Coercive control

To mark the end of the 16 days of Activism to End Violence Against Women and Girls, and to underscore our commitment to take that fight forward for the remaining 349 days of the year, CWP launched our Domestic Abuse Seminar on 10 December 2018. 

The first seminar was attended by a range of professionals from the voluntary sector, policing, health and social care. We worked together to build a shared understanding of coercive control, and its impact on adult and child victims. This section was facilitated by Jane Callaghan and included a consideration of a more intersectional account of coercive control. She argued that coercive control as a concept enables us to think about how power  operates in relationships. This helps us to understand how experiences of disability, race, class and sexuality intersect in the way that abusive relationships function.  Prof Callaghan also explored children’s experiences of coercive control, and argued for the need for a more connected legal and policy landscape to enable a more coherent response to children’s needs. 

Anna Mitchell from the City of Edinburgh Council shared insights from the implementation of Safe and Together. The Safe and Together model enables a stronger focus on the role of the perpetrator, shifting the focus away from women’s ‘failure to protect’, to the perpetrator’s behaviours and how they might pose a risk to their children.  Developed by David Mandel, the three key principles of Safe and Together are: Keeping Children with their non-offending parent, building a strong partnership with the non-offending parent as a default position, and intervening with the perpetrator to reduce risk to the child. 

Slides from the two presentations are available below. You can book for our later seminars here.  Our next seminars are: 

Seminar 2: Working with mothers and babies

18 Feb 2019 9.00 – 11.00 am. The seminar will explore the impact of domestic abuse on early parenting relationships, and on very young children. We will explore some strategies to support mothers and young children (aged 0-3), affected by domestic abuse.


Seminar 3: When leaving isn’t the end

8 April 2019 9.00 – 11.00 . This seminar will focus on strategies to support families through contact after domestic abuse

Seminar 4: Working with people who use violence

3 June 2019: 9.00 – 11.00. One of the most challenging areas in work with domestic abuse involves working with those who use violence in intimate relationships. This seminar will draw on lessons from various ‘perpetrator interventions’, to consider what works, and what some of the challenges are in this work.

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