Community Level

Active Bystander Communities, is the first evidence-led bystander intervention programme in the UK for the prevention of domestic violence and abuse in general community settings. The project was is a collaboration between the University of Exeter Law School, Bristol County Council, Public Health England, Devon County Council, , Splitz and the Hollie Gazzard Trust. It was piloted with 70 people in Exeter, Torquay and Gloucester in a collaboration with Public Health England.

The development work with public health practitioners is published here

ABC is designed to give people the knowledge and skills they need to be ‘active bystanders’ and intervene positively in potentially harmful situations. It is a three x two hour programme delivered by experienced facilitators. Participants learned how to notice harmful behaviour related to domestic abuse alongside developing the skills to be able to intervene safely and effectively.

In our evaluation conducted with Public Health England, published here we found that participants had:

increased in confidence and intent to take action as bystanders
improved their ability to spot and reject myths about domestic abuse.
continued to improve at follow up after four months
put their training into action and had already carried out a wide range of bystander interventions from calling out sexist behaviour to supporting victims of domestic abuse within their communities.

Active Bystander Communities was launched by Dame Vera Baird QC The Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales in 2019.

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“Great facilitators, great materials, mix of styles and resources, good pace”

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“lots of real- life examples; kind and experienced approach from trainers”

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The explanatory material was powerful and thought provoking, the role plays brought it all to life and gave tools to use in real life scenarios – fantastic!

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