Community Allies

When you are first thinking about responding to or stopping violence, which can be at any time in the violent situation.  It may have been a one-off or been going on for days, months or years.  It may have happened long ago or recently, or it might still be happening. 

Getting started:

• Can be started by anyone—the person hurt, a friend, whanaunga, neighbour, co-worker or community member, or the person doing harm
• Often involves topics like naming the violence, thinking about what you want, finding people and resources to help, and thinking about what can get in the way
• Includes thinking about risks and ways to increase safety.

Getting started steps include:

• Looking for help on the internet and finding this website
• The person who is being harmed talking with you about what is happening and what they need
• Telling other people about the violence and asking for help
• Brainstorming on what to do about the violence
• Thinking about violence that happened long ago and deciding that something has to be done about it
• The person doing harm talking to you about their harm, or asking for help to stop.

You can get started at any time:

• A pattern of violence is becoming clear and you want to do something before it gets worse
• A pattern of violence is becoming dangerous, and something needs to be done
• You have found out about the violence and want to do something
• The police or child welfare have been called
• The people affected by violence are out of crisis and can think clearly about taking action
• You have found this website and realise you can do something
• Something happened, and you and others are doing something about it. 

When you’ve done the ground work and you’re preparing to respond to, stop or prevent violence.

Planning/preparation:

• Can involve bringing more people in to help
• Can involve setting goals, thinking about what help is needed and what you want from the person who has caused harm
• Includes thinking about risks and ways to increase safety.

Planning/preparation steps include:

• Figuring out who else can help
• Holding a meeting of people who might be able to help
• Thinking about risks and dangers as the intervention starts, and figuring out a safety plan
• Making a schedule of people who can stay with the person who was hurt for support and safety
• Thinking about who needs to know about the violence so children are protected at school, friend’s homes or in care
• Preparing an ‘accountability plan’ for the person doing harm, including what harm they have done, people who can support change, your requests of them, and consequences if requests are not met.

When you take action to respond to, stop or prevent violence. 

Taking action:

• Is a deliberate step or set of steps
• Can be carried out by anyone—the person hurt; a friend, whanaunga, neighbour, co-worker or community member; or the person doing harm
• Can include supporting people who have been hurt, dealing with people doing harm, bringing people together for support, growing the understanding and responses of friends, whānau or community members
• Includes thinking about risks and ways to increase safety.

Taking action steps include:

• Staying with the person hurt at their home for support and safety, or them staying with you if their home isn’t safe
• Contacting the person doing harm for a meeting
• Meeting with the person doing harm
• The person doing harm taking steps to be responsible for the harms they have caused
• Holding a community meeting about the violence and your group’s steps to respond to it
• Going to a child's school to talk about what is happening, and asking the school to provide safety for the child
• Going to the whānau of the person who was hurt to talk about the violence and how they can be a better ally to their child.

To make sure action steps are working towards the values and goals of the intervention; to check if changes are needed; to tell whether new events or changes have come into the picture; to tell how close the intervention is to its goal; to tell whether the intervention needs to be paused, sped up, changed or brought to a close.

Following up:

• Is a deliberate process after each action step, at particular times or at the end of an intervention
• Can involve everyone or a smaller group of people
• Is an important part of keeping on track
• Can involve plans to respond if violence happens again
• Can involve a process for checking in to see how things are going after an intervention ends
• Should happen even if action steps are never taken or things don’t go as planned
• Includes thinking about risks and ways to increase safety.

Following up steps include:

• Checking in with people who were going to take an action to see what happened
• Checking that the actions and results of actions met your values, goals and safety needs
• Checking that the actions and results of an entire intervention process met your values, goals and safety needs.

This website might help you if you: 

• Want to respond to, stop or prevent violence (violence intervention)
• Look for solutions within your family, friend network, neighbourhood, church, sports club, workplace or other community group or organisation
• Can think of at least one other person to work with you (including the people causing or affected by the violence)
• Want to find a way to support people doing harm to recognise, stop and be responsible for their violence (accountability) without giving them excuses and without denying their humanity (without demonising)
• Are willing to work with others in your community
• Are willing to work over a period of time to make sure that solutions last.

If you checked all the boxes, you may be ready to continue with this approach.  If you aren’t sure about any of these, see if the FAQ or one of the real stories answers your questions. 

The Values Checklist will show you whether you share values with this approach

Creative Interventions developed this model to end violence, and to lead to healthier ways of being in community with each other.  The short version of the values that guide this approach is in the Checklist below (a longer version is in the Basics section).  Do these fit with you or your group?

You can list your own values or kaupapa under Values to guide your intervention (in your own words), Guiding questions if another set of values fits your group better.  The principles of Communities against Rape and Abuse (CARA) and the kaupapa of Te Wānanga o Raukawa are examples of other sets of values.

You can download these files, adapt them to your group, and share them with people as they join.

Our Values

The following values guide us in our work together to respond to, stop or prevent violence (violence intervention).  Think about what these values mean to you.  We hope that you will agree to these values and let them guide your involvement in this intervention.

If you do not agree, think about what changes you want.  Can you include these changes?  Or do they show disagreement that needs more discussion.  Be clear about changes you want and what this means for your involvement.

I understand and can agree to the following values:

• Collectivity or community responsibility (working together as a group)
• Holism (considering the potential wellbeing of all people involved)
• Safety and risk-taking (recognising that safety sometimes requires risk-taking)
• Accountability (taking appropriate levels of responsibility for ending violence)
• Transformation (working towards positive change for all)
• Flexibility and creativity (can adjust to new challenges and opportunities)
• Patience (accepting that change can take time)
• Building on what we know (building on people’s values, experience and strengths)
• Sustainability (creating ways to make changes that can last a long time)
• Expanding our work (making changes and lessons that can help others)
• Others:

We don’t expect that your values and ours will be a complete match.  Different language may make more sense to your group.

Use these questions to think about the values (individual or group) you want to guide your planning, preparation and actions to deal with violence.  If your group can’t agree on a set of values, you may find it hard to work together (see How do you work together).

Guiding questions:

1. What is important to you?
2. At times when you have tried to change your own behaviour, what has helped? What has made it hard?
3. What are some guiding principles that have helped in your life?
4. What are some values that you hold even if they have been hard to keep up?
5. What values do you think will lead to lasting positive change?
   
   

You can write a set of values using this checklist.  If helpful, compare your values with the Creative Interventions list, the CARA list and the Wānanga kaupapa.  Which ones would you like to keep?

Our values

The following values guide us in our work together to respond to, stop or prevent violence (violence intervention).  Think about what these values mean to you.  We hope that you will agree to these values and let them guide your involvement in this intervention.

If you don’t agree, think about what changes you want.  Can you include these changes?  Or do they show disagreement that needs more discussion.  Be clear about changes you want and what this means for your involvement.

Our values

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