What do you want?

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.

Dealing with strong negative feelings and fantasy

People often have strong feelings, fantasies or hopes about what an intervention can do.  It’s good to get those feelings out.  It can help allies to talk without the person doing harm or the person who was hurt so they can talk freely—for example, they might want to talk about feelings that blame the person hurt.  It’s important for them to do that so they can move past those feelings and onto goals that are more real and in line with their values. 

The person who was harmed may have goals like:

• I wish the person doing harm were dead or had to go through what they did to me
• I wish the person doing harm would be publicly humiliated and hurt so they will never do this again
• I wish this had never happened to me
• I wish that I could feel the same as before this happened.

Allies goal might include:

• I wish this didn’t keep happening
• I wish there was an easy way to fix this
• I wish the person who was harmed would cut off all contact with the person doing harm
• I wish the person who caused harm would do everything we want
• I wish someone else would deal with this.

The person doing harm may want things like:

• I wish everyone would just forgive me and let us move on
• I wish everyone would understand that I was under a lot of pressure and cut me some slack
• I wish everyone understood that the person I hurt deserved it—anybody would have done the same thing if they were in my shoes
• I wish this had never happened.

Extreme responses and fantasies are normal.  These questions can help work out if what you want is a good goal:

• Is it possible to achieve this goal?
• Does the goal fit your values?
• Will working on this goal lead to more harm?

Goal setting guiding questions and chart

These questions will help you think about what you want.  They can be answered individually or as a group.

If what you’re doing is mainly focused on the goals of the person who was harmed (this is sometimes called a ‘survivor-centred’ intervention), then this might be about what they want.  Others can also use this tool for themselves, and for the needs of the person who was harmed and the community.

Guided questions

What do I want?

• For myself
• For the person who was harmed (if I am not the person harmed)
• For other important people (like children, whānau, friends, organisation)
• For the person doing harm (if I am not the person doing harm)
• For the larger community (which community?)

What do I NOT want? (Use the categories above)

What is important to me?  (Values, ways that things will happen, or people.

What are my most important wants (or goals)?

Is there anything that is an absolute ‘must have’ or ‘must do’?

Is there anything that is an absolute ‘must not’?

Did I think about things like: safety, money, connections or relationships, other things that are important to me?

Do these goals fit with my values?  Is there anything I would add or leave out after thinking about this?

Are some more achievable than others?  Which are most achievable?  Is there anything I would add or leave out after thinking about this?

Will working towards any of these goals lead to more harm (to myself, the person who was hurt, the person doing harm, or others)?  Is there anything I would add or leave out after thinking about this?

What goals might be fantasies?  Is there anything I would add or leave out after thinking about this?

What would I consider a success?

What goals would I consider ‘good enough’?

Can I divide these goals into long-term and short-term?

Goal setting Chart

After answering the guided questions, write your goals in the following chart so you can easily see them and share with others.  Add a star to the goals that are most important.

Bottom-lines might be limits that you make to be involved in the intervention.  They might be personal, like the amount of time you can spend.  They might be about how the intervention takes place, like who is involved or if you won’t be part of anything that breaks the law. (What are limits or bottom-lines?).

Mapping combined goals chart

After everyone involved in the intervention has had a chance to complete their goals worksheets, this chart can be used to bring the answers together and develop group goals.

Shared goals charts

After mapping the group’s goals, you can use the chart below to document the ‘final’ goals that the group agrees to.  Your goals might change over time, so come back to this chart often and change as needed.

GOALS

Agreed-on goals

List all agreed-on goals

Agreed-on bottom-lines

List all agreed-on bottom-lines about the process or outcomes

Goals/bottom-lines conflicts, disagreements or questions

List all conflicts, disagreements or questions

Need more information

List all goals and bottom-lines that need more information or input from other people

Collective goals summary checklist and next steps

Once the group has its goals, you can use this checklist to figure out next steps.  The key question is: Do you agree enough to move forward?

• Does the group agree enough on goals to move forward?
• Can the group live with goals or bottom-lines that are important to one person but not to everyone in the group?
• If there are conflicts or disagreements in goals, can you still agree to move forward together?
• If there are conflicts or disagreements in bottom-lines, can you still agree to move forward together?
• Do you have all the information you need for goals and bottom-lines?

If you checked all boxes, you can move on to working out your next steps

Goals next step timeline

If you did NOT check all boxes (You don’t have agreement or consensus right now), consider the following options:

Plan another meeting

(giving people time to think about it):

• Yes
• No

If ‘yes’, where is the next meeting, when will it be? __________________

Who can make it? _________________________________

Who can’t make it? ______________________________________

For those who can’t make it, how can they give their input? ___________

What do you need to think about before the next meeting? _______

What do people need to bring to the next meeting? _____________

Plan another way to keep building agreement or consensus:

• Yes
• No

If ‘yes’, how will you communicate (email, phone, meetings in person, etc)?

Who will co-ordinate results? _________________________________

Who will make sure everyone gets the results? _____________________

How will you know when you can move on? _______________________

Someone with goals or bottom-lines that block agreement decides they can live with the group goals and bottom-lines even though they don’t fully agree.

• Yes
• No

If ‘yes’, are there any requests or ideas about coming back to these disagreements later?  If so, what are they? __________________________________

Need to get more information.

• Yes
• No

If ‘yes’, what information is needed? _________________________

How will you get it? _______________________________________

Who will get it? __________________________________________

How will they bring it back to the group? _________

What are the next steps? ____________________________________

The group disbands.

• Yes
• No

If ‘yes’ and you disband, will a different team come together (which might include some of the same people)? If so, how? ___________________________

If ‘yes’ and you disband, agree upon ways that you will leave the process without creating more harm. (For example, telling people that agreement could not be reached could suggest that no one will respond to, stop or prevent harm.  It could increase harm (or potential harm) for the person who was hurt and others involved in the intervention)

Safety and confidentiality questions to ask:

Who can know about this process so far? __________________

Who cannot know about this process so far? ________________

Any other safety measures that should be followed? __________

Any other things that need to be done? ____________

List agreements:

If ‘yes’ and you disband, talk about ways that some of you might keep working on the situation.  Are there ways that you can stay in touch and support each other?  Or conditions where you might come back together?

List ways some of you might keeping working on the situation:

Turning goals into action

An action plan turn goals into action.  Do this for every goal you’ve agreed on, including goals for individuals (See mapping combined goals chart and and shared collective goals chart for creating collective goals). 

Chart: Making goals into action (by goal)

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. Goals can be what people want and don’t want

Ask both what you want and what you don’t want to get a more complete picture.

3. Don’t assume that people working together share the same goals, make the process of sharing goals intentional

Most people agree that they don’t want violence, but may not agree on the details.  Make sure people are clear on their goals, and how they can come together with others to agree on a set of goals.

4. Separate fantasy goals from real goals

You want goals that are realistic and match your values.  Before you get there, it can help to dream about what you would want in an ideal world, including fantasies of revenge and perfect endings.  Then, take time to separate those fantasies from your goals. Dealing with strong negative feelings and fantasy during goal setting can help.

5. Goals should be revisited

At some point you will settle on goals that you all agree to.  Keep checking in to make sure those goals make sense as the situation changes.  It is a good idea to check in with anyone who wasn’t completely happy with the goals to see how it is working for them.

6. Share goals with new people as they get involved

It is easy to forget to share goals or assume that new people have the same goals.  Go through your goals with new people to make sure they agree to them.

7. Separate intervention goals from goals that might be met in another way

Interventions may not meet all goals.  For example, goals about emotional healing may be met outside the intervention.

8. There will be conflicts in goals

Even though everyone wants to end the violence, your goals and bottom-lines might differ and even clash.  The tools help you think about your goals, then come together and see if there is conflict, and if they can be agreed on by compromise.  If there is too much disagreement, someone may decide to leave the intervention or the group might disband. 

9. Think about what goals would be good enough

Aim high and think about what you really want.  But also think about what is good enough—what could you consider a success even if you don’t reach all your goals?