When a new member joins the group, he introduces himself to the other men by sharing the most abusive thing he’s done.
“Mine was screaming and shouting in front of my kids,” Jason, 38, says. “Letting my children witness that behaviour.”
The dad from Oldham, whose name has been changed to protect his family’s anonymity, has now completed a 40-week course. But when social services first referred him to the programme after concerns were raised about his children in school, he refused to go. Police then got involved, a court order was issued and he had to leave the family home. After losing everything, he changed his mind.
What he realises now, as he comes to the end of the Bridging to Change programme, is that his behaviour towards his now ex-wife was abusive – and it was affecting their children. “We were arguing and screaming and shouting all the time in front of the kids,” he explains.
Jason is among hundreds of men to take part in the programme run by a charity in Trafford. It is a project which appears to have proven effective so far. Research commissioned by the Home Office has found an 80 per cent reduction in reports of domestic abuse relating to those who take part. Most referrals to the programme come from social services while a quarter of participants since 2023 have been self-referred.
It comes as the Greater Manchester Combined Authority raise awareness of coercive and controlling behaviour through their #IsThisOk campaign which is part of a wider strategy to tackle gender-based violence in the region. Greater Manchester Police also want to see more perpetrators take part in these programmes and the force is now lobbying the government to allow courts to mandate participation in these courses.
But according to Bonnie Webster who works at TLC: Talk, Listen, Change in Trafford which runs the course, it’s not for everyone. “If we had a person who comes in and isn’t able to think they’ve done anything wrong at all, we wouldn’t really be able to work with them,” she says. “It’s really important that it is voluntary so they have a motivation to change whether that’s a motivation to be a better role model for their kids, a better partner, whatever it is.”
For Jason, who eventually agreed to take part in the programme after being re-referred, it was all about his children. Between them, Jason and his now ex-wife have four kids. When their relationship broke down, the kids stayed with their mum. “That was the most heartbreaking thing ever,” Jason says, “to spend all your time with your family and then for it to go to just yourself. To be fair, it broke my heart when I thought about it, that they were affected by it. Because you don’t think like that.”
“You don’t think your kids are being affected by it. But really it probably affects them more than it affects yourself.”
After ten one-to-one sessions, participants in the programme meet as a group, usually over video call, for two hours every week. The aim is to help participants understand their emotions and the impact of their actions on other people, including their children.
According to Bonnie, there are some drop outs – but those who stay take part in something ‘amazing’. “When we have new members of the group everyone so openly will be like, ‘hiya, this is me, this is what I’ve done, this is the most serious thing I’ve done’,” she explains.”That I think is amazing – a group of guys just being able to be so open about how they feel about things they’ve done.”
Detective Superintendent Jen Tattersall, who leads GMP’s Sex Offender Management Unit, says perpetrator programmes have a ‘strong role’ to play in the way the force handles domestic abuse.
