CCChat April 2025.pdf - Flipbook - Page 3
MEET
THE
EDITOR
Hello to Readers New and Old!
It9s been a whirlwind year. A new website, a new direction, new conversations and less time! Now
that I am no longer a freelancer, but working full-time, it has been necessary to find ways to work
more efficiently whilst also maintaining a good self-care practice that keeps me in the realm of
whelm ( more about this later) and that has been an interesting journey!
It has been nearly 10 years since coercive control was made a crime, 10 years since I started
Conference on Coercive Control, with the world9s first conference taking place at the Apex in Bury
St Edmunds, and 8 years since I started CCChat. Since then my thinking has evolved exponentially,
as I have taken on different roles and perspectives, so I am in a unique position, where I have gone
from both understanding and raising awareness as someone with lived experience, to freelancing
and volunteering, to working on the frontline.
My understanding of the challenges facing both survivor and practitioner has definitely been
broadened as I have been trying to understand why it is still so difficult to understand and
evidence coercive control. Whereas at first, I was convinced it was down to lack of training, I now
know that is only part of the problem and am of the view that the main reason there is such a
poor understanding of coercive control is that we simply don9t have the language to describe it
adequately, and this hinders what is often a subjective view of what coercive control is. Working in
this gap will be the main focus of my work going forwards.
For now, this issue of CCChat both launches the new website and has an amazing interview with
the founder of the Domestic Abuse Recovery Toolkit, Sue Penna. I recently undertook this training
(having wanted to do it since lockdown) and it was amazing to be able to catch up with Sue and
chew the cud, as well as now, being able to deliver the toolkit to victims and survivors.
In 2021, I interviewed consultant psychiatrist Dr Karen Williams who has since opened Australia9s
first women9s only, stand-alone trauma-informed mental health facility. It is a fascinating interview
on 88trauma bonding9 which I include here as there is so much learning in this interview, even if you
read it the first time round. I hope you enjoy this issue.
IMAGES COURTESY OF CONFERENCE ON COERCIVE
CONTROL FROM 2015 ONWARDS
Min xxx
3
