Understanding coercive control and psychological Violence to inform health sector change

Through the UNCOVER project, we are mobilising innovation for health services to effectively engage with women experiencing psychological violence and their children through the development of:

• trauma and violence informed approaches to empower women experiencing psychological violence to seek safety and healing

• partnerships that reflect the voices and realities of women with lived experience of psychological abuse  

• evidence that can influence policy and practice globally to promote social and cultural change towards psychological violence being seen as part of the spectrum of domestic violence.

Our research in this area has informed the development of:

• 5As –ALONE – ASK – ASSESS – ALLY – ADVOCATE
  A practical health system framework available for use in health services

• Scripts for health practitioners

  • What health practitioners can say (CARE model)

  • What health practitioners can do (CARE model)

  • What you could say and do to support patients experiencing reproductive coercion and abuse

• Key messaging for policy and practice that help to address psychological abuse:

  • What women experiencing psychological violence want from health practitioners

  • Understanding perpetrator motivations in reproductive coercion and abuse

  • Mothering after reproductive coercion and abuse

  • Associations and patterns in women’s experiences of different types of abuse

  • Timelines of abusive experiences

  • Effects of pandemic experienced by victim survivor mothers and their children/adolescents

  • Non-physical and physical risk factors and how they relate to increased severity of domestic violence

Oak Foundation

Our Centre’s UNCOVER project has been made possible thanks to the support of Oak Foundation. Our project forms part of the Issues Affecting Women Programme’s grant-making strategy highlighting psychological violence and coercive control in intimate relationships. One of the strategy’s priorities is to have research that leads to practical outcomes.

Oak Foundation commits its resources to address issues of global, social and environmental concern, particularly those that have a major impact on the lives of the disadvantaged. With offices in Europe, Africa, India and North America, Oak Foundation makes grants to organisations in approximately 40 countries worldwide. Learn more about Oak’s Issues Affecting Women Programme here.