What We Do
Employers are in a unique position to offer vital resources and support to victims. Businesses from every sector need to take responsibility for the wellbeing and safety of their staff. This requires training, policy and leadership.
Corporate HR teams, security personnel and staff are well placed to spot the signs of domestic abuse in colleagues; anxiety, decreased motivation, seeming distracted, being late, being on the phone to a partner or family member very often – and yet so often, no one knows what to do or say.
Domestic abuse is everybody’s business and this includes employers. We know that as an employer committed to improving ESG performance and social value, you want to do everything you can to keep your staff healthy, happy, and productive. Sadly, we also know that one in four women and one in six men have experienced domestic abuse since the age of 16. It’s a huge hidden problem that has a significant detrimental effect on both private and public sector productivity.
Published Research
Research commissioned by Vodafone in 2019 found that over one in three (37%) of survey respondents from the UK had experience of domestic abuse and 67% of them felt they had been less productive at work which had consequently, limited their career progression. The pandemic has since accelerated incidences of domestic abuse by as much as 30%, as safe spaces and escape routes became unavailable to victims and survivors, leaving them feeling increasingly isolated from their support networks.
This means virtually every employer will have staff who are affected and yet so few have adequate policies or training about how to identify and deal with domestic abuse.
Increasingly, organisations are realising that domestic abuse is impacting their workforce and are beginning to take positive action to support those who may be suffering in silence. The workplace is often the last place victims say they felt like themselves or where they felt safe.
Our Expertise
The SecureLife team and our partners at The Homicide Timeline are experts in domestic abuse and homicide, with backgrounds in practice, policy development, optimisation, training and research.
We have a diverse group of associate trainers and expert guest speakers who work with us to provide bespoke policy development and training packages that are relevant, practical, interactive and engaging.
We've supported organisations of all different sizes and sectors to raise awareness and improve their response to domestic abuse and can work with you to create a bespoke package for your workplace.
Our Workshops
Whilst our training workshops can be designed for specialist team members such as HR staff and security personnel, they can be adapted to provide general awareness across all employee groups from any departmental discipline.
The workshops will increase awareness and understanding of domestic abuse and enable delegates to identify red flags, feel confident in talking about domestic abuse and signpost colleagues to specialist support.
Our Services For Employers Include:
Gold Standard Policy
Developing a Gold Standard domestic abuse policy that is tailored to your business needs.
Training Programme
Designing and implementing a training programme to create an environment where domestic abuse is fully understood and delivers a supportive culture that will act and raise concerns appropriately.
Trained Champions
Workplace Support
​Developing well trained domestic abuse champions within your business.
Providing a unique understanding of 'Honour' based abuse in the workplace that instils the knowledge and skills to identify and respond appropriately to this form of abuse (often undertaken by multiple perpetrators) and forced marriage.
