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The STOP Domestic Violence Program

Topic Areas
Scientific Rating
Child Welfare Relevance
Domestic/Intimate Partner Violence: Batterer Intervention Programs
NR  — Not able to be Rated
Medium

About This Program

Target Population: Male domestic violence offenders

Program Overview

The STOP Domestic Violence Program integrates contemporary and innovative interventions for treating male domestic violence offenders. Designed for both military and civilian populations, the STOP Program is a psychologically based intervention that aims to reach the very offenders who often seem so unapproachable.

Using client-centered guidelines, the program integrates a package of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) skills, video vignettes, and education about the politics of abuse. While always insisting on full accountability, the program recognizes that offenders can have a profound sense of powerlessness in relationships and is designed to equip them with better models for developing a wider range of emotionally intelligent skills.

Treatment providers will find that the program has an outlined philosophical orientation. The intervention is designed to be engaging and user-friendly and aims to open bold new avenues to help offenders deal with the powerful relationship issues with which they are struggling.

Program Goals

The goals for target population The STOP Domestic Violence Program are:

  • Identify elements of power and control in their own relationships
  • Develop skills in identifying the red flags of anger and aggression and before engaging in destructive behavior
  • Understand the power of personal narratives and stories in generating feelings and behavior, and develop ways to challenge them
  • Respect the power of longstanding belief for men to maintaining the tough guise, which can significantly interfere with relationship success
  • Develop an understanding and self-awareness of their own (and their partner’s) attachment style and how this can impact jealousy, defensiveness, and over-reactivity
  • Learn a vast array of healthy relationship skills, such as assertiveness, successful apologies, and how to use love languages
  • Activate empathy skills for their intimate partner and for their own children, including both awareness and communication of compassion
  • Increase self-awareness of how personal history (e.g., family environment, role models, traumatic events) affects their adult intimate partner relationships
  • Recognize the interaction between their own substance abuse and relationship abuse
  • Generate specific coping skills for high emotional arousal (e.g., time-out, stake in conformity, physiological self-regulation, self-talk, etc.)

Logic Model

View the Logic Model for The STOP Domestic Violence Program.

Essential Components

The essential components of The STOP Domestic Violence Program include:

  • Identifying the multiple forms of abuse in a relationship beyond actual physical abuse
  • Challenging group members to take full responsibility for their own behavior, while still respecting the difficult behaviors that may be exhibited by their partners
  • Utilizing creative teaching strategies to engage the group members
  • Integrating a wide range of video vignettes to engage group members and activate affective connection to the material
  • Utilizing solution-focused interventions to activate awareness of personal strengths and successes among group members
  • Adopting a relentlessly humanistic approach to foster hope and resilience among group members
  • Consistently showing respect for the strengths and positive qualities in the group members
  • Activating new levels of awareness in group members regarding their own attachment insecurity and jealousy issues
  • Making connections between past issues that have shaped or even traumatized group members and their dysfunctional behavior as adults
  • Equipping group members with a wide range of valuable and user-friendly strategies for improved relationship skills · Capitalizing on the strength of the group model to help group members develop new norms
  • Utilizing Motivational Interviewing principles to disarm defensiveness and facilitate change
  • Generating awareness for group members of their stake in conformity and how much they stand to lose or gain by their own behaviors
  • Equipping group members with a wide array of emotional self-regulation skills · Increasing awareness within group members about the attachment-based issues affecting both themselves and their partners

Program Delivery

Adult Services

The STOP Domestic Violence Program directly provides services to adults (regardless of whether they are parents or caregivers) and addresses the following:

  • Domestic violence offender

Recommended Intensity:

2-hour weekly group session

Recommended Duration:

26 weekly sessions (In jurisdictions that require 52 weekly sessions, the sessions in the manual are repeated for all group members.)

Delivery Settings

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

  • Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider
  • Justice Setting (Juvenile Detention, Jail, Prison, Courtroom, etc.)

Homework

The STOP Domestic Violence Program includes a homework component:

Each session is followed by homework involving a checklist or brief essay questions.

Languages

The STOP Domestic Violence Program has materials available in a language other than English:

Spanish

For information on which materials are available in this language, please check on the program's website or contact the program representative (contact information is listed at the bottom of this page).

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

Group room with chairs, TV monitor + computer + DVD player

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

Must be a mental health professional or mental health student/trainee with certification as a domestic violence treatment provider before receiving training in The STOP Program

Manual Information

There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Program Manual(s)

Manual details:

  • Wexler, D. B. (2020). The STOP domestic violence program, (4th ed.), revised and updated. W. W. Norton.

The manual is available thorough Amazon, W.W. Norton, or the Relationship Training Institute

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contact:
Training Type/Location:

Training is offered through the Relationship Training Institute website at https://www.rtiprojects.org/index.html or by contracted agencies (military and civilian).

Number of days/hours:

3.5 days (24.0 contact hours) for providers

Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

Dunford, F. W. (2000) The San Diego Navy experiment: An assessment of interventions for men who assault their wives. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68(3), 468–476. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.68.3.468

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 861 couples

Population:

  • Age — Mean age=27 years
  • Race/Ethnicity — Men:48% White and 35% Black; Women:40% White and 18% Black
  • Gender — Not specified
  • Status — Participants were US Navy couples that consisted of male perpetrators of physical assault on their female spouse.

Location/Institution: San Diego

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral interventions implemented in different treatment settings for men who batter. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: a men's group, a conjoint group, a rigorously monitored group, and a control group. The men’s group received a cognitive-behavioral intervention [now called The STOP Program] and the conjoint group received a cognitive-behavioral intervention adapted for couples. Measures utilized include the Modified Conflict Tactics Scale, study-developed surveys, interviews, and official police and court records. Results indicate that there were no significant differences between the groups on the outcome measures. Limitations include concerns over generalizability as the sample was only from men in the Navy and a one-size-fits-all approach to the treatment of men who batter.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: 6 months.

Additional References

Miller, M., Drake, E., & Nafziger, M. (2013). What works to reduce recidivism by domestic violence offenders? Washington State Institute for Public Policy. https://www.wsipp.wa.gov/ReportFile/1119/Wsipp_What-Works-to-Reduce-Recidivism-by-Domestic-Violence-Offenders_Full-Report.pdf

Contact Information

David B Wexler, PhD
Agency/Affiliation: Relationship Training Institute
Website: www.rtiprojects.org
Email:
Phone: (619) 892-8318

Date Research Evidence Last Reviewed by CEBC: March 2024

Date Program Content Last Reviewed by Program Staff: July 2024

Date Program Originally Loaded onto CEBC: August 2024