Abstract
Case management for additional referrals has been recommended especially for African-American men in batterer counseling programs. Additional services addressing “at risk” needs may help to improve batterer program outcomes. To test this expectation, a quasi-experimental evaluation of a case management project was conducted for both “intention-to-treat” and “received-treatment.” The case management included brief assessment at batterer program intake, referral to relevant services, and follow-up calls from batterer program staff. Re-assault and re-arrests during a 12-month follow-up, along with program dropout from the 16 required sessions of the batterer program, were compared for 202 African-American program participants under case management and a sample of 482 African-American participants previously in the batterer program. In both bivariate and confirmatory multivariate analyses, neither the case management nor actual service contact significantly improved outcomes. However, the small portion of men contacting drug and alcohol treatment did tend toward better program outcomes. Poor implementation of the case management procedures may have contributed to the overall weak effects.
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Acknowledgements
The evaluation research was conducted by the staff of the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Training Institute that included Crystal Deemer, Project Director; Gayle Moyer and Vera Bonnet, Research Assistants; Santiago Sanz, Data Manager; and Megan Kensey, Data Entry Specialist. The project was developed and implemented at the Domestic Abuse Counseling Center in Pittsburgh under the direction of Robert Foster, CEO, and Larry Graziano, Chief Operating Officer. Trudy Paul Bernnardo, Program Director, coordinated and conducted much of the case management, and Nicole Malseed assisted with clinical records and subject contact. The domestic violence court of Pittsburgh Municipal Courts also contributed in its referrals to and support of the project. Jack Simmons, the Chief Administrator of the Municipal Courts, was instrumental in the collaboration with this court. This study of case management was made possible through a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD Grant # 01-DS-19-12069). It followed an evaluation of specialized batterer counseling for African-American men funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ Grant #: 2001-WT-BX-0003), and its results are compared to information derived from that previous evaluation. The conclusions of this report do not necessarily reflect the views of PCCD or NIJ.
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Gondolf, E.W. Outcomes of Case Management for African-American Men in Batterer Counseling. J Fam Viol 23, 173–181 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-007-9141-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-007-9141-8