Essex Police helping women to stay with abusers

[Allthecoolkids]

AIBU to think this is a really really shit poster??

I can’t link to it but they posted it to FB this afternoon.

Literally nobody has said that

its the actual point of the thread.

For all those saying nobody can keep you safe if you stay, that is true, but the most dangerous thing you can do is actually leave. It's when you are most likely to be killed, and far more women are killed by ex partners than current ones.

Women's Aid used to have outreach workers who would work with women asking for help who were not willing, ready or able to leave their relationships. I don't know if these positions still exist
This was certainly around last year, I had fantastic support which enabled me to end twenty years of abuse safely. I was not able, for various reasons to 'just leave', so a great deal of support was put into place to ensure I got the help I needed when I needed it. I have been separated for over a year now and although I have cPTSD, to be expected under the circumstances; I and the children have a better quality of life.

Abused women tell themselves these lies every day - having an official programme repeat them, backed up by police and DV agencies, the people they need to be able to go to and get a completely different line - it is an utter disaster.

Completely agree with this, and the poster asking how Essex police will be keeping Sheila safe.

The message that "You can get support even if you feel you can't leave" is fine, but why not just say this? Why say Sheila is now safe and smiling with her abuser looming behind her?

Literally nobody has said that.

Two posts above you for starters.

it is never going to be something that I support as a good alternative option, largely due to having seen the traumatic life-long impact it has on the children growing up in those homes.

Not all homes were there is DV have children. This campaign is seperate from that anyway, it's not saying 'you can keep your children in a DV situation.

You might not 'support' it as an alternative option but that doesn't mean all women are going to leave. I'm not romanticising it, I'm being a realist that there are women who won't leave and they still deserve help and support even if you don't approve of it.

So women have to stay with violent partners because if they leave they might be murdered. Facilitating women to live with abusers. Utter madness. This is happening with any other crime AFAIK.

Essex Police appears to have some sort of offender management think to reduce offending. Okay, some people say they don't work. But if there are ten women who refuse to believe being beaten up and it works on one isn't 9 women being beaten up better than 10 women being beaten up?

I get the impression a lot of posters would prefer 10 women being beaten up just because they are ideologically opposed to this sort of thing.

No matter how loud you shout for people to leave not all women are going to. And the risk to them should still be reduced as much as possible.

isn't

Two posts above you for starters

That post does not say what you claim it does.

I get the impression a lot of posters would prefer 10 women being beaten up just because they are ideologically opposed to this sort of thing.

?? Elton your points are so odd I'm questioning your comprehension skills

So women have to stay with violent partners because if they leave they might be murdered. Facilitating women to live with abusers. Utter madness

That isn't even slightly what I said Nobody has to stay with anyone.
The facts are the facts: the single most risky time for a women is when she leaves the relationship. We have to let women know this, it is criminal not to if you are counselling someone.
Some women choose not to leave, for many different reasons, and they need support as well.

Like I said earlier in the thread, the golden rule of DV support is to meet the woman where she is. You never impose your own opinion or tell her what to do.

You might not 'support' it as an alternative option but that doesn't mean all women are going to leave. I'm not romanticising it, I'm being a realist that there are women who won't leave and they still deserve help and support even if you don't approve of it.

I don't know what I have to say for you to understand but I will try again:
I think that all victims of DV deserve support, whether or not they are ready to leave their partner and I have never said that they should not get support. I do not agree with posting smiling images of victims with their abusers (that in reality are motivated by the fact that there is barely any funding to help these women). The reason why is that it makes it seem that all will be fine, that the abuser will change, that they will be happy. There are other ways of helping and supporting them without posting Sheila's 'success story'.

Is that still unclear?

I think you work with what you've got: if a victim is not willing/ able to leave, you do what you can to make their staying as safe as possible. It's my impression that the poster in question is aimed specifically at people who are victims of DV but don't feel able to ask for help because they think they will be told to leave and if they don't do so, there will be no more support.

I get the impression a lot of posters would prefer 10 women being beaten up just because they are ideologically opposed to this sort of thing

Are you for real? I have done a huge amount of work with DV victims through legal and volunteer work. I have no desire to see anyone beaten up. I want to see women helped, but I have an issue with the poster.

How would you feel about a 'forgive your rapist' poster campaign?

Can you suggest a way?

having suffered domestic violence myself and watched my friend go thru similar I can tell you that its so so dangerous to act like these are just issues that can be worked thru as a couple. It took him being put in jail for violence towards her, for my friend to finally realise that things were not going to one day morph into the happy family she had imagined they could be if she just put in enough effort.

For me I just kept going back time and time again, putting my life in danger because I kept framing it as psychological problems he was having that we could work thru together and that our love was the most important thing.

Its so helpful for external people to consistently tell you that someone who abuses you does not love you and you need to get the hell away from them. You may need to hear that many many times before you actually leave but you really do need to hear it loud and clear because you just look for any affirmation or excuse to stay. And that bloody poster looks like a giant excuse to stay.

Its so helpful for external people to consistently tell you that someone who abuses you does not love you and you need to get the hell away from them

You personally may have found that helpful. How helpful do you think it would be to a 65 year old woman who is never ever going to leave? Do you not think it would be the very opposite of helpful?

curryforbreakfast Makes so many good points . If you can’t /won’t leave you need to know you can still access support.
DV shouldn’t happen but it does and always will. Leaving is just not possible for everyone

It is actually a good poster .... many people who suffer with domestic violence do not want to leave their other half ... educating people is the correct way way to go. Educate people so they can make informed decisions.... now that's wise.

I'm not saying women's aid should do this [support women who do not intend to leave] - I am saying they already do do this. And women do engage. So there is no need for a new service and it surely just dilutes funds to split them. I'm also concerned that "keeping families together" is a more palatable outcome for many people who do not understand the nature of abuse and so if there were a question of which organisation should get funding, it may go to these new ones. Surely it makes more sense to allocate funding to DV support organisations, and allow them to distribute the funding where they feel the need is greatest - and if this need is supporting women who are not open to leaving, then great. I would trust their judgement on this one. I'm suspicious of new organisations popping up claiming to solve problems in this way.

It is a fallacy that women can stay safely in abusive relationships. Organisations should not offer this as a supposed service. Supporting women who are not ready or willing to leave a relationship, now or potentially ever, is about harm reduction, much like supporting drug addicts. You can hand out and dispose of needles and offer safe places to shoot up, so reducing some of the secondary dangers of IV drug use, but you don't advertise this with massive posters saying "Good news! Now there's a safe and happy way of using street heroin!" because this doesn't exist.

Is there also a strain here of "violence is the only real abuse"? Like reducing incidents of physical violence is the only kind of abuse which matters, and so it doesn't matter if a woman stays with a man who is financially, emotionally, and sexually controlling, even though these behaviours can lead to problems such as PTSD, depression and anxiety for the victim - as long as he doesn't kill her? Is that okay then? Because I don't think it's okay and I think traditional support services would work on both aspects - safety plans as well as information about the nature of abuse and its effects.

Curryforbreakfast the point is that this is on a poster where women in all circumstances can see it. I dont think police should stop working with women who refuse to leave at all but i do think its irresponsible to put something like this on a poster where it can be seen by any woman any potentially put her in greater danger.

I'm not saying women's aid should do this [support women who do not intend to leave] - I am saying they already do do this. And women do engage. So there is no need for a new service and it surely just dilutes funds to split them

The issue is that women often don't know that we do this. They call the helpline are are often surprised that we aren't telling them to LTB, that we will talk about other scenarios.
The more women we can get to engage the better, and reaching out to let them know there is support is not a bad thing.

Curryforbreakfast the point is that this is on a poster where women in all circumstances can see it. I dont think police should stop working with women who refuse to leave at all but i do think its irresponsible to put something like this on a poster where it can be seen by any woman any potentially put her in greater danger

Isnt that silencing the lived experience of one group of women in order to say something to another? Is that fair? You could say the same for any poster, so should we not have any at all?

Essex police don't give a shit about domestic violence. I called them to tell them my neighbour had thrown his girlfriend down the communal stairs while She was holding their 6month old baby. They came 5 hours later, and didn't even arrest him as she was no longer there. Fuck you Essex police.

All this excuse making and facilitating is just going to perpetuate the problem. And make children think this is the norm and must be endured. No I don't agree with this approach at all.

They call the helpline are are often surprised that we aren't telling them to LTB, that we will talk about other scenarios.

Do you really think this poster does this job? It's one thing to say 'we support women in da relationships even if they're not considering leaving', it's another for a police poster to reassure women who choose to stay that they will be kept safe.

It's impossible to predict which men will escalate from emotional abuse to a sudden physical attack. You can't be sure an emotionally abusive man won't end up killing his partner.

Cf Lance Hart, who killed his wife and DD, had not been physically abusive according to his family - he didn't need to be as they were scared of him.

Cf Oscar Pistorius.

Research in Australia found that (iirc) 40% of women who were murdered by their partner/ex had not previously experienced physical abuse from them.

And you certainly cannot guarantee the police could be there fast enough to prevent a physical attack from an already violent man.

While police and dv charities absolutely work with women they will never leave, a police poster promising to keep women safe is dangerous.