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
t 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?
Other sections that can help
Working out What is going on may include getting clear about your goals.
Tools to help make decisions including setting goals are in How do you work together.
How can you support the person causing harm to take accountability has tools to connect your goals to how they will take accountability.
Tools to help you take action towards meeting goals are in How are you doing.
The tools and how to use them
This topic has tools to get clear on what you want and hope to get from your intervention.
If you haven’t already, check for Signs of immediate danger. This might affect what you do next.
The Dealing with strong negative feelings and fantasy tool helps you sort through what you want and what is beyond your control.
What do you want Guiding questions and Chart can be used to think through your goals for the intervention. If you work with a group, Mapping combined goals Chart and Shared collective goals Chart can help you move from individual goals to group goals that you can all support.
Goal setting can be complicated, especially if you are working in a larger group. Collective goals summary checklist and next steps helps you bring all of these goals together. Then Turning goals into action helps you move from goals to the concrete steps you need to get them done.
Tools and examples
Real story: Community responds to domestic violence
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).
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.
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:
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I wish the person doing harm were dead or had to go through what they did to me
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I wish the person doing harm would be publicly humiliated and hurt so they will never do this again
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I wish this had never happened to me
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I wish that I could feel the same as before this happened.
Allies goal might include:
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I wish this didn’t keep happening
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I wish there was an easy way to fix this
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I wish the person who was harmed would cut off all contact with the person doing harm
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I wish the person who caused harm would do everything we want
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I wish someone else would deal with this.
The person doing harm may want things like:
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I wish everyone would just forgive me and let us move on
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I wish everyone would understand that I was under a lot of pressure and cut me some slack
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I wish everyone understood that the person I hurt deserved it—anybody would have done the same thing if they were in my shoes
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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:
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Is it possible to achieve this goal?
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Does the goal fit your values?
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Will working on this goal lead to more harm?
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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?
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For myself
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For the person who was harmed (if I am not the person harmed)
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For other important people (like children, whānau, friends, organisation)
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For the person doing harm (if I am not the person doing harm)
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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.
Goals/Wants or don't wantsFor Who?Is this goal realistic?Short-term or Long-termAnything elseBottom-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?).
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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.
Goals BrainstormIndividual GoalsGoals about the person harmedGoals about the person causing harmGeneral GoalsList everyone’s goals hereList goals about particular people (with name or initials)
List goals about the person harmed
List goals about the person doing harm
List goals about the intervention not a specific person
Bottom-lines brainstormIndividual Bottom-lines
Bottom-lines specific to the person harmed
Bottom-lines specific to person doing harm
General bottom-lines
List must-haves (mark with +) and must-not-haves (mark with -)List bottom-lines about particular people (with name or initials)
List bottom-lines about the person harmed
List bottom-lines about the person doing harm
List bottom-lines about other people, groups, organisations, etc
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
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
Next StepsWho is responsibleTimeline or other conditionsIf 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:
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)
GoalAction Step (may be more than one)Who is responsible for action?How do we know when it is done?
What do you want?
What is this topic about?
Setting goals that:
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Can be agreed on enough for everyone to move forward
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Help guide the next steps
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Create ways to measure success
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Guide the person doing harm to do something about their violence, repair the harm and change their behaviour away from violence and towards responsibility.
Your goals may change at each phase.
Why is it important?
Working out what you want from an intervention gives your group direction. Goals can guide you through hard or confusing times. Goals remind people what they are working towards and what is expected of them.
People can usually agree that they want violence to end. But what they mean by that and how they think it should happen can be very different and this can lead to conflict. The tools in this topic help you to discuss your differences as a group, so that you can agree on a set of goals. The tools help you make concrete goals, so you know when you’ve met them.
Goal setting in 6 steps:
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Be clear about the outcomes you want and don’t want—your goals
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Be clear about any limits you have, things that you will not agree to—your ‘bottom-lines’
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Come together as a group to work out group goals and bottom-lines (people may have to compromise to reach agreement)
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Separate short-term goals from longer-term
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What are the most important goals? What are the easiest to achieve?
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Turn these goals into a plan of action that can be changed when needed.
If only one or two people are involved at the start, then goals might be more individual than a group process. The most important goals to start with may be short-term: immediate safety, gathering people to help or finding someone to call for support. Long-term goals are good for giving your group direction.
Key Questions
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What do you want?
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What do you not want?
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What would you consider a success?
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As you plan an intervention and possibly bring more people together, your group’s goals may expand. You may need clear long-term goals to guide you. You may need a process for agreeing on goals.
Key Questions
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Does everyone know and agree with the goals?
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Are you able to reach consensus on the goals?
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How can you turn your goals into a set of steps?
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Are your goals realistic?
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By the time the group starts to take action, you should have a set of goals that you all understand and agree with.
Key Questions
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Are the goals still realistic?
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Does everyone know and agree with the goals?
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What goals have you reached?
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You can return to goals to measure your success, to celebrate what you were able to achieve, and to remind yourselves of what you need to keep doing in the future.
Key Questions
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Have your goals been met?
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What has not been met? Why not?
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Can anything be done to meet your goals?
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Can you let go of unmet goals?
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Think about the relationship the violence happened in, and what the outcome for that relationship might be. Goals can include what the person harmed wants for their relationship. For example:
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In a current close relationship that both want to keep going (eg, partners, parent or child)
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Goals may include being in a healthy relationship together
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In a current close relationship that one or both don’t want to keep going
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Goals may include separating safely, and living safely in the same community
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In a past relationship where they don’t want to be close or reconnect
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Goals may include separating safely
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In a current but not close relationship (co-workers, friends, members of an organisation) where they have to share the same spaces or circles
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Goals may include staying peacefully in the same community
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If the person harmed has no relationship with or doesn’t know the person who harmed them
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The relationship may not be part of the goals.
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There are three types of goals for interventions:
1. Supporting the person who has been harmed
Goals focused on the health, safety and other needs or wants of the person who has been harmed. May include children, whānau, pets and others who rely on them. This should be a priority in most interventions.
2. Accountability of the person doing harm
Goals focused on supporting the person doing harm to recognise, end and take responsibility for the harm they caused, whether or not it was intended. Includes changing attitudes and behaviours so that the violence won’t happen again.
Often accountability isn’t possible, so this focuses on stopping the violence and making sure it doesn’t happen again.
3. Community accountability and social change
Goals focused on communities seeing how they are responsible for harm, and making changes so that harm will not continue. This includes harm a community caused, as well as harms that the community allowed or did nothing about.
1. Goals about ending the violence, like:
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To tell at least one trusted person about what is happening
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To find out about one crisis line I can call in an emergency
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To share this website with my close friends
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The person who hurt me to complete a stopping violence programme.
2. Goals about being free from violence, like:
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Want the physical violence to end completely
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Want all verbal abuse to end
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Want my children to be free from violence
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Want to be able to argue without fearing physical violence
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Want to be able to say no to sex without fear.
3. Goals about freedom from control, like:
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To be able to go out without having to report to my partner
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To be able to get a job without threats or being called a bad mother.
4. Goals about safety, like:
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To have an emergency plan and at least two people I can call in an emergency
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Want my children to feel safe
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Want to be able to live without fear most days of the week.
5. Goals about relationship, like:
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To end this relationship completely
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To end this intimate relationship but stay friends
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To end this relationship but be able to co-parent our children
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Want my friends to understand the dynamics of violence and be on my side
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To have some people I can trust.
6. Goals about the way the intervention is carried out, like:
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To meet the person doing harm face-to-face
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Do not want to meet the person doing harm face-to-face
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Want the person doing harm to be dealt with compassionately
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Do not want the police involved.
7. Goals about the person who caused harm, like:
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That they stay away and stop all contact
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That they stay away and stop all contact until I feel safe
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That they understand and admit what they have done
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A sincere apology
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Repair in the form of _____
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That they stay away from the following places: _____
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That they get the following help: ____
8. Goals about the community (might be whānau, friends, an agency or group), like:
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The community to understand how they supported violence and admit what they have done
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A sincere apology from the community
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The community to adopt guidelines about safety and violence so this does not happen again.
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Your bottom-lines may be what you need to stay involved in the intervention, what the intervention does, or limits like the amount of time you have.
Think about whether you have any absolute limits to participation. Make these clear so that other people know.
For example:
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I can be involved in this intervention, but I will not meet face-to-face with the person who caused harm
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I can only meet about this on weekday evenings
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I want to hear about the intervention so I don’t get in the way of what you are trying to achieve, but I don’t want to be involved
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I will be involved, but only as long as we aren’t violent to the person doing harm
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I will be involved but I do not want to report to the police.
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Goals can come from people in a situation of violence, like the person who was harmed, community allies or the person doing harm. Goals can also be about people in a situation of violence. They might be about safety, supporting people being harmed, community responsibility, or supporting the person doing harm to be responsible and to change.
Allies might want to follow the goals of the person who was hurt. You may also have your own personal goals, and goals that respond to community-level concerns. Be clear about which goals are important to you as an individual, and how you feel about any compromises that you or the group make. In that way, you may be able to feel good about the group process, and not let differences get in the way of supporting the team goals.
About the person harmed
Many interventions base their goals on what the person who was harmed wants. Their goals should be important. They have suffered most, and usually understand what happened better than anyone. Giving them control over the goals of the intervention can be an important part of ending violence.
Setting goals is a negotiating process. It is important for community allies to talk about your goals, even if they are different from those of the person harmed, and even if they aren’t included in the groups goals. How can you do this in a way that the person harmed isn’t isolated or judged for what they want? Community allies may accept the goals of the person harmed as their group goals. Or the process may lead to discussion and everyone’s goals shift towards agreement (or consensus). Collective goals are often stronger than those of any one individual.
About the person causing harm
The group may support the person doing harm to set goals that can be part of the collective goals. They may name goals that are the opposite of taking responsibility, like “having the process be quick,” “wanting the survivor to take equal blame,” “being able to say sorry and move on” or not wanting this process at all. These aren’t goals for accountability, but it can help to get them out, and move on from them. With support to think more deeply about what they have done and who they want to be, they may set goals that move them towards accountability.
About the facilitator
This toolkit works best with a facilitator. They may be a friend, whanaunga or community member. They may be a helpful professional or someone working in an organisation who is willing to work with the values and approach behind this model.
This is a unique approach to dealing with violence and may be unfamiliar to people used to working with violence. It may even be against their policies. Share this website with people you might want as a facilitator and see if they are comfortable with this approach.