Since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown there has been a terrible rise in domestic abuse. 33 women have been killed and calls to helplines have increased by 50%.

This film can enable your operatives and colleagues to make a real difference to these horrifying realities. It seeks to open the ‘eyes and ears’ of those who are in and out of customers’ homes during their working days.

ASW was approached by our members to see if we could co-ordinate some collaborative action to help embed the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Make a Stand initiative to tackle domestic abuse. As a result of that we worked with Westward Housing to produce a film that provides an overview of domestic abuse and gives a strong call to action to in-house and contractors’ operatives. The film provides the tools to identify where something might not be right in the home and the importance of reporting this to the landlord.

Our aim is to increase the ‘eyes and ears’ that might be able to quietly flag to landlords where some form of abuse might be happening. The film highlights the broad categories of abuse, identifies signs that might point to abuse, and hopefully (and most importantly) encourages the operative to contact the landlord to make them aware of it. The film includes the words of survivors of domestic abuse and is presented by Westward’s lead on domestic abuse, Nicki Spear.

A crime that the victim or any other person perceives to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards any aspect of a person’s identity such as, race, colour, religion, national and ethnic origin, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation of another individual or group that is intimidating, upsetting, embarrassing, humiliating or offensive, which affects your dignity.

This may include verbal abuse, threatening behaviour, physical abuse, malicious communications, damage to property or possessions and arson, or attempted arson.