Advance Diversity Services has played a pivotal role in producing six easy-to-read, pocket-sized brochures about coercive control released in May to coincide with Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Month.

The launch of the brochures in six languages – English, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Nepali, Thai, and Bengali – also coincided with Jess Hill’s See what you made me do, a three-part series exploring the scourge of domestic violence in Australia, which premiered on SBS, NITV and SBS On Demand. 

ADS Team Leader, Emerging Communities, Settlement and Community Services, Magdaline Shenton-Kaleido is a member of the St George Domestic Violence (DV) Committee and served on the committee’s sub-working group to develop the brochures. She said: ‘Coercive control is an overwhelmingly common experience in abusive relationships, and has been found to be a significant factor in most deaths resulting from domestic violence. ‘Yet most people in the community don’t know about coercive control or don’t understand how it might manifest.

‘The St George DV Committee wanted to help people to understand how you can still be in an unhealthy or abusive relationship even where there is no physical violence. And that’s why we produced the brochures – in English and five community languages.’ Ms Shenton-Kaleido said ADS’s bicultural officers proofread and amended translations from the English version of the brochure before printing, which was a tremendous help with the project. She also pointed out that the brochures provide a healthy relationship checklist as well as information about support services available in the St George region.

The checklist asks if there is someone in your life who:

  • Makes you feel afraid?
  • Controls what you do and say?
  • Puts you down or embarrasses you?
  • Accuses you of flirting and cheating?
  • Pressures or forces you to do sexual things?
  • Threatens to hurt you, themselves, friends and family?
  • Constantly checks your phone?
  • Limits your access to money?

Any of these actions may be signs of coercive control or abuse,’ Ms Shenton-Kaleido said. ‘Coercive control is an abusive behaviour used to cause fear and/or control a person or situation. ‘This type of domestic violence is known as domestic abuse and can go undetected in intimate partner relationships for years.’

If not recognised, controlling behaviours like gaslighting, stalking and technological abuse can escalate to physical, life-threatening violence, Ms Shenton-Kaleido said, so people should seek advice and support even if they’re unsure this is what they’re experiencing. ‘Our aim in launching A Pocket Guide to Relationships, Domestic Abuse and Coercive Control is to help people find the support they need before the violence escalates and to show that support is available in the community to help them build healthier relationships.’

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Download the coercive control brochures from the ADS website here or visit the Moving Forward website at: http://www.movingforward.org.au/resources/

See what you made me do is on SBS On Demand until May 2022.

If you are worried about domestic violence, call the 24 hour Domestic Violence Hotline on: 1800 656 463. Always call the Police on 000 if you are in danger. For more information on Domestic Violence please visit: https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/domestic-violence

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Caption: Magdaline Shenton-Kaleido and other ADS staff were pivotal in helping to produce six easy-to-read, pocket-sized brochures about coercive control released in May.