Pathways to Accountability For People Who Use Violence - Promising Futures

This brief provides guidance for child welfare, dependency courts, programs for survivors of DV, battering intervention programs, responsible fatherhood programs, supervised visitation centers, and other collaborative partners about establishing diverse mechanisms of accountability to help reduce or eliminate abuse and to promote positive change among persons who use violence and other forms of coercive control. The first step to establishing accountability is designing policy and practice guidance with clear instructions for holding the person who is using violence, and not the survivor of that violence, responsible for causing harm.

Pathways to Accountability grows from the understanding that working with abusive partners can increase the safety and well-being of adult and child survivors. This work can also lead to healthier outcomes for persons who use violence when it is integral to a holistic, coordinated response to domestic violence.