Working with survivors of domestic violence on the award-winning campaign 'Love is Not Abuse' – Wigan Council

Wigan is one of 10 metropolitan boroughs within the Greater Manchester area. The largest borough by area (77 square miles) and second largest by population (340,000), Wigan lies on the western edge of the city region. Most residents live within one its eight larger towns, including Wigan and Leigh, however the 70 per cent of the borough area is covered by green or open space. Historically, the area was part of the Lancashire Coalfield and an important centre for the textile industry. Today, some parts of the borough face significant challenges with high levels of deprivation and worklessness

For many years, Wigan had recorded the highest prevalence of domestic abuse among the boroughs of Greater Manchester. Nearly 10,000 people in Wigan suffer a form of domestic abuse each year. In the year ending March 2021, the neighbourhoods of Siddow Common (Leigh), Higher Folds North (Leigh) and Hag Fold East (Atherton) experienced the highest levels of domestic abuse crime. However, it is widely believed that reported incidents represent only a fraction of actual cases.

In response to these challenges, the council invested in a range of support services including independent domestic abuse advisors, a community service run by respected local organisations (DIAS Domestic Violence Centre and the Well Women Centre, Leigh) and a dedicated Wigan helpline for victims, friends, family, and professionals who are affected by domestic abuse.

Demand for the services has been high and the number of calls received by the helpline shocked council staff. However, some people still did not report incidents or even recognise themselves as victims. Often, they experienced hidden forms of abuse, such as coercive and controlling behaviour or emotional and psychological abuse. The council was concerned that people from certain communities and demographic groups were disproportionately less likely to access the service. These included male and elderly victims of domestic abuse, as well as people with no recourse to public funds and those for whom English is a second language.

This situation was preventing Wigan from achieving its aspiration of being a community where all can live safe and happy lives knowing that abuse is deemed unacceptable in all its forms.

Wigan Council sought to build stronger relationships with domestic abuse survivors, so they might bring new insights and creativity to the challenge of getting more people to report, recognise and prevent domestic abuse.

The first step towards doing this was building and empowering a strong domestic abuse survivors group. The creation of the group was included as a tender requirement for the provider selected to deliver the community domestic abuse service. Once the group was set up, it was backed by Wigan Council who provided opportunities to interact with decision makers and shape policy. With the support of a staff member from the community domestic abuse service and a Wigan Council officer, the group has grown to about 30 participants who meet regularly for peer support. They attend the local Domestic Abuse Strategic Board alongside the council, Police and other public services, providing personal testimony at every meeting.

These solid foundations were built upon when the communications team at the council reached out to the Survivors Group to co-design a public awareness campaign. They began with focus groups. Over the course of these events, survivors shared personal stories and researched domestic violence campaigns from other places. This gave survivors the confidence to articulate how the council’s initial suggestions for communications materials, including stock images and depictions of bruises or injuries designed to shock, would not resonate with people experiencing domestic abuse.

The survivors drew from their own stories to identify a range of 'red flags', including control, criticism, jealousy, intensity, blame and gaslighting, which they proposed as an alternative basis for campaign design and imagery. These ‘red flags’, along with real stories, voices and quotes from members of the group gave the campaign materials produced by Wigan Council an authenticity, while also speaking to the hidden forms of abuse that were not being reported in the borough.

The survivors group contributed other key messages and innovations that enhanced the effectiveness of the campaign including the focus on mental challenges over physical scars, logo design and colour and the provision of an ‘escape’ button on the website to allow people to hide their browsing if being observed. Their ideas also led to the creation of various products designed to provide people experiencing abuse with safe, discreet access to key information, such as hand sanitisers, lip balms, trolley tokens and QR codes in toilets. The group’s identification of hair and beauty salons as potential safe spaces led to tailored materials, awareness training for salon staff and the addition of a 'wellbeing treatment' to brochures, which served as a password to access a domestic abuse support worker in a separate room.

'Love is Not Abuse' was recognised at the Local Government Chronicle Awards 2022, winning the award for Campaign of the Year.

The campaign was a success in many ways. It captured local attention, with a prominent regional newspaper agreeing to run adverts alongside an editorial piece featuring interviews with focus group members. The community domestic abuse service has reported uptake from people who were inspired to get in touch through the campaign. Today the dedicated Wigan helpline receives about 60 calls on an average day, a significant increase on the 11 calls per month received by its Greater Manchester-wide predecessor.

Council officers credit the deep engagement with the survivor group as the source of this success. Having reflected on what took place, officers are improving their engagement practices and driving change across the council. A new officer with responsibilities for domestic abuse has been recruited as Wigan continues its shirt from one-off consultation activities towards ongoing, iterative engagement with empowered groups of people with lived experience. Such groups are being formed with asylum seekers, foster carers and fostered children.