What support 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.

What does the person who has harmed need? Checklist

Supporting people who were harmed can look many different ways.  This tool has types of support that people who were harmed have said were helpful.

If you are the person harmed, this list is good to share with allies (add your own ideas too).

Ways to support someone who was harmed

• Making a human connection
• Letting them know someone cares
• Listening to their story
• Asking what they need
• Helping get what they need
• Reminding them that interpersonal violence happens to lots of people
• Praising them for everything they do about their situation of harm, including talking
• Letting them know they’re not alone
• Things you can offer:
  • Listening ear
  • Patience when they can’t make a decision, are confused, change their mind, repeat themselves
  • Someone to lean on, a hand to hold through fear, shame, confusion, depression, embarrassment
  • Sounding board—to listen and offer feedback, and only give advice if asked
  • Safety (See How do you stay safe)
  • Medical care
  • Mental health care or counselling
  • Spiritual support
  • Companionship
  • Supporting children or other dependents—childcare, child pick-up, activities with children, emotional support for children who may be going through a hard time too
  • Taking care of pets, plants or others they usually care for
  • Helping others to be good allies—trusted friends, family members, neighbours, co-workers, community members
  • Protecting them from people who bring risk or harm, and people who want to be helpful but aren’t
  • Supporting the person doing harm to take accountability, if you can (See How do we support accountability)
  • Taking accountability if you are the person who caused harm (See How can you take accountability)
  • Help finding and connecting them to resources
  • Help with housing or safe shelter
  • Help moving, storing things, packing, unpacking
  • Help with rides/transportation, access to telephone or internet
  • Help with other necessary things (clothes, food, money, transport, etc)
  • Help figuring out how they want to talk about what is happening, what they need, and what they want to prioritise
  • Help with translation, interpretation (for non-English or limited English speakers or hearing or visually impaired), and issues working with service providers
  • Help figuring out ways around systems like police, criminal justice, immigration, or child welfare
• Help them use this website
  • Become familiar with this website
  • Introduce them to the website in a way that is useful, like reading pieces, printing pages, translating useful information
  • Introduce other allies to the website in a way that is useful
  • Play a role as an ally (See Who can help)

What does the person who was harmed need? Guiding questions

If you have been harmed by violence and want support from others that you trust, these are some questions to think about:

Who can support you?

1. Who are the people you usually turn to?
2. Who has been helpful? What made them helpful?
3. Who do you think could help with your situation of violence?
4. If you aren’t sure you want to turn the people you usually turn to, why not?
5. When you think about people to support you with your situation of violence, what is important to you?
6. Who are some other trusted people you might be able to talk to?
7. If you can’t think of anybody right now, what sort of people could you look for to help?

What kind of support do you want?

1. What support do you want (make a list)?:
   (See What does the person who was harmed need?  Checklist [link to Tool E1] for ideas)
2. When you look at the list above, the most important are:
3. Are there things that you know you do NOT want?
4. Think about how to use this exercise to ask for help.  You can practise asking for these things.  You can meet with someone you trust and have them help you figure out how to find more support.  You can use these lists to write a letter about what you want (and don’t want).

Participation of the person who was harmed in an intervention

If the person who was harmed wants to be involved, interventions that include them work better and are safer.  This chart helps sort out what level of their involvement best describes your intervention process, or what you would like your process to be.

Chart. Participation levels of the person who was harmed

*What if the person who was harmed is not involved?

In the last three rows, the person who was harmed is not involved in the intervention.  For example, they may want to move on, they may be scared or in hiding.  The person harmed might not be connected or known, they may be too young to be involved, or unwell, they might have died. 

But the intervention goes ahead because others decide they have to respond to what happened.  For example, organisations often have policies about responding to abuse, a whānau might want to deal with a whanaunga’s behaviour, some people will feel like they either have to drop their friend or support them to change.  

Even though it’s better if the person harmed is involved, it is possible to respond to violence with little or no involvement from them.  The intervention still has responsibility to support them and try not to add to their harm.  This can include:

• Making sure they know how to join at any time, and the process to check in with them
• Including their goals or likely goals
• Offering support listed in What does the person who was harmed need? Checklist
• Someone representing them, like a partner, close friend, parent or other whanaunga
• Offering an updates on the intervention, like:
  • Things the person doing harm or the community that allowed harm have been asked to do
  • What kind of follow-up the person or community doing harm will do
  • Results of the intervention at agreed times (like weekly, monthly, after anything important happens or at the end of an intervention).