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Men are the predominant perpetrators of domestic and family violence (DFV) with the risk of serious harm disproportionally borne by women and children. In Australia, men’s behaviour change programs (MBCP) form the most significant nationally auspiced response for abusive and violent men, beyond legal sanctions. This one-size-fits-all approach makes it difficult to determine efficacy and application to the diversity of intervention needs, or to establish suitability across a diverse perpetrator population. More broadly across Western contexts, responses are largely siloed across child protection and specialist DFV services, leading to a lack of holistic intervention. Often fathers have remained invisible or minimally engaged where legal sanctions against them are not taken. Yet, due to the complexities of family life, including the child custody rights of fathers, many families have ongoing contact with perpetrators. Recently emerging father-oriented programs have therefore sought to target domestically violent behaviour and poor parenting practice together, leveraging men’s motivation to be better fathers. This study focuses on Caring Dads, a father-focused MBCP program, originating in Canada, which seeks to address the problem of violence in families resulting from both partner and child-directed abuse. The Caring Dads program has some evidence of effectiveness in Australian-comparative contexts, though the focus of evaluations has, to date, centred on improvements to mother and child safety. Such evaluations follow a gendered analysis of violence, which is important for identifying the program’s capacity to create improvements in the safety of women and children, but they do not address the concerns of co-parenting and whole-of-family wellbeing, which are significant when families continue contact in the wake of DFV. This thesis addresses a gap in the evidence by considering whether the Caring Dads program can improve parental alliance and family functioning for f, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), School of Health Sci & Soc Wrk, Griffith Health, Full Text

Full Text, Thesis (PhD Doctorate), Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), School of Nursing & Midwifery, Griffith Health, Domestic and family violence (DFV) against women is an important public health problem, placing significant health and economic burdens on individuals and families worldwide. The prevalence rates of DFV and its mental health sequelae are significantly higher in developing countries compared to developed countries, as women in these settings often lack resources to address DFV-related issues and improve their safety. Pregnancy is considered as a ‘window of opportunity’ to intervene against DFV. Psychosocial interventions that include the components to empower and provide psychosocial support to pregnant women exposed to DFV have potential to enhance their mental health and coping against DFV. This study aimed to develop and test a simple and brief psychosocial intervention targeting the mental health, self-efficacy, social support, and help-seeking behaviours of pregnant women experiencing DFV in Nepal. An assessor-blinded 1:1 parallel randomised controlled trial (RCT), with a nested descriptive qualitative study, was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the psychosocial intervention. A total of 140 eligible pregnant women were randomly assigned into two groups. Women allocated to the intervention group (IG) received a counselling session, an information booklet, and contact details of the counsellor. Women in the control group (CG) received a booklet, including a referral list of locally available DFV support organisations. Participants from both groups were interviewed three times using standard and valid questionnaires: the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) for assessing anxiety and depression, the World Health Organization Quality of Life – Abbreviated Version (WHOQOL-BREF) for quality of life (QOL), the Medical Outcomes Study–Social Support Survey (MOS-SSS) short form for perceived social support, the Generalised Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) for self-efficacy, and the modified safety behaviours checklist for the use of safety behaviours. Sociodemo