Case Study
Changing Lives
Crafting bespoke creative learning content to support men who display violence to develop healthier relationship behaviours
What They Asked For
Changing Lives is a national organisation that provides support to those navigating homelessness, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol dependence and the criminal justice system. They commissioned us to support their development of a therapeutic programme for men accessing their services, that would aim to help them manage unhelpful emotions that lead to violence and abuse towards women and male partners.
There was a desire to build a flexible programme based around the DBT principles of developing emotional regulation, distress tolerance and interpersonal effectiveness, together with elements of our creative portfolio that would highlight the harmful impact of gender stereotypes and controlling relationship behaviours, supported by guidance that would enable Changing Lives facilitators to tailor the programme for their groups.
What we delivered together
Needs analysis
We spent time with the Changing Lives team to understand what they were hoping to achieve, the empathetic principles they wanted any co-designed intervention to embody, working out which of our existing content would work for the programme and the scope for creating bespoke new creative learning content.
Repurposing our artwork
We decided to create a short animation, using imagery and survivor testimony from our Us Too project focused on what those with experience of abuse have learnt about what makes a healthy relationship, as well as drawing together artwork from across our portfolio to create a workbook exploring how gender stereotypes influence our ideas about relationships.
Piloting and fundraising
We tested the content with a group of stakeholders and potential delivery partners, including Changing Lives’ support workers who engage directly with the target audience to gain an insight into the effectiveness of the approach. We then begun developing collaborative funding proposals to facilitate a more substantive pilot phase.
Outcomes
Targeted bespoke resources
The collaborative process enabled us to develop bespoke resources specifically for the target audience, extending the tools available for Changing Lives’ practitioners to use.
Unique integrated programme
Together we developed a brand new intervention to support men who display violence to question the emotions and attitudes underlying their behaviours.
Enabled participant expression
Practitioners who trialled our creative content with their participants found that our approach enabled expression in ways they had not previously seen.
