Beyond Survival: What We Need to Truly Eliminate Violence Against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence in Wales 

As a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual violence, I welcomed the opportunity to reflect on the current VAWDASV strategy and consider what is needed for the next stage of this work. 

I know how important it is that we have strategies, policies and systems in place to respond to violence and abuse. They provide structure, accountability and a commitment from society that these experiences matter.  But I also know that a strategy is only as powerful as the change it creates in the lives of those affected. 

For many survivors, the journey does not begin when we reach out for help.  It begins much earlier – through the relationships we experience, the messages we receive about ourselves and others, the environments we grow up in, and whether we have learned that our voices, boundaries and feelings matter. 

If we are serious about eliminating violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence, we need to look beyond responding to harm.  We need to transform the conditions that allow harm to happen in the first place. 

Prevention must begin with relationships 

One of the biggest opportunities for the next strategy is strengthening prevention. 

Awareness raising is important, but information alone does not change behaviour. We need to teach and model what healthy relationships actually look like. 

This means supporting children, young people and adults to understand consent, boundaries, emotional regulation, empathy, communication, conflict repair and respect. It means creating spaces where people learn that vulnerability is not weakness, that emotions can be expressed safely, and that relationships do not need to be based on power and control. 

Healthy relationships are not something we are simply born knowing how to create.  They are learned through experience, example and connection. 

Trauma-informed practice must become the foundation 

As survivors, many of us carry the impact of what happened long after the immediate danger has passed.  Trauma affects how we experience safety, trust, relationships, our bodies and our ability to engage with support. A person’s response to trauma may not always look how professionals expect it to look.  Someone may struggle to speak, remember details, trust others or ask for help.  This is why trauma-informed practice cannot be an optional extra. It needs to be embedded across all systems. 

Every interaction matters. 

The way someone is listened to, believed, supported and treated can either contribute to healing or create further harm.  Services should prioritise safety, dignity, choice, autonomy and empowerment.  Survivors should not have to repeatedly prove their pain in order to receive compassion. 

Recovery is more than crisis support 

We must also recognise that leaving abuse is not the end of the journey.  Survivors often need support to rebuild their identity, confidence, relationships and connection with themselves. Healing takes time. 

While crisis services are essential, we also need investment in long-term recovery, community support, peer connection and accessible therapeutic approaches. 

A person surviving abuse is not only someone who needs protection from harm – they are someone who deserves the opportunity to heal, grow and thrive. 

Intersectionality must move from principle to practice 

The recognition of intersectionality within the strategy is important, but it needs to become more than words. 

People do not experience violence and abuse in isolation. Their experiences are shaped by many aspects of their lives, including disability, neurodivergence, poverty, culture, sexuality, gender identity, geography and access to resources. 

Some survivors face additional barriers to being believed, accessing support or feeling safe within services. 

A truly inclusive strategy must ask:- 

Who is missing? 

Who is not accessing support? 

What barriers are preventing people from being heard? 

Services need to be designed around the realities of people’s lives, not around assumptions of what a survivor looks like or how they should respond. 

Accountability and behaviour change are essential 

Preventing violence also requires addressing those who cause harm.  Accountability must remain central, but alongside this there must be effective opportunities for people displaying abusive behaviours to understand, challenge and change those behaviours.  Without meaningful behaviour change, we are only responding to the consequences rather than preventing future harm. 

Survivor voices must shape the future 

People with lived experience should not only be invited to share their stories after decisions have been made. 

Survivors are experts. 

Our experiences hold valuable knowledge about what works, what causes harm and what needs to change.  We should be meaningfully involved in designing, delivering and evaluating services and strategies.  However, this involvement must be safe. Survivors should not be expected to repeatedly revisit painful experiences without appropriate support and care. 

Governance must be about accountability and learning 

Strong governance is essential, but it must go beyond monitoring whether actions have been completed. 

Success should be measured by meaningful outcomes:- 

Do survivors feel safer? 

Do they feel believed? 

Are services accessible? 

Are communities changing? 

Are we preventing harm before it happens? 

The next strategy should create a culture of continuous learning, where feedback from survivors, frontline workers and communities genuinely influences change. 

Creating a Wales where violence is no longer tolerated 

Eliminating VAWDASV is an ambitious goal, but it is one worth striving for.  It requires more than policies and procedures – it requires cultural change. 

It requires us to examine the beliefs, systems and relationships that allow harm to continue. It requires compassion alongside accountability. It requires prevention alongside response. It requires seeing survivors not only through the lens of what happened to them, but through the possibility of who they can become. 

My hope for the next strategy is that it recognises that safety is not just the absence of violence.  Safety is the presence of respect, connection, choice and belonging.  And creating that future is something we all have a role in.