75% of people who are affected by domestic abuse experience controlling behaviours such as stalking and surveillance whilst at work.
Would you know what to do if you learned that a colleague was experiencing domestic abuse?
We have two Demystifying Domestic Abuse: Workplace Training days coming up, open to all businesses who are ready to learn and embrace the role they have to play in tackling domestic abuse.
Professionals and organisations will be empowered to make positive change that will enable staff to identify, empathise with and support colleagues, clients, friends or family who may be affected by domestic abuse. This training will help you develop a more open, supportive company culture, with better people managers, leading happy, healthy and productive teams.
Places are £95 per person. This invitation is open to everyone from sole traders to SMEs, to large organisations (maximum 2 participants per organisation).
Come and experience our training on one of the following dates:
- Thursday 18th May, 9.30am - 4.30pm, The Hub, Q11, Quorum Park, NE12 8BU
- Thursday 6th July, 9.30am - 4.30pm, Newcastle Arts Centre, 67 Westgate Road, NE1 1SG
To book your space please email [email protected]
Unlike many other education and training providers, Changing Relations use the arts to communicate and engage with our audiences. This results in a lasting change of perceptions and positively affects people’s lives. To read a summary of our training day, please scroll down.
Thank you to our training day sponsors - past and present - who have kindly provided a space for our training days:
Summary of our training day:
Our face-to-face Demystifying Domestic Abuse Training is delivered to a maximum of 20 participants, of whom we recommend are either domestic abuse/health & well-being champions, or your people managers. This training has three sections:
1. Make Do And Mend
We begin the training day with a shared viewing of our film Make Do and Mend, which we use to unpick the breadth of manifestations of domestic abuse, its underlying nature and the signs we might be able to pick up if a friend or colleague were affected. We go on to explore the many and complex reasons victims don’t leave abusive relationships, by developing our understanding of the impact domestic abuse has on its victims.
2. Us Too
In part 2, we use this empathy and understanding to consider how to respond helpfully to a domestic abuse victim, before introducing our soundscape, through which we explore the breadth and diversity of people who can be affected by – and indeed perpetrate – domestic abuse. This involves considering how demographic characteristics can be barriers to self- and peer- identification and thus to accessing support. We go on to revisit signs of abuse from a workplace and perpetrator perspective.
3. Apply The Learning
In the final part of the training, we consider the impact bystander responses can have on both victims and perpetrators, and therefore why we might need to take a look at our workplace culture and what we are thereby supporting or challenging. We unpick the way in which gender stereotypes play into the cultures we create and consider how to apply the learning from the session in your own workplace setting.
Our Artistic Content
At Changing Relations, we use creativity as a tool to facilitate active engagement in understanding thorny issues at both an intellectual and emotional level. Using our artistic content as a stimulus opens a non-anecdotal space for conversation.
Below are samples of the artistic content used in our training:
- Watch the trailer for our film Make Do and Mend
- Listen to L's Story from our soundscape Us Too
- Listen to Elizabeth's Story from our soundscape Us Too
As a social enterprise, Changing Relations' purpose is to respond to the needs of the community and achieve social impact. We are passionate about our work, breaking down gender barriers and fostering healthy relationships.
Domestic abuse is everyone’s business – which is why workplaces should do more
This topic is particularly pertinent at the moment, as research shows there has been a significant increase in domestic abuse-related offences since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Close to 1 in 3 women and 1 in 7 men in the UK are likely to be affected by domestic abuse. Of those affected, 58% miss at least 3 days work a month due to abuse. Your staff will be no exception. How many does this mean will be affected?
Employers and people managers have a duty of care to their staff. Finance sometimes leads to training being put on the nice but not essential pile. However, employers are already bearing the costs of domestic abuse. Affected staff are likely to:
- Be late for, or absent from, work;
- Find their productivity suffering;
- Leave the company altogether.
An estimated £1.9 billion in economic output is lost annually in England and Wales via domestic abuse.
We want to empower professionals and organisations to make positive change that will enable staff to identify, empathise with and support colleagues, clients, friends or family who may be affected by domestic abuse.
Unlike many other education and training providers, we use the arts to communicate and engage with our audiences, which results in a lasting change of perceptions and, ultimately, affects people’s lives.