Perpetrator Intervention
Domestic Violence Perpetrator Intervention
Our member organisations offer various counselling services for individuals who perpetrate or have perpetrated violence in their current or former relationships and wish to complete a counselling programme due to a recommendation, a judicial directive, or voluntarily.
The aim is to:
- Breaking cycles of violence
- enable individuals who perpetrate violence to find a way out of violent behaviour
- permanently end domestic violence.
Our member organisations adhere to the standards of the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Täterarbeit Häusliche Gewalt e.V.
Violent behaviour is learned and changeable.
Counselling Goals
The primary goal of perpetrator intervention is to prevent the perpetration of violence (or its recurrence).
To protect victims from violence and end domestic violence, individuals who perpetrate violence must reflect on and change their behaviour. This is possible within the framework of professional, standardised perpetrator intervention programmes.
In this programme, individuals who perpetrate violence learn to:
- take responsibility for their behaviour
- recognise and accept their own boundaries and those of others
- empathise with the affected individuals
- develop alternative conflict resolution strategies and resolve conflicts non-violently
Frequently Asked Questions about Perpetrator Intervention
Perpetrator intervention refers to working with individuals who perpetrate violence in the context of domestic violence, with the core aim of ending violence and preventing its recurrence.
The target group comprises individuals who perpetrate, have perpetrated, or fear they may perpetrate violence in their current or former relationships. Access to counselling varies. In addition to judicial directives or recommendations from other authorities or institutions, individuals can also participate in a counselling programme on their own initiative. Individuals who admit their actions and show a minimum willingness to cooperate can be accepted.
Perpetrator intervention in Germany is a comparatively new field of work. The first, largely unstandardised, counselling services emerged in the late 1980s. A scientific evaluation of perpetrator intervention commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth between 2000 and 2004 initiated the professionalisation and standardisation of perpetrator intervention. This led to the establishment of the Perpetrator Intervention Standard and the Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Täterarbeit Häusliche Gewalt e.V. in 2007.
Counselling in our member organisations is conducted by specially trained personnel from fields such as social work, social pedagogy, psychology, mediation, or similar.
Typically, perpetrator intervention takes place in a group setting. If group work is not possible in justified cases, individual counselling can be utilised.
Following an admission process with at least three individual sessions, which serve to verify the assumption of responsibility and suitability for group participation, a counselling programme in a group setting with a standard of 25 sessions is planned. In these sessions, participants confront their own behaviour and its effects, learn alternative coping strategies, develop emergency plans, and delve deeper into their own experiences as victims and gender perceptions.
Background
Domestic violence
is one of the most frequently occurring human rights violations
is independent of age, education level, origin, and economic status
always affects children who have to witness the violence
has many dimensions and includes not only physical and sexual, but also economic, psychological, and digital forms of violence, as well as stalking
occurs in both heterosexual and non-heterosexual relationships and affects people of all genders
is largely directed against women and perpetrated by partners/ex-partners. In 2022, 80% of the 143,000 victims of domestic violence were female
