Status of Women committee  It's the the children.

Status of Women committee  Generally speaking, they recognize that they're doing wrong by their kids. They're struggling with that. Even if it's the two-year-old who looked at them in fearfulness the night of the incident, or whenever he and mommy are hollering at each other again, or whatever, they are starting to realize this is not what they want for their kids.

Status of Women committee  We are getting requests from the John Howard Society around the restorative justice type of thing. We haven't met with them yet. I think again it goes back to the accountability and the fact that we're looking to work with these guys for the longer term. I don't know. I guess in some ways it's like what Harvey was talking about earlier, about giving people choices that they didn't know they had in terms of what they want.

Status of Women committee  There are no consultations with us and no consultations with women's shelters. The courts have just started doing it, and my goodness, I don't get that.

Status of Women committee  We work with individuals. We don't take absolute stands on very many things. It feels as though society is trying to rescue people from accountability for their choices. We recognize that when somebody chooses not to take responsibility, that hurts both sides that were involved in the domestic dispute.

Status of Women committee  Men need to be held accountable. The probation orders seems to be getting reduced to six months again. That's what it was when I first joined 17 and a half years ago. Some of the guys are coming to the group and saying, “Even the courts know it's all crazy, because they only gave me six months.”

Status of Women committee  Often, yes.

Status of Women committee  We ask for a minimum of six months. The average is probably 12 to 18 months for guys continuing to come after an agency has said they don't have to do that anymore.

Status of Women committee  That was the Law Foundation.

Status of Women committee  The men who come in crisis come from everywhere. Maybe they have just been arrested and released from jail, or maybe they have just come out of court and their name is splashed all over the radio. They're not allowed to go home. They can't get their tools. They can't see their kids.

Status of Women committee  Sometimes the benefit is that they see they can give back. They can help those guys who are first coming in. They can say, “I was just where you are eight months ago, and I'm so happy for you that you found this place.” That really does a lot.

Status of Women committee  We would be able to do a lot more of the work with youth. The Law Foundation funded us to do that work, and that funding ended. We see it as the only preventative work we do, and so we keep trying to find ways to do some measure of it. I developed and implemented a parenting program a number of years ago, when we had some funding.

Status of Women committee  Okay. The last time we received funding for that was 2002. I still have all the information I developed and I still seize the opportunity whenever I can in groups to talk about kids and child development and those types of things, but it's very difficult with an open group of guys coming and going to do anything consistently.

Status of Women committee  To address that staffing piece, that's not our only problem. Our funding hasn't increased in 29 years. The budget they give us has been the same for all those years. On the other piece, I know our program, and that's what I can speak to with the most knowledge. We're not about keeping families together.

Status of Women committee  We don't have the staff to keep track. We're very much understaffed. We're grateful when clients say, “I know something's wrong” or “I'm having a really rough time and I know I feel better when I go to your program”, and they come back. We see that as success. We measure success as the relationship ending safely.