Peter McGlashan conversation June 11th 2013
RE: Some rudimentary answers to Owen's rhetorical questions in the press today.
To: Peter McGlashan
Cc: admin@glenninquiry.org
Hello Peter,
I have to thank you for your detailed and well reasoned reply.
It is the first such communication of this quality I have received from either then Glenn Enquiry or the Glenn Foundation and it is very welcome, thank you.
I am just an ordinary member of the public who genuinely appreciates Owen's philanthropy for what it is, a genuine desire to help people and I wish there were more like him with his attitude.
A very good friend of mine, Dr Peter Little, a renal surgeon, who died a couple of years ago had a favourite toast, actually a saying of David Jason's character in from Only Fools and Horses, " Here's to us good people, who are getting scarce", and I certainly believe Owen falls in this category.
Yes I have been directed to the enquiry email in the past, only to have received a terse note from Ruth herself, which I have included along with my response to her on my google site that I use as a repository.
I do not imagine that my request to include Dr Dutton's publications and even co-opting ever occurred. In fact I imagine it probably went down like a cold cup of sick with Ms Herbert. I also imagine it was deliberately excluded from the enquiry.
Ruth's accounting of her early experience of having a "gun pointed to her head" also conjures up a mental picture for me of her recently holding a gun to Owens head over whatever she purported to be concerned about. I have no trouble understanding that with so many colourful characters, all with their own political and personal agendas that it will be near on impossible for Owen to make any sense out of the concept of Evidence Based Procedure that Ruth probably steered him to accept as a modus operandi for his "commission".
So our communication is at cross purposes, it is not to suggest yet another aspect to the enquiry that I wrote, hoping to get Owens attention.
My purpose in writing is to permit him to take back control of his commission not just in a day to day management format as his reshuffle has just done, but to encourage him to take full academic vision and control by introducing him to the quality research and conclusions available to him today, from a well researched and respected practitioners, rather than continue faltering around with conflicting personalities, weak academic thinking, biased opinions and sorely testing individuals confidentiality concerns.
The cold hard reality is that his Enquiry is over. It was over a Month ago when Ruth acted with her ultimatum. The research method is compromised in mid acquisition mode and no academic will now take seriously any findings from any new shape or form that such a private enquiry will adopt.
Owen doesn't need his own research to act however, It exists elsewhere in volumes and clearly shows him a direction and course of action, if he so chooses to accept this. I sincerely hope he does.
yours sincerely
Christopher Smith
to quote Dr Dutton....from his conclusions about Evidence Based Procedure, the link is below the quote.
"The current best evidence clearly does not support investing substantial
public funds in the continuation, let alone the mandating, of the standard
DV program model. In the face of overwhelming countervailing evidence,
why does this model persist? There is no scientific reason why causal
explanations of DV and the principles of perpetrator treatment should exist
outside the biopsychosocial framework used to understand and address
contemporary mental health and social problems. In some sense, then, the
political issues in the policy framework "trump" the science to a greater
degree perhaps than in most other social problems."
CORVO-K.-DUTTON-D.G-CHEN-W.Y.-2008-TOWARDS-EVIDENCE-BASED-PRACTICE-WITH-DOMESTIC-VIOLENCE-PERPETRATORS.pdf
Subject: Re: Some rudimentary answers to Owen's rhetorical questions in the press today.
From: peter.mcglashan@glennfamilyfoundation.org
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:09:07 +1200
To: christopherpsmith@hotmail.co.nz
Hello Chris,
Thanks for getting in touch but Sir Owen is not the best person to be reading Professor Dutton's work as Owen is not across the complexity of the issue, despite being extremely passionate about solving it and making a difference. He is not familiar with what the Duluth Model is or the strengths or weaknesses of our current system in NZ, so it would not be appropriate, or helpful, for him to read the Professor's work at this stage. He is an extremely successful business man, with no background in this sector, so instead chose to set up the Inquiry to explore what is actually happening and what needs to be done. Therefore he won't be writing the blueprint, or producing the findings, but will be presenting the blueprint from the collective knowledge base.
What I'd encourage you to do is send all this information to the admin@glenninquiry.org email address so this can be passed on to the Inquiry team so it can be added to all the research that is being gathered up.
The purpose of the Glenn Inquiry is:
"If New Zealand was leading the world in addressing Child Abuse and Domestic Violence, what would that look like?"
The purpose was deliberately framed like that to allow a very frank and open conversation to take place, about what wasn't working with the current structure, theories, models (Duluth or otherwise), justice systems and interventions. This frank discussion and opportunity to speak to the public panels, is so that people like yourself can come forward and present your experiences and explain how the system has or hasn't worked for you and your family.
The reason for such a diverse range of people to join the Thinktank, from all walks of life and all round the world, including academics, activists, counsellors, advocates, survivors, lawyers, race relations experts, consultants and doctors, was so that many, many different views and voices could speak about their findings and research and what was or wasn't working in their work here and abroad.
My understanding is the Glenn Inquiry team suspected, and in many ways hoped, many of the myths and misnomers about Domestic Violence and Child Abuse would be dispelled by the public testimonies and diverse membership of the Thinktank. They suspected there may well be criticism of the lack of funding for Relationship counselling, inadequate early intervention option pre-incarceration (ie counselling, Family based-individualised solutions), a 'one size fits all' solution mentality, inadequate collaboration between agencies, insufficient consideration of complicating factors like mental health, alcohol and drug abuse, inadequate facilities for male victims of violence and inadequate voluntary intervention services and programs for men or women. Many of these things Professor Dutton mentions and they expected these things to come out, however, for the integrity of the findings and the robustness of the Blueprint, it is important those theories are proven by the findings coming from listening to the peoples voices and gauging the true feeling in the community, so people like yourself who are passionate about this, also get to contribute to the knowledge base considered when the Blueprint is compiled.
This entire process was based on striving to ascertain the Best Practice Protocols worldwide and implementing them here, chosen separate from political, academic or historical influences or bias, but based on fact, real data and genuine findings.
I, and my team, at the Glenn Family Foundation are not involved with the Glenn Inquiry in any way, with our focus being on other work for the foundation, so can I please ask that you direct all future correspondence on this matter to the Glenn Inquiry directly through their admin@glenninquiry.org email address.
Regards,
Peter McGlashan
General Manager
Glenn Family Foundation
c/- The Owen Glenn Building,
12 Grafton Rd,
University of Auckland
New Zealand
Email: peter.mcglashan@glennfamilyfoundation.org
Phone: +64 21-273-4456
On 10/06/2013, at 10:16 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
https://sites.google.com/site/nzchinatravels/owen-glenn/answers-for-owen-s-questions
Peter,
Can someone PLEASE have OWEN look at Professor Dutton's work, and even invite him to NZ to talk directly with Owen.
kind regards
Chris