WHY T.R.I.P.?

Having taught domestic violence and anger management classes for several years the daunting question remained in the back of my mind… “What is the bottom line?” and “How could it be better?”  Meaning, how can the individuals (male & female) in front of me be made to understand the importance of not committing the morally reprehensible act of domestic violence ever again.  While the gold standards are the 26 and 52 week curriculums (depending on state requirements) I progressively began to believe there had to be more.  While thinking over the years about what more can there be to help assist these individuals with obvious past and/or present relationship issues there came the idea to promote integrity.  It was at that point the word “INTEGRITY” began to flood my thoughts.  It was also at that time I began talking about integrity in the classes in addition to the standard domestic violence curriculum.  Program participants began to gravitate to the idea of becoming a person that understands the importance of having integrity and how it can promote a life of non-violence.  When given the opportunity to talk about their past week, participants reflected on times in which they would have normally responded in an aggressive or hostile manner but instead thought about integrity.  The guiding principle of integrity began to have an impact.  Not all but some participants started coming to class with new tattoos of the word integrity to remind them of their new guiding principle.  As time progressed I became more intrigued with integrity and started becoming familiar with quotes from the Bible and those of great societal thinkers such as Zig Ziglar, and Bob Marley just to name a few.  After classes, oftentimes participants would speak one on one about how they never thought about trying to be a person of integrity.  They’d speak about how embracing integrity made them want to be a better father or mother, provider, husband or wife, family member, etc.  It was at that point I realized that while I was a facilitator of domestic violence classes, I was also a “reminder” of the power and importance of integrity.  Thus, the creation of The Restoring Integrity Project (T.R.I.P.) came about as more of a necessity than just merely another program.  In addition to the promotion of integrity to end domestic violence and violence in general, T.R.I.P. exists for the many victims of domestic violence and their children by playing a part in creating a better society in which they can live.