How do you work together as a team?

Signs of immediate danger

There are a few signs of extreme danger.  You should check this list regularly, especially when something has changed, like if the person causing harm has been confronted, or the person being harmed has left the relationship or has a new partner.  The most dangerous times are when the person causing harm feels like they are losing control of the relationship.

Signs of extreme danger:

• Threats to kill or suicide
• Using weapons, threatening to use weapons, or talking about using weapons (like guns, knives, a car, poisons)
• Choking (strangulation or putting hands around a person’s neck)
• Using intimidation and fear (like threatening violence, punching holes in a wall, shouting in a person’s face, sharpening knives, cleaning a gun)
• Intense, violent possessiveness—like owning a person, controlling who they talk to, where they go, jealousy
• Other controlling behaviour to cause fear (like controlling what a person wears, who they can see, where they can go, controlling their money, keeping them away from friends or whānau)
• Forced sex or sexual violence
• Stalking or surveillance (including in person, by phone or social media, checking a person’s phone, emails or social media)
• The violence is getting worse or more often
• The person harmed feels scared or in danger (if they aren’t scared that doesn’t mean they aren’t in danger—sometimes people cope with extreme, ongoing stress by denying it, even to themselves)
• Others are worried that the person harmed is in danger.

Take these signs seriously.  If one or more of these are true, get help and act now. 

Think about the best way to get safer.  If you don’t already have good support, think about what you can do—there are organisations you can call anytime to help you with that and to help with safety (see Resources).

If you have good support, the fastest, safest path might be using that support with tools on this website (there are tools and information in How do you stay safe for the person harmed, person causing harm and allies).  You might feel safer with the help of an organisation—there are organisations you can call anytime for help (see Resources [link to Resources: helplines]).

If you are the person harmed, who can help you work out how to get safer (see Who can help?)?  If you don’t know who to turn to, there are numbers you can call anytime for help (see Resources).  See How do you stay safe for tools and information about safety.

If you are an ally, can you safely tell the person who is being hurt that you will support them if they need help?  Are there other people you can safely talk to about what you see happening (see Who can help?)?  Think very carefully before confronting the person causing harm, especially if you haven’t talked with the person they are hurting and don’t have a safety plan.  You may make things worse.  See How do you stay safe for tools and information about safety.

If you are the person causing harm, stop.  Get help (see Who can help?).  Call or text 1737 anytime to talk to a trained counsellor, or see Resources for organisations that can help.  Take responsibility for lowering the danger—get rid of any weapons, get yourself away from the situation, find people who can support you to be safer.  See How do you take accountability for tools and information about taking responsibility for the harm you are causing.

Working together Quick Question Guide

These tools use the language of building a team—you might have other ways to describe bringing  people together to work towards common goals.

Some questions are: How will the team stay a team?  How do you meet?  How often?  Where?  Do you have to meet in one group or can meetings happen in pairs, over the phone, over email?  How do we work as a team when there are people who can’t or don’t want to be in the same place at the same time?

Teams can be any size:

• Just you and the website for now—looking for more people to help
• A couple of you helping each other out
• Some supportive members of your whānau
• A group of friends
• Some neighbours
• An organisation, sports club, church, workplace
• A group connected across cities
• A bunch of people connecting in different ways.

Teams can be any form:

• You meet regularly and work together on everything
• One person co-ordinates the team to make sure you are part of the plan—the rest of you do your part but usually by yourselves
• You have a lot of people, but a small group meets regularly to co-ordinate
• You have a team working together, and others have special roles.

Why and when is it helpful to have a group meeting?

When you are building common understandings, goals and strategies.  Times to have everyone meet:

1. What is going on
2. How do you stay safe
3. What do you want
4. Regular meetings to look at goals and actions, and to support and feedback with each other
5. Special meetings for big changes, emergencies or opportunities
6. Closure meeting.

Maintaining the group between meetings

The action plan might be carried out with smaller meetings or one-on-ones.  People carrying out the action or affected by it should always have support people to meet and check in with regularly even if the larger group doesn’t meet for a while.

This list will help figure out what kind of team you are, who’s in your team, and how often you expect to meet

1. Who’s on your team?
2. How often do you expect to meet?
3. Who needs to be part of regular meetings?
4. Is there a smaller group that meets more often? Who?  How often?  Where?  What is their role?
5. Are there other people you can count on but who don’t meet regularly?
6. Where do you meet?
7. What do you need at the meeting (pen and paper, food, drinks, childcare, accessibility)?
8. How is an agenda made for the meeting? Who does that?
9. What types of decisions mean everyone should meet together?

Team roles Checklist

Working together well requires:

• Ideas about what roles are needed
• Thinking about the skills you each have
• Seeing gaps in what is needed and filling them
• Inviting other people and organisations
• Co-ordinating team members either in group meetings or separate conversations.

This is a list of roles that can help a group work well together.  If your team is struggling, you might need to strengthen one of these areas.  When looking at this list, think about whether someone is already doing this, if they are right for the role, or if someone needs to be brought into the role.  If your team is small, or even just you and this website, this list can still help you think about how you can get what you want from the process without burning out.

Instigator: The one who gets things started

The instigator is the person who starts the process, but they might take on a different role as things get going.

Good people for Instigator:

• Whoever started the process.

Facilitator: The one who holds the process

The facilitator is important in this process.  They keep things going by taking care of the process and making sure that the people working on the intervention can be supported by and guided by the tools on this website.

Good people for Facilitator:

• Trusted
• Knows about but isn’t too close to the situation of violence
• Level-headed
• Able to see the big picture and keep things moving
• Good memory or way of recording things.

Co-ordinator: The glue

A co-ordinator makes sure that everyone on the team is on board, working well together, getting the right information and playing their role effectively.  The facilitator may do this as well, or someone else.

Good people for Co-ordinator:

• Trusted
• Able to see big picture and keep things moving
• Sensitive to others
• Good at including people, not leaving people out
• Good at working with different people and personalities.

Logistics: Dealing with the details of time and place

There may be one person who makes sure there’s a place to meet, food and drink for the meeting, paper and pens, tissues, and other supplies as needed.  The facilitator may do this as well, or someone else.

Good people for Logistics:

• Responsible
• Good at details

Note-taker: Keeping the details

It helps to keep track of information about what happened, goals, safety plan, communication sent to or received from the person harmed, person doing harm or others involved in the intervention, and key steps along the way.

Good people for Note-taker:

• Good at details
• Good memory
• Can keep notes in an organised way and in a safe place.

Nurturer: Keeps people feeling good

Violence intervention is hard and exhausting.  A nurturer encourages a caring environment and asks you to think about both the tasks to be done and your care for others.

Good people for Nurturer:

• Trusted person
• Caring
• Good boundaries and self-care.

Reality checker: Keeps goals and plans realistic

Goals and timelines that aren’t met can lead to frustration and burn-out.  A reality checker thinks about what is likely and tries to prevent unrealistic expectations.

Good people for Reality checker:

• Has good understanding of the people and the situation
• Can bring people back to reality without losing the higher aims
• Gets real without being too negative.

Communicator: Makes sure you are listening to each other, checking in and following up

The communicator makes sure people share information within a reasonable amount of time and have good follow up.  The facilitator may do this as well, or someone else.

Good people for Communicator:

• Trusted
• Understands that different people give and receive information differently
• Has good follow up.

Vision-keeper: Helps you keep to your goals and values

A vision-keeper stays focused on your goals and reminds you of them when it gets hard or people are distracted by frustration, hate, revenge or other negative drivers.

Good people for Vision-keeper:

• Visionary
• High ideals.

Cheerleader: Keeps people energised and positive

A cheerleader raises team spirit.

Good people for Cheerleader:

• Enthusiastic
• Inspirational

Supporter: Supports, stands by and advocates for key people

A healthy team has people supporting the person who was harmed, the person doing harm, children, and other people on the team with hard roles.

A supporter will be looking out for that person, noticing their needs and advocating for them when others aren’t paying attention.  They make sure that information is shared, that they are part of making decisions, and that their emotional needs are taken care of.

Good people for Supporter:

• Trusted
• Caring
• Able to balance needs of one person with the needs of the group
• Supports individuals without adding to divisions in the group.

Roles checklist:

Do you have people in these roles? Can you work well anyway?  Do you need think about how to fill the gaps?

• Facilitator _______________________________________________
• Co-ordinator ____________________________________________
• Logistics ________________________________________________
• Note-taker ______________________________________________
• Nurturer ________________________________________________
• Reality checker __________________________________________
• Communicator __________________________________________
• Vision keeper ___________________________________________
• Cheerleader ____________________________________________
• Supporter for person harmed __________________________
• Supporter for children __________________________________
• Supporter for person doing harm ______________________
• Supporter for other _____________________________________

Add your own: 

• _________________________________________________________
• _________________________________________________________
  
  

Agreements for lasting over time

Keeping teams together is hard.  These are some agreements people have used that might help.

• Check in with what people are thinking and feeling about the situation you are working on—make space for confusion, doubts and questions
• When in doubt, ask a question
• Take notes, things get confusing over time (you may want to choose a note-taker)
• Make sure you all understand and agree on your decisions
• Praise efforts and celebrate achievements—celebrating even the small things can take you a long way
• If you can’t make it to a meeting, follow up with someone
• Forgive each other, cut each other slack, and find a way to get necessary steps done
• Make sure steps and goals match what you can actually do
• Make criticisms specific and helpful
• Talking about problems so that you can solve them, not to gossip.

Add your own:

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

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_______________________________________________________

Communication Worksheet

Good communicating can avoid some problems: reminding people of goals and action plans, re-grouping to change the plan, meeting again as a team when things happen or actions don’t go as planned.

Communication when dealing with violence is hard because the details are private and teamwork is informal.  Email and social media might not be ideal because of privacy.  In-person meetings might be hard because people are busy or spread out.

Emergencies and opportunities will come up.  People may need information to make decisions.

These are some guiding questions about how to communicate:

1. Is there one person who directs communication or checks that people know what is going on?

• The facilitator? Note-taker? A communications person?
• Someone who has good communication skills:
  • Direct and diplomatic
  • Careful and thorough
  • Good judgment
  • Enough time and access to phone, internet, etc
  • Good memory for details or takes notes
  • Understands the values, goals, bottom-lines and action plan
  • Will inform but not gossip.

2. Who gets to know what?

• Think about people or roles. What can they know?  What should they know? Are there things they should not know?
  • Facilitator
  • Person who was harmed
  • Person doing harm
  • Parents or guardians of affected children
  • Everyone involved in the intervention
  • Regular team members who are also helping
  • Everyone in the community.

3. What needs to be shared?

• Goals, bottom-lines and updates
• Action plan and updates
• Action steps taken and results of those actions
• New, unexpected changes, like:
  • Risks and safety problems
  • New opportunities to take action or involve people
  • Big changes in people’s feelings about the intervention or a part of it, time to think and change course
  • Big changes in people’s ability to carry out the intervention or a part of it, time to speed up, slow down or change course
• Requests for support—emotional, financial, other.

4. What are the safety issues and how do they affect communication? (See How do you stay safe

• Are there risks or dangers to anybody if certain people find out?
  • See Risk assessment chart in How do you stay safe
• Are there risks or dangers to the intervention, for example, if certain people find out?
• Are there risks and dangers if the State finds out? Police, schools, mandated reporters, child welfare, immigration?

5. What are the best ways of communicating with people who need to know?

• Think about how easy it is, making sure information is accurate, and communicating in ways that build trust. Different methods may work for different people and situations
  • In-person one-on-one?
  • In-person meetings?
  • Phone calls? Conference calls?  Skype?
  • Written notes? If they need to be private, how can you make sure they stay private?
  • Emails? List serves?  Do these need to be private and protected?
  • Social media tools? Do these need to be private and protected?
• Is there a system to share information that will work with your group? For example:
  • Everyone communicates to everyone (if there are very few people)
  • One person communicates to everyone and makes sure they get the information they need
  • People divide up who they communicate to.
• Unless the person harmed or doing harm have main roles in the intervention, they might drop out of the communication loop. They might feel isolated or worried when they don’t know what’s happening.  Who can make sure they get the information they need?
  • Person harmed: Do you have agreements on what information is shared with the person harmed, who communicates, how and how often?
• Person doing harm: Do you have agreements on what information is shared with the person doing harm, who communicates, how and how often?

Decision-making types and models

Who makes decisions?  How are they made?  Do some decisions need to be made as a group, while others can be made by particular people?  Are there decisions about things that come up that need to be brought back to the group?

If you are deciding whether to do something, make sure you know that people have time and energy to do it, as well as that they agree with it.

Types of decision-making

1) Collective consensus

2) Executive or steering committee

3) Authority-led (with collective input)

1. Survivor-led or survivor-centred
2. Group leader agreed on by everyone (because they are trusted, can be neutral or have leadership skills)
3. Group leader due to their role in the group or institution (for example, parent or kaumātua, church leader, school principal, Human Resources person).

(There are tools for getting everyone’s involvement at the end of this section that can be used with any decision-making method.)

Consensus

Everyone is part of making decisions. The group needs to trust each other. Guides at the end of this section can help with consensus.

Sometimes the group will agree to a decision when not everyone feels 100% about it. See the Five Finger tool below for ways a group can agree to something without reaching full consensus.

Executive or steering committee

A large group may decide that a smaller team can make decisions, including when to bring something back to the larger group.  The large group can decide what needs to be shared with them, and what can be handled by the smaller group.

Group leader

Groups might have an official or unofficial leader who has more say in decisions.   Some groups have a leader who makes decisions by themselves, but that doesn’t work well with a community-based model like this one.  Even if one person has more power, the rest of the group still needs to have real input and agree with decisions.

A group should decide whether to have a leader.  Sometimes, one person will start to take over, maybe because they are more assertive, have more time, are most obviously upset, or maybe they just expect people to do what they think is best.  If that happens, it should be discussed openly. 

The leader does not have to be the traditional authority in the group.  For example, the leader may be someone who is well respected but not necessarily a kaumātua.  In an intervention taking place in a workplace, the intervention leader may be a trusted person who is not the boss.

Good leadership skills and characteristics

A leader should be trusted, have good judgment, and listen to everyone affected by the violence and intervention. 

The leader should either have a good understanding of interpersonal violence or take time to learn more about violence by talking to the person harmed.  They may talk to someone at a local anti-violence group (see resource section [link to resources]).  People leading the intervention should read Basics about violence [link to section] and Basics about violence interventions [link to section].

Your group might decide on a ‘survivor-centred’ or ‘survivor-led’ process, where the person who was harmed drives the decisions, because:

1. They are the person most affected by the violence
2. Interpersonal violence often leaves the person harmed feeling powerless and unconfident. Having leadership and power in the intervention can help re-build confidence
3. The group may consider the leadership and self-determination of the person harmed as a primary goal of the intervention.

Tools for making decisions

Five finger approach

Using hand signals makes it easy to see how everyone feels about a decision.  It helps stop people with strong opinions from controlling the decision even if they dominate the discussion.  It helps includes the opinions of quiet people, even if they didn’t speak up.

Five fingers helps a group make decisions quickly.  It is better than voting because ‘majority rules’ can cover over important disagreements.  These can show up later as arguing over action steps, splits in the group, breaking confidentiality and so on.

How to use Five Fingers:

Make sure everyone understands the five finger consensus.  It will feel awkward at first.  After talking about something, the facilitator might ask for a decision—something like, “are we ready to make a decision?  Can we see if we have a consensus?"

Everyone holds up their hand to show their opinion:

• One finger = I strongly agree
• Two fingers = I agree
• Three fingers = I don’t completely agree, but I can go with it
• Four fingers = I don’t like it, but I’ll go along with it. I won’t stop the process
• Five fingers = I feel strongly enough to block this decision
• There may also be a signal for more questions.

If everyone has one to four fingers up, then consensus is reached.  If you want a stronger level of consensus (ones and twos), you can ask the threes and fours why they don’t agree.  This can lead to more discussion until stronger consensus is reached or the group comes up with better solutions that more people agree with.

If even one person has a five, consensus is blocked.  This is a strong stand to take.  Your group will need to talk again or come up with other choices that people can agree with.  If blocking happens often, the facilitator can help the group figure out what is going on.  Has the group ignored some important conflicting opinions?  Are there people who can’t work in this team structure?

If anyone has questions, they need to be answered before a decision is made. 

Voting

Sometimes, a well-functioning collective can’t get consensus on a decision and will agree that a vote is the only way forward.  It is a risk.  Voting can over-look conflicts in a group.  If people don’t agree with a decision, they might leave, they might take different or conflicting actions, including breaking agreements on confidentially.

When voting, people are asked to raise their hands if they agree.  Votes are counted, and usually if more than half agree, a decision is made.

Round-robin

When it is useful to get everyone’s opinion, a round-robin asks everyone to share their opinion, concerns and questions.  This gives the group a picture of where everyone is at, where there are agreements and differences, and whether some things haven’t been talked about enough.

Round-robins can help to get to know each other, building trust and better understanding the situation of violence you are responding to.  It can be especially helpful when you are setting goals, and when it’s important that everyone is clear about what they think should happen, and can hear and understand other people’s ideas.

1. Read the Basics section

Interpersonal violence is complicated.  Many of us don’t really understand it or what to do about it.  Read the Basics about violence section for a clearer picture of what is going on.  The Basics about violence intervention section shares lessons Creative Interventions have learned from responding to violence.

Share this information with others who may be in a situation of violence and need resources to help them work out what to do.

2. Take the time to meet in person

Spending time together helps build a team.  Most people haven’t been taught how to respond to violence.  Find out what everyone’s priorities are, what they are worried about, and what their bottom-lines are.  Sometimes these differences only come out when everyone is in the room, hearing what others are saying, and sharing their own opinions.  Working through this helps grow relationships and trust, which can hold the group together when things get hard or go wrong.

If you are working with people who live far away, make sure you communicate well with them.  See Communication Worksheet to help work out what to share with people who can’t meet in person.  Skype and social networking can include people in meetings and processes if you think through what it means for confidentiality.

3. Try to meet together when sharing important information and making decisions

Groups work best when there is shared knowledge and consensus (everyone mostly agrees).  It’s easiest if everyone can meet together.  Leaving anyone out might mean missing information or opinions about what to do, causing problems later.  You might need to work out how to include the person who caused harm if the person they hurt (and others) doesn’t want to be around them.

4. Expect differences, take them seriously and work to find common ground

Responding to, ending and preventing violence is important and hard work.  The dynamics of violence are complex and often hidden.  Reactions to violence are often emotional, and people’s responses can be very different.

Even if everyone agrees on what happened and who is responsible, people may disagree on what needs to be done and how to get there.  If those differences aren’t taken seriously and worked through to a decision everyone can agree on, they can cause problems that can be frustrating and even dangerous.

5. Working together can mean compromising

You may have to let go of points of disagreement to move towards your shared goals.  It is rare for everyone to feel 100% good about an intervention.  Look for common ground and decide whether you can live with the compromises.  This topic offers ways to make decisions that might help.

6. People can be involved at different levels

We encourage meeting in person when sharing information and at times when making decisions needs everyone actively involved.  If someone has a role like providing transport or meeting space, they might not want to be involved in decisions, and may only want to know enough for safety and whatever confidentiality is needed.

7. Not everyone makes a good team member

Who can help talks about who makes a good team member.  You may find surprising allies where you least expect them.  You may also need to keep closer friends and whānau in smaller roles or totally out of the team.  People need to agree with the group’s goals to be on your team.  If they can’t, they may need to step away.

8. Be ready to hold multiple roles

This topic talks about roles that help teams work well.  In most groups, people will have several roles, switch roles and jump into a role when needed.

9. If an organisation is involved, think about who needs to know about the intervention and who needs to be part of a team

When violence happens in an organisation, their rules and culture might affect how a team gets put together.  For example, a board, church elders, management, kaumātua, human resources or the whole organisation might need to be involved.  Often an organisation hasn’t thought about how it will deal with violence or abuse, and it may struggle to figure out what its role is.

This website can help organisations figure out who can best form a team.  Organisations might also think about how to include people from outside—such as friends and whānau of the person harmed or doing harm.

People outside the organisation may be working on their own intervention.  It may make sense to co-ordinate so both are working towards the same goals, or at least aren’t in conflict with each other.

10. Make care, fun and sustainability part of working together

Interventions to violence involve hard work and difficult emotions.

To make the change you want, it is important to build care, fun and sustainability into this work.  It can be little things, like:

• Checking in at the beginning and end of meetings
• Making room for spiritual practices that are meaningful to the group
• Greeting people as they enter and leave, making sure that new people are made welcome
• Sharing food and drink
• Guarding against bitterness and disappointment—laugh at yourself, recall larger goals and values, bring compassion and humour to the mistakes that everyone will make along the way
• Notice when people are burning out or have personal issues they need to take care of
• Celebrating achievements, large and small.