Interventions against child abuse and violence against women

Front matter

Liz Kelly Thomas Meysen (eds.)

Interventions Against Child Abuse and Violence Against Women

Ethics and culture in practice and policy

Section One Approaching Intervention: The Arena

Crafting methodology for an innovative project Liz Kelly & Carol Hagemann-White

Theorising complex inequalities to meet the challenges of intervention against violence Viasta Jalusi¢

Foundations in ethical theory to guide intervention against gender-based and intergenerational violence Carol Hagemann-White

Section Two Understanding The Frameworks That Shape Intervention

Information, Intervention, and Assessment — Frameworks of child physical abuse and neglect interventions in four countries Thomas Meysen

Redress, Rights, and Responsibilities — Institutional Frameworks of Domestic Violence Intervention in Four Countries Carol Hagemann-White

Trafficking for sexual exploitation and the challenges of intervention:

the price of human rights Jackie Turner

SECTION THREE KEY ISSUES ININTERVENTION (6300005006 a0 os c03 owns bee nee eeu ee we 119 The contested concept of culture: encounters in policy and practice

GI VIOIEN CO ANG ADUSE™ joi. garg wok eon ew a nae ase wage oN ae wm 121 Liz Kelly, Maria José Magalhdes, Thomas Meysen & Maria Garner

Thomas Meysen & Bianca Grafe

The responsibilisation of women who experience domestic violence:

Maddy Coy & Liz Kelly

Empowerment and intervention: perspectives of survivors

ANd PrOlessiOnals: «cso wea wd ome D eee KGL SE NARROW ae REW SS Wa oes 164 Maria José Magalhdes, Jackie Turner & Carol Hagemann-White

SECTION FOUR REFLECIIONS 5.2 5-7 Sed 4a SRW RENRAY ORE IMRT RAMEE CAN MERE Ee ae 187 Carol Hagemann-White & Thomas Meysen Working With voice (YeSeateh «5:0 co kee bo eda da Be ek ae RHR ES OD Ox 208 Bianca Grafe

Viasta Jalusi¢, Lana Zdravkovi¢ & Raquel Felgueiras

Reading ethics into interventions against violence... 2.2... ee ee ee 254 Liz Kelly & Thomas Meysen

Transnational Foundations for Ethical Practice in Interventions Against Violence

Liz Kelly & Thomas Meysen Carol Hagemann-White, Viasta Jalusi¢ & Maria José Magalhdes

Chapter 1 Preface Carol Hagemann-White', Thomas Meysen’ & Liz Kelly’

" University of Osnabriick, Germany ? SOCLES International Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Heidelberg, Germany 3 Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit, London Metropolitan University, United Kingdom ool

The research project “Cultural Encounters in Intervention Against Violence (CEINAV) listened to the voices of professionals and of victim-survivors in four countries — England & Wales, Germany, Portugal and Slovenia. Collaborating across disciplines and in cooperation with practitioners for three years, from September 2013 until November 2016, we sought a deeper understanding of how and why different professionals intervene and how intervention is experienced when women are confronting intimate partner violence, trafficking for sexual exploitation or physical child abuse and neglect. Within the frame of Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) and the overarching programme of Cultural Encounters, CEINAV took a dual approach. We aimed for a deeper understanding how the diverse legal-organisational frameworks as well as the socio-cultural backgrounds affect practices of intervention, and we reflected how belonging to a majority or minority group or being seen as such plays out on the level of intervention practice. The research crafted an empirical methodology as well as a theoretical foundation that would make comparative analysis possible. We built on previous collaborative research which explored the legal and philosophical foundations for interventions in Europe. Some of the findings were published during the course of the project as working papers (http://tinyurl. com/ceinavproject). A multilingual anthology of stories taken from the interviews with women and young people about their experiences with intervention appeared as Volume 2 of this series in 2017. The book was given an artistic design by the Porto team and is also available open access online’.

This volume brings together some of the findings from, and reflections on, the project as a whole. The sections are organised to reflect the overlapping and multiply linked streams of work and thinking within the project. In the first section, “Approaching the arena’, Chapter 2 describes the methodology of the project and how it was developed to an-

' This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 291827. The project CEINAV is financially supported by the HERA Joint Research Programme (www.heranet.info) which is co-funded by AHRC, AKA, BMBF via PT-DLR, DASTI, ETAG, FCT, FNR, FNRS, FWF, FWO, HAZU, IRC, LMT, MHEST, NWO, NCN, RANNIS, RCN, VR and The European Community FP7 2007-2013, under the Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities programme.

Hagemann-White, Carol & Bianca Grafe, eds. (2016): Experiences of Intervention Against Violence. An Anthology of Stories. Cultural Encounters in Intervention Against Violence, Vol. I. Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers.

nv swer the research questions. Particular attention was given to the challenge of in-depth qualitative methods that could uncover significant nuances of difference and their rationale, on the one hand, while devising an approach to data analysis that permitted comparative analysis on the other. Chapters 3 and 4 introduce the theoretical foundations for our lively debates and the multi-perspectivity of our discourses. Intersectional approaches, cultural differences, positional inequalities, and postcolonial foundations are discussed and linked to their relevance for understanding the challenges of intervention (chapter 3). A key premise of CEINAV was that, given the different legal and institutional systems, histories and cultural traditions in the four countries, the ethical issues emerging from narratives and the ethical dilemmas experienced by professionals would be at the core of a comparative analysis. Thus, Chapter 4 reviews ethical theories, seeking to identify which approaches have the potential to offer guidance for intervention against violence.

In section two: “Understanding the frameworks that shape intervention” three chapters describe the legal-organisational frameworks for intervention against child physical abuse and neglect (Chapter 5), domestic (or intimate partner) violence (Chapter 6), and trafficking for sexual exploitation (Chapter 7). These analyses are based on knowledge from country context papers written for each of the four countries as well as published research and documents, enriched by the picture of intervention pathways that emerged from focus groups in which different professionals identified their role and the conditions for their involvement in intervention.

Section three “Key issues in intervention” focuses on challenging issues that emerged from the empirical work in CEINAV. The research in the four countries was carried out in the four different languages, as was the initial data analysis. Both for the multi-professional focus groups and for the interviews with victim-survivors, analytical papers on each form of violence in each country were written and quotes were translated to English. The chapters in this section build on this foundation, linking the empirical results with national and international research and recent policy developments. Language and framings play a crucial role in debates about “culture” or “cultural backgrounds”. The different understandings and positions as emerged and discussed in the project team are reflected in light of the discussions in the 24 interdisciplinary focus groups with professionals in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 explores the tensions and complexities arising from the obligation to intervene in cases of interpersonal violence, and how protection can be balanced with the fundamental right to self-determination. Here the transnational comparison based on the CEINAV data reveals unexpected commonalities within and between the work in fields of the three forms of violence, as well as in the different countries. A range of diverging viewpoints on the ethical dilemmas that confront professionals when the bodily and social integrity of women, children, or parents is revealed.

A deeper ethical concern comes into view in Chapter 10, that takes a critical look at the concept of “reponsibilisation” and its implications for practice. The recognition of a state responsibility to end violence against women has recently, in particular in England and Wales, encountered policy shifts which move responsibility for safety back onto victim-survivors, often without ensuring the protection or external support that was previously understood as necessary. Chapter 11 can be read as a response to these and other challenges of intervention as it focuses on the concept of empowerment, generally regarded as the key orientation for intervention systems that aims to overcome gender- and generationally based violence. Drawing on both the views and practical strategies of professionals and the intervention experiences recounted by women and young people, this chapter seeks to describe with concrete examples how empowerment can be implemented or can fail.

Section four “Reflections” comprises three chapters that engage in different ways with what we learned from this multidisciplinary and multi-country research. Chapter 12 discusses approaches to understanding different institutional cultures in Europe and how these influence intervention practices. Chapter 13 unfolds with the quotes of professionals and of victim-survivors how their voices contributed to understanding the dilemmas of intervention. Chapter 14 describes how creative art was integrated into the empirical research process, reflects on what was achieved by this, and considers to what extent art and art creation can be fruitful resources for empirical research.

The book concludes with a synthesis of the understanding gained across four countries and three forms of violence: ethical foundations for respectful and responsible intervention. Chapter 15 introduces the reader to the process by which the CEINAV group arrived at transnational foundations for ethical practice. Developing such an empirically and theoretically grounded shared framework for ethical practice in interventions against violence against women and child abuse was a major goal of CEINAV (Chapter 16). It aims to offer an understanding of violence and of intervention growing from the knowledge gained in CEINAV, while respecting the diversity of contexts within which professionals in each country have to frame their decisions and actions.

The CEINAV project was collaborative from the planning stage up into the final report. It was enabled and enriched by the sustained engagement of the 12 associate partners, who met repeatedly with the researchers at key stages of the project, from the development of the methodology to interpretation of the data and reflective discussion of theoretical and ethical issues. All of the topics in this book were discussed in virtual and in person meetings of the research teams. The empirical research (including the creative art workshops) was carried out according to methodological guidelines agreed by all five partners, and both the in-country working papers and draft comparative analyses were circulated and revised after receiving comments. With the widely differing backgrounds of the five partners, this continuing and often very intense interchange was a highly productive form of peer review.

Through all stages of the project and in all five teams, there were younger researchers and research assistants who could not take on the responsibility for co-writing a book chapter after the funding of the project ended, but who nonetheless contributed significantly to the ideas, the analyses and the reflections in this book. The research teams are listed below.

e England and Wales: Madeleine Coy, Liz Kelly, Alya Khan, Iona Roisin, Nicola Sharp & Jackie Turner

¢ Germany: Janna Beckmann, Bianca Grafe, Carol Hagemann-White, Barbara Kavemann, Thomas Meysen & Ninette Rothmiiller

¢ Portugal: Vera Inés Costa Silva, Rita de Oliveira Braga Lopez, Angelica Lima Cruz, Raquel Helena Louro Felgueiras, Maria José Magalhaes & Clara Sottomayor

e Slovenia: Veronika Bajt, Vlasta Jalusié, Katarina Vucko & Lana Zdravkovic

The associate partners were:

England & Wales: Imkaan, Sumanta Roy: www.imkaan.org.uk Black Association of Women Step Out Ltd. (BAWSO), Mwenya Chimba: www.bawso. org.uk Childrens’ Services, London Borough of Hounslow, Janet Johnson and Emma Worthington; www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20059/children_and_families%20

Germany: Koordinierungskreis gegen Frauenhandel und Gewalt an Frauen im Migrationsprozess — KOK e.V., Eva Kueblbeck and Naile Tanis: www.kok-buero.de Bundesverband Frauenberatungsstellen und Frauennotrufe, Frauen gegen Gewalt e. V., Dr. Ute Zillig, www.frauen-gegen-gewalt.de/ German section of the Fédération Internationale des Communautés educatives (FICE) e. V, Dr. Monika Weber, www.ighf.de

Slovenia; Association against sexual abuse, Erica Kovaé: www.spolna-zloraba.si “Society Kljuc — Centre for Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings”, Polona Kovaé: www.drustvo-kluc.si Association for Non-violent Communication, Katarina Zabukovec Kerin: www.drustvodnk.si/en

Many professionals and victim-survivors in each country gave generously of their time, knowledge and reflections. Now it is up to you as readers to add to that discourse. We hope the book provides you with new insights and thought provoking ideas.

Chapter 2 Crafting methodology for an innovative project

Liz Kelly’ & Carol Hagemann-White’

"Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit, London Metropolitan University, UK ? University of Osnabriick, Germany

1 The research context

Cultural Encounters in Interventions Against Violence (CEINAV) was both a cross-disciplinary and multi-country project, demanding attention to methodology at multiple levels. Since members of the research teams had worked together on a number of previous projects we already knew the critical importance of allocating sufficient time and attention to building a shared approach to research methods: without this the data would not be comparable and, moreover, taken for granted similarities would turn out to be unexamined differences. As a team we were, therefore, committed to a process in which we worked to produce agreed overall approaches and detailed guidelines for both data creation and analysis. Our experiential knowledge meant the project application provided time and spaces (virtual and in person) through which we built shared starting points and understandings of what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. Too often multi-country projects take a series of basic steps for granted, we were anxious to avoid this: Our intellectual and practical collaboration involved each step being explored and carefully considered in order to create a flexible qualitative methodology which included focus groups with professionals, interviews with victim-survivors and art based workshops.

While there is a growing body of transnational studies on responses to gender-based violence (most centred on domestic violence), it is primarily concerned with comparing or assessing national policies and the processes that shape them. Some studies use pre-defined standards of good practice and seek to discover patterns in what policies states install; others take a discursive sociological approach to identify what institutions, agencies and voices influence policy outcomes in each country. Even when country case studies are written, the comparative goal is typically pursued through normative standards set by the researchers, such as asking whether policies are feminist or gender-neutral (Krizsan et al. 2007), whether they are transformational (Krizsan & Lombardo 2013), or whether they further feminist goals (Stetson & Mazur 1995). However, from previous research and monitoring for the Council of Europe we had learned that policies and standards on paper can take on very different meanings when implemented “on the ground”, and we sought to understand why this is the case. Thus, we could not make use of methods to analyse documents in the policy discourse. Research focused on policy-making and policy outcomes seldom reaches the level of the practice of intervention.

A second body of comparative research concerning intervention against violence is more closely tied to social work, collecting and comparing data on issues surrounding decision-making in child protection work or procedures when intimate partner violence has the potential to harm children. This work is more likely to study professionals rather than the policy-making process. After 20 years of European networks on gender violence (ENGV) and on interpersonal violence as a human rights violation (CAHRV!) and ten years of monitoring implementation of Council of Europe standards (Hagemann- White 2006 and 2014b) the limits of measuring and comparing national policies and legal provisions on intervention had become visible. Our previous research has taught us that often it is not only what intervention comprises but how it is done which determines whether it brings about real change and makes a child or a woman safer from the threat of further or future harm and more able to take control of their lives. It was time to explore the cultural underpinnings that shaped the diversity of practices in Europe.

1.1. Our research questions

HERA funding required a thoughtfully designed (and fully costed) research project which addressed cultural encounters. Application was a two-stage process, each stage demanding three months of collaborative work, and the team meeting several times to ensure we were travelling in the same directions; from the first draft to funding approval the process stretched over more than a year. The application distilled our thinking at that point. We sought to explore why on the one hand, despite an explicit European consensus on stopping violence against women and protecting children from harm, the practices of intervention and the rationales behind them differ between countries. On the other hand, we saw a need to study how policies and institutional practices intended to ensure the “best interests of the child” and the freedom and safety of women from violence may be deployed differently and potentially have quite different effects for disadvantaged minorities within each country.

The wider context for our project was the growing formation and influence of European-level normative instruments, including standard setting and models of “good practice’, with the implication that not only the obligations of the state and its agencies, but also their practices, become more uniform. Yet the adoption of such norms in the national context often follows implicit and unreflected assumptions of what is presumed to be self-evident — in legal cultures, institutional cultures, dominant national cultures — incorporating ideas about what it means to be a child or a woman or a man, or what families can and should do. But they are also shaped by beliefs about the nature and purpose of social institutions, and about how and when they may justifiably intervene into personal life. These underlying premises are rarely examined in comparative studies. By including different forms of violence as well as countries whose history, traditions and institutions differ, we hoped to discover overall patterns of intervention — from legislation to practical responses such as law enforcement and social work and cooperation — that differ between countries, despite two decades of overarching European perspectives and policies. To explore these tensions we thus chose to focus on three forms of violence for which state responsibility is well established: intimate partner violence/domestic violence, physical child abuse and neglect, and trafficking for sexual exploitation.

It was not our intention to assess whether the four states in our study had implemented the provisions and fulfilled their obligations from transnational Conventions, nor to eval-

' The Coordination Action on Human Rights Violations (CAHRV) was funded 2004-2007 in the 6'" EU framework program, linking 22 partners in 14 countries uate whether practitioners met the standards that these agreements set. We expected rather that the assumptions, values and beliefs that are normally taken for granted would become most salient in difficult situations and dilemmas of practice as well as in the dissonances between offers of professional protection and support and the perceptions that victims of violence have of the intervention they experience. Such dissonances call into question the widespread but simplistic belief that ending violence against women and abuse of children can be overcome by standard setting and monitoring compliance. Instead, we aimed to contribute to an ethical approach to intervention that could adapt to and integrate the diversity of legal-institutional and cultural contexts (see chapters 4 and 15).

From the outset a double comparative approach (within and between countries) was envisaged, through the double lens of professionals understanding and procedures of intervention on the one hand and the experience of intervention by minority groups on the other. This second lens was understood as a paradigmatic test through which the normative frameworks of ethics, legal philosophy, culture, and human rights theory could be examined (see Rehman et al. 2013). Within this overarching framework our specific research questions were:

e What do key theoretical framings on complex inequalities illuminate in seeking to establish ethics for state intervention in private life?

e How do the multicultural history, institutions and beliefs in each country shape current perceptions of and responses to interpersonal violence? How do institutional norms and regulations define the threshold and procedures of intervention, and how do representations of European, national and local culture affect their implementation?

¢ To what extent do practices and models of dealing with violence recognise and respond to complex inequalities? How can the voices of the recipients of intervention enrich perceptions of how violence should be dealt with?

e What means and methods, including narrative and visual arts, can enable the public and professionals to hear more readily the diverse voices of women and children subjected to violence?

e Against the backdrop of diverse gender and generational regimes, are there ethical principles and orientations in interventions on violence and abuse which can traverse cultural contexts and recognise the different positions of various minority communities?

In this chapter we describe how we established the groundwork from which to proceed, the approach to our two sets of original data and how the creative/art based work was integrated into the project. All of these layers of knowledge creation are addressed in later chapters: here we explore what we did, why and how. We conclude by reflecting on what we learnt about methodology in the process.

1.2 Establishing the ground

Our starting point was not to presume either shared intellectual frameworks or approaches to interventions on violence. To ensure input from all team members and our linked associate partners” a system for sharing drafts of research tools and papers was an initial task, with a series of differently enabled folders. Draft and final papers were available to all team members and associate partners and the first two meetings (the “kick-off” in the

2 Each country team had three associate partners with expertise in one of the three forms of violence.

second month and a five-day meeting after one year) brought together all five teams’, including the linked artists researchers and associate partners.

The socio-cultural histories and state formations of Germany, Portugal, Slovenia and the UK (England and Wales*) are very different, despite sharing membership of the European Union. Since we were part of a research programme on cultural encounters it mattered that we encounter the variations between the four countries and understand how these might affect interventions on violence, especially for women and children from minority communities.

CEINAYV, therefore, began with two ground setting activities requiring country-specific background papers. The first covered the sociocultural context of diversity (colonial experience, cultural diversity, and migration), economic inequality, and data on prevalence of the three forms of violence. The second described the legal-institutional context of intervention across the three forms of violence. These papers gave us the foundations for grasping and understanding differences and commonalities among the four countries with respect to majority/minority communities in the context of histories of colonialism and migration and the infrastructure of laws, institutions and practices which underpinned interventions on violence (see chapters 5 to 7). Without these we were not in a position to develop research methods which were context sensitive.

An early challenge encountered here was how to define “minorities” in a way that worked across the four countries. We had at the outset considered that this would cover groups whose position was subordinate, but the historical, colonial and migration histories of the four countries differed too much to allow a common definition: even the concept “minority” did not transfer with a core shared meaning (see chapter 8). This was an important methodological insight, presenting complex issues for the empirical work. A methodological adaption took place whereby no specific minorities would be referred to in the focus group stories, rather the participants would be invited to describe when and how they encounter minority groups in their work. A linked challenge emerged in the selection of victim-survivors for the interviews, since the criteria of “belonging” to a “minority” in each of the four countries proved to create a further set of cultural encounters.

Since the country context papers were for internal use only, teams were asked to compile what was known from existing sources and link it to CEINAV questions. The legal-institutional background papers enabled us to understand the different structural conditions and potential pathways of intervention in the four countries, while the socio-cultural background assisted us as a team in clarifying what in our application we described as ‘the implications of European norms, national legislation and practices of protection and prevention for cultural encounters’. Other chapters in this volume draw on this background while interpreting our empirical findings.

Parallel to this, and extending over the data collection periods a set of theoretical working papers were produced, discussed in the course of our work and revised in the final stages of the project. They explored the potential usefulness for CEINAV of postcolonial theory, intersectionality, and multiculturalism. Here we were seeking to sharpen the analytical tools through which we explored difference, inequality and culture. Two further papers undertook to map ethical theories and their engagement (or in most cases non-engagement) with interpersonal violence. Whilst the abstract theories did not connect easily with our empirical data, they were important reference points in analysis, systematis-

There were two teams in Germany, one tasked with integrating the whole as well as expertise on violence against women, the other integrated expertise on law and on child protection. The UK consists of four countries — England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales — England and Wales had a shared legal system and were thus chosen as the location for this study.

ing where and how ethical theories can decipher the conflicting demands and the normative and practical dimensions of intervening against violence.

Our goal in the theory strand was to develop a cross-disciplinary web of shared concepts and frames that could be translated between and within the languages and cultures of the four countries. In the course of the project, this work made it possible to identify promising theoretical approaches that could add deeper meaning to the empirically observed dilemmas and dissonances of practice and thus provide a basis for transnational comparative interpretation (see chapters 3 and 4).

2 Empirical methodology

There were three strands of empirical knowledge creation and knowledge exchange in CEINAV: focus group discussions with professionals; interviews with victim-survivors from minorities; and art workshops/art creation. The methodological challenge was to craft a format that worked across three forms of violence, could adapt to context and would enable us to tease out the underlying cultural assumptions. With regard to both theory and methodology, the project was itself a series of cultural encounters among the researchers from the four countries as well. To achieve consistent procedures, for each step of the work a detailed methodological guideline was written drawing on the different theoretical traditions, taking account of the growing literature on feminist methodology (Buchen et al. 2004; Hesse-Biber 2012) and research with children and young people (Mayring 2014) as well as the very large body of work that explores the potentials and challenges in qualitative research and of specific methods.

2.1 __ Exploring the intervention experience of professionals

The first stream of empirical work comprised workshops at which a wide range of professionals were invited to explore thresholds for intervention and to think about who should do what, in what circumstances it was legitimate to act without the consent of the person or, in the case of child abuse, of the family, and where they faced difficult decisions or encountered practical or ethical dilemmas. Two workshops for each form of violence per country were undertaken, a total of 24. While no workshop was reconvened with the same participants, those interested were invited to attend later meetings to enter into dialogue with the researchers and with some survivors as well as a closing conference.

A list of potential invitees across each form of violence was drawn up, with some categories common across all three (police, social workers, health, prosecutors/lawyers, NGOs) and others more particular to forms of violence (for example, teachers and nursery workers for child abuse and intimate partner violence; border/immigration for trafficking). In a number of cases the equivalents in different systems were identified or at least approximated. Participants were invited through the research teams and associate partners. The inclusion criteria were that participants would have practice-based knowledge about the form of violence in question and were commended for their openness to reflection. The selection process endeavoured to ensure that they would not be working together on the same cases, so that the workshop could be a space to share thoughts openly.

Textbooks define a focus group as typically consisting of six to eight people who meet once for a period of an hour to an hour and a half (see for example Finch & Lewis 2003). For the research aims of CEINAV, more participants (11 to 14 participants were foreseen in order to have all important intervention actors included) and more time was needed. As a result, it can be said that focus group discussion periods were embedded in a workshop format that covered two half-days° with informal interaction such as meals in the breaks. This also permitted a shift in focus after breaks. While finding the range of participants available on the set dates was sometimes challenging, those who agreed found the idea and aims of the workshops convincing, suggesting the projects aims and core questions resonated with concerns from practice. In all 234 professionals took part: 91 from the field of domestic violence, 68 from trafficking and 75 from child protection. Our concern that professionals would regard the time investment as prohibitive did not prove to be the case: rather in all countries some commented on how much they appreciated the opportunity to reflect on practice in a multi-agency context.

Participants were told that we were interested in difficult decisions and ethical dilemmas. A phased vignette approach provided the impulse for discussion, with a series of core questions to explore at each point®. The vignettes were developed in dialogue with associate partners and after translation checked with the practitioners in each country to ensure that there was a realistic intervention pathway which could be explored at each stage. The process of translation and back translation of the story and the questions was itself a process of cultural encounters in which the “self-evident” was questioned and further clarifications were required. Details were adapted to country context in light of the partners’ feedback.

Each vignette began with fragmented indications of possible violence, such that no one professional would have seen multiple signs. Participants were asked to imagine when and how this might become a case for intervention, and what might lead someone to try and discover whether violence was involved. The story then proceeded in two subsequent phases to present increasing evidence of harm, and participants discussed when a professional or organisation might see a need for intervention, how each would, could, or should act to prevent further violence, and what dilemmas might arise in this process. The first half-day moved through the three phases of the story, the second was devoted to exploration of whether anything would be different if the victim-survivor came from a minority.