What is a community-based intervention to interpersonal violence?

• Violence in a relationship like marriage, domestic partnership, dating, past relationship (this is sometimes called domestic violence or intimate partner violence)
• Violence to children, parents, grandchildren, grandparents, other whānau and people who are like family—family friends, guardians or caretakers
• Violence that includes unwanted sexual attitudes, touch or actions such as sexual assault, rape, sexual harassment, molestation, child sexual abuse
• Abuse against children
• Abuse against elderly people
• Violence within neighbourhoods, schools, organisations, workplaces, sports teams, churches, etc
• May be physical, emotional, sexual, economic, or some other form.

See Basics about violence for more information.

The networks of people with whom you connect, live, play, work, learn, organise, worship, etc.  The people who can give you the support you need may be among those networks.

Interpersonal violence happens in communities, it involves our fellow community members.  The answer to violence is in these same places, with these same people.  They are the people most affected by violence, who know the most about the people involved in violence, who understand the culture and resources of the community, and who have the most to lose from violence and the most to gain from ending it.

By involving community, we can:

• Respond to violence where it happens
• Confront violence when it first shows up
• Help people gather to respond to, end and prevent violence
• Make violence intervention an everyday skill, instead of something for professionals (who most of us will never use).

People who are harmed usually turn first to people they know, not crisis lines, Women’s Refuge, police or other professionals.  Whānau and friends are usually the ‘first responders.’

The problem is that they turn to us, but we don’t always know what to do—we’re used to leaving violence for professionals and police to solve.  The purpose of this website is to bring knowledge and skills back to communities, to help people intervene in violence.

What we DON’T mean by community is police (even if they call it community policing) or the child welfare system.  Community can include anti-violence agencies IF they agree that everyday people are the best people to intervene and end violence (the Resources section has a list of agencies that may help).

We also don’t mean that everyone in your community will be involved in supporting an intervention.  Many people will be unhelpful, even dangerous.  The community itself may be a problem.  But there may be people you know who can help.

This toolkit has come from work with anti-violence and sexual assault organisations, mostly in communities of colour, migrant and queer communities in the US.  But most anti-violence organisations work in a very different way, and support very different approaches to violence (see How is the community-based intervention approach different?).  We invite anti-violence and sexual assault organisations, agencies, counsellors and others to support a community-based approach to violence intervention.

Community accountability is a type of community-based response to interpersonal violence.  Interpersonal violence is not only an individual problem, it is a community problem.  Accountability is recognising, ending and taking responsibility for violence. 

We usually think of the person doing harm as the one to be accountable for violence.  But communities are often responsible for ignoring, minimising (down-playing its effects, acting like it’s normal or not a big deal) or even encouraging violence.  Community accountability means communities recognising, ending and taking responsibility for violence.  They do this by growing knowledge, skills and willingness to do something to stop violence, and by growing a culture that prevents violence from happening in the first place.

Communities are places of belonging, connection and resources for the people hurt and for the people hurting them.  Communities can use that belonging, connection and resources to challenge violence.  Community accountability can support compassionate repair of harm for people hurt by violence.  It can support people doing harm to take accountability for violence (recognise, end and take responsibility for what they did).  And it can change what is acceptable so that violence doesn’t continue. 

Community accountability does not mean taking over or telling the person harmed what to do.  The person harmed has the best understanding of their safety, what happened, how it affects them and what they need.  Listening to them is an important part of accountability.

How do you support the person causing harm to take accountability has more information about accountability for allies.

Interventions to violence are actions that respond to, end or prevent violence. 

They are rarely single actions—they usually take time and several actions.  This website has information and tools on topics that have helped many interventions (see the sections for People who were harmed, people who caused harm or people who want to help.   Those topics are:

• What is going on?
• How do you stay safe?
• Who can help?
• What do you want?
• How can you support the person who was hurt?
• How can you support the person who caused harm to take accountability?
• How do you work together as a team?
• How are you doing?

There are different phases of an intervention that affect the answers to these questions, so an intervention might ask these questions as it gets started, as it plans, as it takes action, and as it follows up on actions.

Community-based interventions to interpersonal violence are:

• Collective: a group of people acting towards common goals, not one or several people acting individually.
• Action-based: acting to respond to, end or prevent interpersonal violence.
• Community-based: carried out by friends, whānau, neighbours, co-workers or community members. Not controlled by social services, the police, child welfare or other governmental agencies.
• Co-ordinated: people and actions working together to a common purpose.
• Holistic: considering the good of everyone involved in the situation of violence, including those harmed, those who caused harm and community members affected by violence. Building an approach where everyone involved in a situation of violence can be part of the solution to violence—even the person who caused harm.
• Focused on those most affected by violence: providing ways for those affected by and causing violence to develop skills and understanding to end violence.
• Supportive of the complex pathway to change: changing violence, repairing from violence, and creating new ways of being free from violence take time.
  
  • For the person harmed, this means working out the best ways to support them by sharing responsibility for responding to, ending or preventing violence (breaking isolation and taking accountability) without blaming them for their choices (victim blaming), and by supporting their needs and wants (self-determination).
  • For the person doing harm, this means working out the best ways to support them to recognise, end and be responsible for their violence (accountability) without giving them excuses, and without denying their humanity and whakapapa (demonising).
• Facilitated: the approach works best with a facilitator, someone who can help you walk through each part of the website.  You can have more than one facilitator, or share the role among group members.  The facilitator doesn’t have to be a professional or expert on violence intervention.  Ideally, they will be clear-headed, able to follow the values and guidelines of the group, and not too connected to the violence.  There is more about the facilitator role in Who can help.  If you don’t have a facilitator, this website can guide you through the process of violence intervention.

Most common anti-violence approaches:

• Assume that people harmed want to separate from the people hurting them
• Tell people harmed that police and protection orders are the safest way to end violence
• Require reporting to child welfare if a professional believes a child is at risk
• Work only with the person harmed, rather than also working together with friends, whānau, neighbours, co-workers and community members
• Deal with people doing harm through the police or criminal system.

Many people wanting to end violence aren’t safe or comfortable with these approaches, but they don’t know what else to do.

The approach on this website:

• Explores options based on what the person harmed wants, whether that is separating or staying together with the person who hurt them, or finding ways to co-exist in the same community
• Doesn’t rely on the police or State systems to respond to, end and prevent violence, but uses friends, whānau, neighbours, co-workers and community members (community allies)
• Brings intervention and prevention skills and knowledge to people harmed, friends, whānau, neighbours, co-workers and community members rather than relying solely on ‘experts’
• encourages the person doing harm to change by connecting with what is important and meaningful to them, rather than through force, punishment and shaming
• Considers people doing harm as potential allies in ending violence.

We encourage you to work with other people in your life to build support to end violence—finding people who can give you the help you want from your whānau, friends, workmates, team mates, your church or community.  This approach is unusual.  People working in the legal system or anti-violence work may consider a group process to be strange, wrong or even dangerous because they aren’t in control.  Community is often not valued or trusted in systems that work with individuals (remember, what we mean by ‘community’ is the people you know who can give you the support you want).

If you are already in the legal system, social services or agency-led anti-violence programmes, you can still use this approach to get better results.  For example, you can use tools on this website to work out and reach your goals as you work with agencies.  The tools and information on this website might help manage the harms that can come from those systems, or help you find good people to support you in ways that work for you as you go through a legal process.

Creative Interventions developed this toolkit to end violence, and to lead to healthier ways of being in community with each other.

These values have guided that work.

Creativity. Solutions to violence can emerge out of a creative process.

Community responsibility.  Violence is not a problem created by individuals, so solutions can’t be aimed at individuals.  It takes all of us to end violence.  The actions of a group can be much wiser, healthier, effective and long-lasting than those carried out by one person.

Holism. The health and wellbeing of everyone involved in and affected by violence can be part of the solution—this includes the people harmed, people doing harm, and their friends, family and community.  Solutions can keep communities whole.  This does not mean that abusive relationships or families need to stay together, but it might mean that they can co-exist peacefully in the same community.

Safety in all of its forms (physical, emotional, sexual, economic, spiritual, etc).

Risk-taking. Sometimes you need to take risks to be safer.  Some actions that grow long-term safety are dangerous, like confronting someone about their violence, leaving a relationship or taking weapons away.

Accountability.  All of us have our own role and work to do to end violence.  Community-based solutions require that we think about how we have contributed to violence—how do we need to be accountable?  What do we need to do to end violence and grow healthy alternatives?

Transformation. We believe that everyone involved in violence can change.  We need a model for putting that belief into action and supporting long-term change.

Flexibility. Situations of violence are often complicated, and so are the steps towards long-term change. We try to remain flexible so that we can change actions or plans when needed.

Patience. Violence is built over time and the solution to violence also takes time.  It is unlikely to be quick and easy.  Take time to create thoughtful, lasting solutions.

Building on what we know.  As individuals, whānau, friendship networks, communities and cultures we all have histories of creative, community-based ways to resolve violence.  We want to remember, honour and build on the positive things we have known and done throughout history.

Sustainability.  We need to support each other to create change.  Solutions to violence must last beyond the intervention, over our lifetimes, and throughout future generations.

Regeneration.  You may be thinking of your own situation of violence when creating a community-based response, but your success will change those involved and inspire others.  Your experience contributes to liberation and future challenges to violence.  Please consider sharing your stories.