This toolkit is associated with the appropriately named hashtag #somethingdoesntfeelright

The toolkit is free and available for anyone who would like to engage in the prevention of domestic and family violence in their local community, with a focus on coercive controlling behaviours.

The online toolkit has three main objectives.

✅ To educate women across Western Australia to increase their knowledge of coercive controlling behaviours and tactics of abusive partners that may occur early and during a relationship

✅ To provide consistent critical messaging and evidence-based education on coercive controlling behaviours and tactics across sectors and communities through the provision of accessible tools.

✅ To assist organisations and groups who want to prevent domestic and family violence build a solid education or awareness campaign focusing on coercive controlling behaviours in their community.

Why I chose to develop the Recognising Coercive Control Online Toolkit…….

Firstly, concerned people, including some work colleagues, told me that coercive control had personally impacted their families. At the time it occurred, they didn’t know the indicators of coercive control to be able to recognise it. The outcome for those people affected would have been different if they had knowledge of coercive controlling behaviours in their experience of domestic and family violence.

Secondly, the justice system views domestic and family violence as separate physical incidents. However, women experience coercive and controlling behaviours as a pattern of ongoing abusive tactics and acts that often don’t have physical violence. This online toolkit aims to raise awareness for women about those patterns of abuse so that they can recognise them earlier.

Finally, the last reason for developing the online toolkit was that few resources currently exist that focus specifically on coercive control. This online toolkit aims to fill that gap and provide free resources that anyone can use.

The toolkit is available to anyone – it is designed to be used by the general public, not only educators or those in the domestic and family violence sector. The resources are all free to use; download what you need for your awareness or education campaign, school lesson or for sharing in your workplace.

The toolkit is in its early stages, and I plan to expand it with input from partners working in prevention. By working together, we can make coercive controlling behaviour more visible across communities. We need to make a stand that it is socially unacceptable behaviour by raising awareness of this abuse.

Ultimately, we want women and their children to be safe from any form of violence.

The online toolkit has been made possible due to an award I received from the Stella Giles Award for Achievement in 2021, an initiative by Soroptimist International of Western Australia. This funding has enabled me to put the time aside to research, write and develop content to form these resources. I want to thank Soroptimists International of Western Australia for this award and the opportunity to do this much-needed project.

I would also like to thank the Lived Experience Advisory Group, who assisted with this project.