The Women’s Liberation Collective

In 2017, the Trust awarded a grant of £55,310 to The Women’s Liberation Collective to develop the Own My Life course. This innovative 12-week program was designed to support women subjected to partner violence through a creative and educational approach. The course aimed to empower participants by helping them understand the abuse they had been subjected to, challenge societal norms that normalize abusive behaviour, and build a pathway to reclaiming their lives.

Using a train-the-trainer approach, the course equipped practitioners within women’s services and other organisations working to respond to domestic violence, to support women to understand what had been done to them, the ways patriarchy harms women empower women to move forward.

Although initially designed for in-person delivery, the course was successfully adapted for online training and delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to an unexpected and significant increase in reach. Through the life of the grant, a total of 253 practitioners from 80 organisations were trained, including one organisation in Brazil.

Feedback from practitioners highlighted the course’s transformative impact:

“Amazing programme, the missing link we have been waiting for, for years!!! Going to have a huge impact (positive) on women’s lives.”

Participants consistently reported significant progress in self-efficacy and personal empowerment. Those attending in-person pilot sessions described the course as life-changing:

“This course has definitely helped me to get to a place where I can leave my husband. It has helped me understand why I feel the way I do and that it’s normal to feel like this……I’ve realised that all my needs are dependent on my husband. But now I know there’s a way past that, which is what the course has helped me to see”

Building on the success of the grant, Own My Life established Discovery, a subscription-based e-learning platform. This platform offers accredited training on abuse, trauma, and recovery for statutory and voluntary sector professionals. It also enables users who do not need full course training—such as counsellors, social workers, early help workers, and male practitioners—to access and utilise course videos with their clients or within their training. More information can be found here.

To date, Own My Life has trained over 1,300 practitioners who have delivered Own My Life to over 15,500 women; amongst these, diverse cohorts, including Irish Traveller women, women with learning disabilities, street homeless women, and women in addiction recovery have all found Own My Life to be transformational for their lives. Own My Life continues to provide impactful tools for individuals and organisations, fostering greater awareness, resilience, and recovery for women affected by abuse.