Breaking the Trap: Working with Clients Experiencing Coercive Control

Engender Equality’s training workshop, Breaking the Trap: Working with Clients Experiencing Coercive Control, is designed by our experts in coercive control and family violence and is grounded in our experience working with victim-survivors for over 35 years. It aims to equip professionals with the knowledge and tools to recognise and respond to coercive control within their clients across frontline women’s services.

Coercive Control is often considered at being ‘at the heart’ of all family violence presentations in its function of using covert and insidious behaviour to exert fear, power and control over another in a relationship. Coercive control emerges in ways and patterns that victim-survivors may not be aware of, as they experience a level of control that can eradicate their self-esteem, agency, autonomy and freedom. As specialist family violence practitioners, we are all too aware of the significant impact coercive control has on victim-survivors, and the feelings of worthlessness, self-blame and lack of confidence that are often carried with them well past the immediate danger of an abusive relationship.  

This Coercive Control Masterclass is aimed at front-line services (staff and managers) to build skills and awareness of the complex presentations of family violence, particularly coercive control. 

Delivered from the position of a specialist family violence practitioner, the training package explores insights from research and practice, to improve service response and promote victim-survivor safety.  

Delivered over this 6-hour training workshop session, the Breaking the Trap training workshop has been developed to:  

Support practitioners in client facing roles to apply the theory of coercive control, particularly with clients whose experience of abuse do not include physical violence

To share evidence and insights that may help clients identify coercive control for themselves and find ways to respond to it.

To guide professionals in all settings who will, in the course of their work, come into contact with people impacted by coercive control.

To supplement the Engender Equality video series on coercive control, available on the Engender Equality website and You Tube Channel.

As part of the training delivered, all participants will receive a digital copy of the Breaking the Trap: Working with Clients Experiencing Coercive Control workbooks, which includes practice guidance and tools to use with clients in practice.  

Please note this training is a masterclass workshop, and requires participants to have either attended the Recognise, Respond, Refer workshop, or have extensive experience within the family violence sector and knowledge of the types and presentations of family violence.

This training has been capped at 15 participants, per best practice for online adult education and training. We do have a waitlist arranged and will consider an additional workshop if required.  

Engender Equality Professional Development & Training

For almost 40 years, Engender Equality has worked with and on behalf of individuals, families and communities affected by family and domestic violence in Tasmania. We provide free and ongoing therapeutic support to victim-survivors across our state, while enacting a high degree of systemic advocacy, primary prevention and community education to fight to create a community free of violence against women and children.  

Engender Equality's training and leadership team possess a high level of expertise and experience in the fields of gender equality and family violence, guided by research evidence and knowledge enriched through our work across the family violence sector.

Our profound understanding of all forms and presentations of family violence, coupled with insights into the unique experiences of victim-survivors, has driven the development of our evidence-based training and professional development workshops, which we deliver to organisations, government departments and community groups across Australia.

Delivering training as part of our social enterprise, all profits gained from these workshops go directly back to supporting the victim-survivors of family violence who attend our service across Tasmania.