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Irish Republic seeking 'best practice' in intimate partner violence & abuse

Irish Republic seeking 'best practice' in intimate partner violence & abuse

Dr Mark Farrall was  a keynote speaker yesterday at a seminar in Dublin, organised by COSC  the Irish department responsible for programmes addressing intimate partner violence and abuse.

As part of a national strategy, COSC are seeking to standardise delivery of intervention programmes across the Republic, ensuring that they are based on research and effective practice.

Dr Farrall commented: "What was very noticeable was that all of the other speakers were putting forward the idea of therapeutically informed working, in the way that Ignition has supported for a number of years.

The question of the role of gender was still one with room for debate, but certainly the direction of travel as decribed by the majority of speakers was very clearly away from a patriarchal 'power and control' analysis and towards a more respectful way of working, taking account of issues such as trauma, attachment and personality disorder traits.

Ignition has been involved with one of the major providers in the south east of the Republic, Men Ending Domestic Abuse (MEND) for a number of years: their approach has always echoed the views put forward here, and I would say that the Republic as a whole has been less dominated by a 'power and control' perspective seeing gender as the dominant factor, than has the UK.

This is a very exciting initiative, and we wish the Republic and COSC the best in attempting it".