Research team gets $10,000 boost to their family violence research

Calgary Counselling Centre has
just had approval and funding
for new family violence research
from Prairieaction Foundation.

Calgary Counselling Centre has just received the good news: our project, “The Impact of Motivational Interviewing on Abusers’ Readiness for Change” has received approval and funding of $10,000. Financial assistance for the project has been provided by the Community Action, Research and Education Grants Program of the Prairieaction Foundation.

“The CARE Grants Program furthers Prairieaction Foundation’s objective of providing funds to registered charities for research into solutions to violence and abuse,” says Martin Strauss, Executive Director, Prairieaction Foundation in his congratulatory letter.  “The Program’s goal is to provide research funding for grassroots, community-based organizations and projects that are developing ways to ultimately eliminate the issues and impact of violence and abuse.”

We are asking the question, ‘Are clients who received motivational interviewing (MI) techniques prior to treatment further along the stages of change than clients who participated in treatment before Calgary Probation’s* use of MI?’.

“In our continual pursuit to find ways to end abuse in our community, we are exploring the effect of MI on abusive men's readiness to make changes in their violent behaviour," says Robbie Babins-Wagner, CEO. "We are evaluating the impact on our clients. We want to see if Probation's* use of MI techniques prior to referring clients to us makes a difference in their treatment."

Our research team, with research partners from across North America, will assess the impact of Calgary Probation’s* implementation of MI on CCC clients since September, 2008. We will compare Responsible Choices for Men (RCM) clients who did and did not receive MI before their participation in an intervention program designed for men who engage in abusive and aggressive behaviour. This research will demonstrate the impact of MI as a pre-treatment strategy to help reduce violence and/or abuse.

"Previous research has given a glimpse of what we may find," says Robbie. "An internal research project found that MI was the most helpful for clients who weren't yet considering change in their behaviour."

This research project will analyze data from previous RCM group participants to assess whether the introduction of MI techniques improved clients’ readiness to change. Although no current group participants are involved in the research, the goal is to understand whether MI was successful in its intended impact.

Calgary Counselling Centre aims to provide evidence based and effective therapies to clients. The team plans to report their findings in 2012.

* Correctional Services, Community Corrections and Release Programs, Alberta Solicitor General, Southern Alberta

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