journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth Please cite this article as: Pennell, J., et al., Family violence: Fathers assessing and managing their risk to children and women, Children and Youth Services Review (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.11.004