Intimate Partner Violence further known as Domestic Violence or relationship abuse is a social issue that involves behaviors in which one partner maintains control and power over their partner in a relationship involving intimacy (The National Domestic Violence Hotline) . When it comes to domestic violence, none is discriminated upon. Domestic violence does not differentiate between race, sexual orientation, age, gender or religion. Anyone can be a victim or perpetrator of intimate partner violence and can happen to any individual from married couples to people who are living together to those who are dating. It does not discriminate upon one's socioeconomic background or educational level. All the behaviors involved in domestic violence often result in physical harm, and sometimes may arouse fear in one's partner or even prevent a partner in taking part in whatever they wish to do (The National Domestic Violence Hotline) . Moreover, it may drive one's partner in a relationship to behave in ways that do not accord with what they may want to do. Domestic violence mostly involves using physical force, intimidation, economic deprivation and sometimes sexual abuse on a partner. Being that Intimate Partner Violence is an issue that has plagued many societies for centuries; the paper will thus focus on Ellen Pence and Lenore Walker’s contributions towards ending this violence.
For years, it is a problem that has been affecting various societies and further continues to be a prevalent issue in our communities. For these reasons, multiple individuals have thus made it their duty to ensure that the problem is brought to the public's attention at large and that its impact on society is reduced. Ellen Pence born on 15, April 1948 in Minneapolis, Minnesota is one such person who dedicated her life to ensuring that domestic violence among married couples and among those who are dating is checked (Bindel, 2012) . She notably graduated from St. Scholastica in Duluth with a degree in Bachelor of Arts. From a young age, she was consistently motivated by her mother to make a career as an activist. Ellen specifically questioned the reason as to why the American nation did not take any responsibility for ensuring that women who were battered were kept safely away from their violent partners.
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Owning to the plight of various individuals who are affected by this issue, she thus worked for thirty years to help alleviate domestic violence among women and children. After failing to get answers and reduce the impact that domestic violence had on affected individuals by seeking support and accountability from individuals who were in positions of power, she confounded the Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (Gondolf, 2010) . Ellen Pence accordingly made significant contributions in the Domestic Violence field. She consequently innovated research on domestic violence while working as the Director of Praxis International, Inc. where she incorporated her research with community-based advocacy mainly for improving domestic violence training and intervention issues (Gordon, 2017) . Many of Pence's works have succeeded in helping various professionals who work on matters of Intimate Partner violence to re-evaluate the practices that they partake and to consequently restructure their domestic violence services both in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
The Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Program also is known as the Duluth model as developed by Pence primarily works to redirect focus towards domestic violence interventions. The model stipulates mostly that intimate partner violence is a cultural and social patriarchal ideology that has for many years allowed men to vent their control over women by use of power and by exercising violence (Crime Solutions. gov) . As a result of the fact that women and childr en are weak and vulnerable socially, economically and politically, they thus face domestic violence. More importantly, the Duluth model does not assume that domestic violence results from behavioral or mental health issues, anger, stress, substance abuse or dysfunctional relationships. The model thus was explicitly designed to stop domestic violence offenders from using violence rather than attempting to repair their broken relationship. It predominantly focuses on facilitating group exercises that work to challenge men’s perceptions concerning their entitlement to control and dominate their partners (Crime Solutions. gov) . The various interventions that the Duluth model employs in the fight against domestic violence, therefore, make it a psychoeducational program for intimate partner violence perpetrators rather than a therapy. The model's primary focus is to provide a broader and improved understanding of the causes and the impacts that underlay issues experienced by domestic violence offenders (Gordon, 2017) . One of the critical characteristics of the model is that it employs the use of state powers to control the behaviors of domestic violence offenders by instituting arrests and prosecutions.
The model monitors the compliance rate of the offender with conditions that mandate counseling, restraining orders and probation. Accordingly, the model works to provide victims of domestic violence with supportive services and consequently shields their children from intimate partner violence through the determination of parent visitation settings (Gondolf, 2010) . Moreover, the Duluth Model further probe men to change their behaviors while at the same time identifying others who continue to be defiant and thus pose threats to women and the community at large. As such, the Duluth Model has in many occasions been translated into local state laws that specifically require all interventions of domestic violence to be grounded in the similar psychoeducational feminist theory as stipulated by Ellen Pence (Crime Solutions. gov) . A study conducted in 2014 on violent offences by Babcock and colleagues indicated that the Duluth intervention has a significant positive effect on recidivism (Crime Solutions. gov) . According to the study, the effect sizes for recurrence when police reports were employed although small, was statistically significant with sizes that favored those involved in domestic violence. Moreover, they found that a little to a medium statistically substantial size preferred the Duluth Model Intervention perpetrators in seven quasi-experimental studies that they conducted (Crime Solutions. gov) .
In addition to the Duluth Model, Pence further created the Power and Control Wheel using the narratives that who survived domestic violence gave. The contributions of these women helped explain the multifaceted collection of tactics that domestic violence perpetrators often use to instill fear in their partners as a way of achieving control over them (Gondolf, 2010) . Through the use of the Power and control wheel, it was determined that the tactics employed by these abusers mainly entail the use of emotional abuse, isolation, use of children as weapon and victim blaming. Furthermore, the narratives format that is brought forward by the Power and Control Wheel predominantly allow clients of Domestic Violence to respond to vignettes, a factor that helps them to engage men in a process that involves a reflection on their actions (Gordon, 2017) . It allows clients to familiarize themselves with factors such as negotiation and fairness, economic partnerships, shared responsibility, responsible parenting, trust and support, honesty and accountability, non-threatening behaviors and respect. Studies conducted on the effectiveness of the Duluth Model and the Power Control Wheel have indicated that they are useful tools when working with clients plagued by problems if domestic violence (Gordon, 2017) .
Consequently, after Ellen Pence received her PhD in sociology from Toronto University, she primarily focused on domestic violence development programs, legal reforms, and legislation and on programs that trained several justice departments’ personnel and human service providers on domestic violence and issues related to it (Gondolf, 2010) . In her interventions and programs, she mainly held that the improvement or the reduction of domestic violence victim’s levels of safety specifically depended on the responses that various institutions implemented on a macro level. However, Pence's assumption is mainly centered on the fact that when the safety of different intimate partner violence victims is compromised, systemic glitches rather than individual workers are often blamed (Gordon, 2017) . Accordingly, Pence was heavy influence by Dorothy Smith, a Canadian sociologist, and as a result, she developed a Safety and Accountability Audit which is primarily employed in charting workers responses concerning domestic violence within various organizations (Gordon, 2017) . The Safety and Accountability Audit being an assessment tool helps those who work to curb domestic violence to evaluate the various theories, policies, rules and procedures regarding domestic violence that work to guide responses to intimate partner violence incidences from groups or programs.
After moving to St. Paul in Minnesota in 1998, she further founded the Praxis International whose principal function is to provide general training to help communities effectively handle issues of domestic violence by employing the Safety and Accountability Audit components (Gordon, 2017) . More importantly, Pence together with her colleagues in partnership with the City of St. Paul wrote a comprehensive plan (The Blueprint for Safety) that integrated thirty years worth of research, projects and practices on domestic violence, an initiative that significantly contributes to the fight against domestic violence. The Blueprint for Safety plan is primarily founded upon six foundational principles that are significant in the various interventions that aim at maximizing the safety of domestic violence victims and consequently holding perpetrators accountable (Gondolf, 2010) . The plans work towards;
Providing adherence to interagency approaches and collective intervention goals
Building attention towards the context and lethality of domestic abuse into each of the interventions
Recognizing that most of the cases related to domestic violence are often patterned with crime, a factor which requires constant engagements with both the victims of domestic violence and the offenders.
Establishing assurances of prompt and definite consequences for continued domestic violence
Acting towards reducing unintended consequences and the impact that domestic violence has on both victims and perpetrators.
All in all, these fundamental principles as established by Pence and her colleagues predominantly focus on the risk of death that domestic violence victims face during the times they might attempt to leave their batterers.
Lenore Walker Contributions to Ending Domestic Violence
Apart from Pence, another individual who has made significant contributions to the crusade of ending violence against women is Dr Lenore Walker. She is among the early feminist’s psychotherapists whose career mainly centered on showing the input of the values of women in the world of psychology (Bindel, 2012) . Before branching into the world that involves advocating for the rights of women in society and working towards alienating domestic violence, she was an elementary school teacher who worked with children who were emotionally disturbed. She actively spoke against domestic violence and consequently worked towards maintaining the rights of domestic violence victims and finding solutions to intimate partner violence globally (Walker, 2016) . Accordingly, she is best known for her works in feminist psychology, violence against women in addition to family violence. Consequently, she authored a book called “The Battered Woman” that helped bring the societal problem of domestic violence into the eye of the public.
Through conducting various studies on the Battered Women Syndrome, she developed theories that mainly helped to explain how and why domestic violence occurs. Moreover, she developed theories that concentrated on survival and treatment methods for victims of domestic abuse. One of the arguments that she advanced to help people understand the issue of domestic violence is the "Cycle of Violence Theory" which identifies the various cycles involved in the process of domestic violence (Walker, 2016) . It is composed of three phases that is the minor battering, acute battering phase and the phase of kindness and contrite loving behavior. All these phases often go around in circles until the point of intervention is reached. Moreover, she developed various ways of treating domestic violence.
References
Bindel, J. (2012, January 19). Ellen Pence obituary. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/jan/19/ellen-pence
Crime Solutions. gov. (n.d.). Interventions for Domestic Violence Offenders: Duluth Model. Retrieved from Crime Solutions: https://www.crimesolutions.gov/PracticeDetails.aspx?ID=17
Gondolf, E. W. (2010). The contributions of Ellen Pence to batterer programming. Violence Against Women, 16 (9), 992-1006.
Gordon, C. (2017, November 9). Ellen Pence: Her Contributions to Fighting Domestic Violence. Retrieved from Soapboxie: https://soapboxie.com/activism/whoisellenpence
Needle, R., Silverman, R., & Lenore E, A. W. (2017). Feminist Pioneer: Lenore E. A. Walker. Women and Therapy, 40 (3-4), 1970-1975.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline. (n.d.). What Is Domestic Violence? Retrieved from National Domestic Violence Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/abuse-defined/
Walker, L. (2016). Early Life, Education, and Career. Retrieved from Webster: http://faculty.webster.edu/woolflm/walker2.html
