Intently Teaching Peace Community Change Project Domestic Violence Classes for Men (ITP) is a sentencing option or consequence for the use of the courts and other mandaters with men who have committed domestic violence offenses.

Men whose offenses do not meet the criteria for a jail sentence can be mandated to attend domestic violence classes through ITP. These can be ordered as a condition of probation, a condition of an order of protection, a Conditional Discharge, a family court order, or even a condition of preventive or other services through Child Protective Services, preferably with a family court order.

ITP uses weekly classes to address issues of abuse, relationships, socialization, family, parenting, societal norms and values, gender role issues, and other information relative to the use of abuse in intimate relationships. A large component of the class material is based in social and community change related to the values that exist within our culture that support and perpetuate tolerance for intimate partner violence.

ITP has evolved as part of the NY Model for Batterers Programs, begun around 1989. Additional thought if needed or wanted -- (One might best understand ITP as being used similar to the classes for offenders in some DWI cases).

If you’re partner has been ordered into ITP or a similar program, please note that these programs do not and cannot change the men ordered into them. Abusers that are ordered in may take the opportunity to learn something, and they may adjust their behavior. Hopefully, they adjust their behaviors to be more respectful towards their intimate partners, but far too often abusers believe that they have the right to harm someone to get what they want, and they simply adjust their abusive tactics.

These classes are offered as a consequence. The NY Model Programs system believes that the consequence itself speaks louder than any of the educational material presented.

Tioga County is proud to be among the activist thinkers who developed this model within the context of what the Battered Women’s Movement has learned over the past thirty years.