1. Domestic Abuse DAAWN Initiative
Domestic Abuse Awareness - DAAWN
Domestic Abuse Awareness in the Workplace Now (DAAWN) is an initiative to help raise awareness within the workplace about domestic abuse and enable employees to get the support they may need at an early stage, with the objective of preventing abuse or the escalation of abuse.
This initiative is a partnership between the Essex Police Fire and Crime Commissioner, Essex Chambers of Commerce and Practical HR Ltd.
The DAAWN Charter sets out the aims and objectives of DAAWN. By using the content in this section, you automatically agree to sign up to the Domestic Abuse Charter.
Thank you if you have agreed to be part of the DAAWN initiative and to help raise awareness about domestic abuse within your organisation.
Detailed below are some suggestions of how you could communicate domestic abuse awareness information to your employees. There are also other options available, which include a full HR Portal that can include the domestic abuse awareness information or a Wellbeing only Portal to communicate information. If either of these are of interest, please contact us.
Getting Started
Please start by watch the Business Leaders Video if you have not already done so. This will give an overview of domestic abuse the reasons why it is so important to raise awareness.
It is also understood that domestic abuse is an area of wellbeing. We therefore recommend providing this information within a wider wellbeing context. You will therefore find information and signposting on many areas of wellbeing in the Wellbeing section.
You should decide what content you want to provide by reading through the pages and templates. You will find template documents that you can download, amend as appropriate, put your logo on, and make available to employees.
Domestic Abuse Awareness Content
You can do the same with the domestic abuse content i.e. read the content in this section, which includes a domestic abuse policy, signposting and awareness videos, and then download the template, amend as appropriate, put your logo on and make available to employees.
There are also links to awareness videos included under templates. These should work when you download the document so that employees can access the video's (via YouTube). The Resources page in the Wellbeing area gives a list of all resources available. The Resources page in this section gives a list of all resources for domestic abuse.
How to Communicate
There are some draft communication documents available in the templates area. They include some suggested wording to launch the awareness information in the draft communication letter, and draft wording for a follow-up or content update.
If you use a central drive to communicate information to employees (e.g. other policies and procedures), you can add a wellbeing folder and subfolders to provide the information (and send a communication email to everyone to inform them about the new content).
If you have ‘hard-copies’ of information e.g. an employee handbook, health and safety information, you may want to include the wellbeing content as part of this (but you still need to advise employees that it's there, so you can use the draft communication emails for this as well).
If you do regular health and safety training / tool box talks, this could be a topic you can include and make clear where the information can be found.
If you have a notice board, you may want to display some information on this.
You may also want to display the DAAWN Charter in your workplace (e.g. on a notice board or in reception).
If you are interested in an online portal to present this information to employees, where everyone can log in and access information, please contact us for further details.
Other Action
You may also want to include information about wellbeing and domestic abuse in your induction for new employees. This ensures they know about your policy and any information you provide.
It is also advisable to remind people on a regular basis about the information and support that is available, as peoples circumstances change. Use the communication templates to do this and diarise regular reminders.
Thank you once again for your support with this important initiative.