How Predominant Aggressors use Systems Abuse in their Coercive Control Strategies

How He Uses System Actors — And the System Itself

Social Entrapment Theory is insightful. It's not enough.

Systems abuse is a devastating family violence tactic — perpetrators manipulate responders and institutional systems to harm and entrap victim-survivors.

Social Entrapment Theory has rightly reshaped how we understand victim-survivors' experience of coercive control and entrapment.

It's insightful and useful — but on its own, it doesn't explain how he does it, or how and where systems fail.

This workshop closes that gap: moving from theory to the specific mechanics of how perpetrators use systems, and how systems let it happen.

What you'll learn

• Why Social Entrapment Theory is insightful — and why it isn't, on its own, enough to explain how systems abuse operates

• The two pathways of institutional harm:

• Predominant Aggressor Manipulation (PAM) — how systems are manipulated into becoming complicit in the violence

• The violence embedded in systems themselves — through the 4 P's: Policies, Procedures, Processes, and Practice

• How everyday practices can unintentionally contribute to entrapment

• A brief introduction to how children are harmed within Systemic Coercive Control

• How to respond ethically and effectively — resisting complicity and supporting survivor safety

• You'll leave with a set of practical handouts to keep and use directly in your work.

Workshop Aims

• This workshop aims to increase family violence responders’ understanding of Institutional Systems Abuse (ISA) in the context of Systemic Coercive Control (SCC).

• Learning outcomes are guided through Jacki’s conceptual model of being Informed, Applied, and Accountable.

•  The training unveils the mechanics of systems abuse by presenting doctoral research findings that offer a deeper understanding of how systems abuse takes place within institutional responses.

Key Learnings Include:

1. Understanding Systems Abuse and the various tactics used within these abuse forms

2. Informed – Reflects on models of understanding and offers a deconstruction of Social Entrapment Theory, moving beyond the framing of institutional harm as inadvertent or indifferent

3.  Applied – This section introduces the pathways of harmful responses

4. Accountable – Takes a closer look at our ethical responsibilities as responders, to ourselves and to others.

Who Should Attend:

Family violence practitioners, social workers, case managers, legal professionals, health professionals, police, and others working within or alongside institutional systems that respond to intimate partner violence

© Jacki Rowles. Shareable with proper citation only. Please do not reproduce, adapt, or present this work as your own .