Ke Ala Lokahi: A Native Hawaiian Cultural Intervention

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Ke Ala Lokahi: A Native Hawaiian Cultural Intervention

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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

Ke Ala Lokahi (The Pathway to Harmony) is a Native Hawaiian domestic violence intervention that utilizes Native Hawaiian values, beliefs and practices with Native Hawaiian male batterers who are court-mandated to batterer intervention in Hilo, Hawaii. The program is structured around a unique 26-session group curriculum that uses Hawaiian cultural sites, legends, arts and crafts, genealogy, and other culturally-based lessons grounded in Native Hawaiian traditions linked to the geographic area in which the program is situated. The organizing philosophy of the program is the Natural Order of Balance, in which all elements of nature, the cosmos and relationships are understood as integrally related. The goal of the program is to restore balance in the lives of batterers who have been abusive to their intimate partners. The primary beneficiaries of this program are Native Hawaiian male batterers, their partners and family members.

About You
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Your idea
Focus of activity

Counseling

Year the initiative began

2002

Position your initiative on the mosaic of solutions
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?

Culture Of Acceptance

Which of the insights is the primary focus of your work?

Create Paths to Prevention or Remediation

If you believe some other barrier or insight should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic

Lack of ethnic-specific, culturally-based domestic violence programs

Innovation
Description of Initiative

Ke Ala Lokahi (The Pathway to Harmony) is a Native Hawaiian domestic violence intervention that utilizes Native Hawaiian values, beliefs and practices with Native Hawaiian male batterers who are court-mandated to batterer intervention in Hilo, Hawaii. The program is structured around a unique 26-session group curriculum that uses Hawaiian cultural sites, legends, arts and crafts, genealogy, and other culturally-based lessons grounded in Native Hawaiian traditions linked to the geographic area in which the program is situated. The organizing philosophy of the program is the Natural Order of Balance, in which all elements of nature, the cosmos and relationships are understood as integrally related. The goal of the program is to restore balance in the lives of batterers who have been abusive to their intimate partners. The primary beneficiaries of this program are Native Hawaiian male batterers, their partners and family members.

Innovation

This project is innovative in many ways. The intervention model was conceived specifically for this project, and is not a typical culturally-specific intervention in which a "standard" approach is infused with ethnic-specific content, or an existing ethnic-specific program is modified to address intimate partner violence. There are no current culturally-specific programs of this nature that integrate Western-based "best practices" with ethnic values, beliefs, and traditions. There are also no existing programs that address violence in Native Hawaiian domestic violence situatiions, and which are grounded in Hawaiian cultural practices. There are few domestic violence programs of this nature in the United States in which cultural values and practices comprise the fundamental framework of the intervention.

Delivery Model

The program is delivered in the only batterer intervention agency in the county of Hawaii, in the state of Hawaii. The majority of Native Hawaiian batterers in this program are court-ordered to batterer intervention due to violation of domestic violence statutes. Impact is measured by consumer self-report, reoffenses (re-arrests, police reports, convictions), and assessment by program staff.

Key Operational Partnerships

Ke Ala Lokahi was originally funded as a 5-year demonstration project (2000-2005) by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was a partnership between the University of Hawaii (contact organization) and Turning Point for Families, Inc., a domestic violence program in Hilo, Hawaii. The project was funded to design, implement and evaluate a Native Hawaiian cultural domestic violence intervention for Native Hawaiian male batterers and battered women. This unique academic-community partnership included collaboration with Native Hawaiian agencies, the state judiciary, probation services, and other community social service agencies such as substance abuse treatment programs.

Impact
Financial Model

After Federal funding for the demonstration project ended in 2005, funding has been secured on a year-to-year basis from private and public sources. Native Hawaiian recipients are required to pay a fee for services on a sliding scale, the majority of whom pay $15 per week for a 2-hour group session. In addition there is a work-exchange program for those unable to pay fees. Beneficiaries do small jobs at the agency on a 1:1 exchange, i.e., 1 hour of work for 1 hour of services.

What percentage, if any, of the total operating costs does earned income (from products, services, or other fees) represent?

1%

How is the initiative financed? Is it financially self-sustainable or profitable? How much do beneficiaries contribute?

See response above for Financial Model.

Effectiveness

Over 200 men and women have participated in group services over the past six years. In addition, over 10 program staff have been trained to delivery the culturally-specific intervention, including Native Hawaiian personnel. Many Hawaiian men who have completed the program, along with their partners confirm that they have been repeat offenders and/or have attended batterer intervention programs in the past but have not completed until they joined Ke Ala Lokahi. Judges, probation officers, and community service agencies state that there is a noticeable difference in the attitudes and behavior of Hawaiian men who have been part of this cultural innovation. Domestic violence programs in other areas of the state are exploring replication of the program model to benefit other communities of Native Hawaiian men, women and children in domestic violence situations.

How many people have benefited from your program over the last year? Which element of the program proved itself most effective?

60 Native Hawaiian male batterers and 20 Native Hawaiian women victim/survivors. While the women's component is voluntary for Hawaiian women who seek support services, it is the men's program that is most effective in retaining, changing and healing men's abusive and violent behavior towards their intimate partners.

Scaling up Strategy

The main priority for the program is to secure adequate funding to maintain the program as originally conceived during the pilot demonstration phase from 2000-2005. Expansion is not necessarily the goal until current funding and programmatic needs are met.

Stage of the Initiative

1

Origin of the Initiative

The project was conceived almost 10 years ago when Professor Kalei Kanuha, a longtime domestic violence advocate began exploring the need for a Native Hawaiian cultural approach to addressing intimate partner and family violence. Native Hawaiians in the state of Hawaii represent a disproportionate number of batterers, battered women, and children who are involved in the child protective system due to family violence. In addition, a resurgence of Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners and knowledge had increased over the past two decades but very few of these models were being applied to solving social problems. Dr. Kanuha approached Turning Point for Families in Hilo, Hawaii (her hometown) with a vision of a project that would integrate Hawaiian cultural practices with Western "best practices" to address intimate partner violence in the Native Hawaiian community. Dr. Kanuha designed the innovation and wrote a grant proposal in partnership with Turning Point for Families to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop, implement and evaluate a Hawaiian cultural domestic violence intervention. The collaboration between an academic institution and a community agency was an innovation for this type of project, but the research design of the project was also a strong point of the proposal. Over the five years of the project, many lessons were learned and a unique Hawaiian cultural curriculum was born that used Native Hawaiian cultural metaphors, sacred cultural sites, legends, history, and crafts integrated with well-accepted concepts and theories of intimate partner violence. To date, there is no similar curriculum to Ke Ala Lokahi for Native Hawaiians or for other people of color communities that fully incorporate culturally-relevant and specific concepts and practices with Western approaches to domestic violence.

Sustainability
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate?

E-mail announcement from Family Violence Prevention Fund

Main Obstacles to Scaling Up

Stable funding and organization, and trained staff.

Main Financial Challenges

Lack of organizational stability and long-term development plan. Stabilization of current funding is estimated at $85,000 annually; scale-up funding is estimated at $150,000. Private funding is preferable as government funding is already stretched among programs statewide, and deliverables to funding ratio of statewide funding does not currently provide adequate support for programming.

Main Partnership Challenges

The current challenge is organizational in nature, i.e., providing organizational infrastructure and support to maintain current programs and/or to grow them. State funding is the primary source of support for the program, but is inadequate. Government partnerships are positive; however, state budgetary constraints render any expansion of state funding near impossible. Continued research and evaluation funding to support the program is a possible partnership goal. However, management and organizational instability compromise ongoing partnerships in this area.