Insight Exchange

Domestic Violence Service Management (DVSM) · Australia · Registered charity (ABN 26 165 400 635)

Summary

Insight Exchange is an Australian initiative established, developed and governed by Domestic Violence Service Management (DVSM). Rather than an app, it is a body of lived-experience-led resources that centre the dignity and agency of people subjected to domestic, family and sexualised violence — and that support the people and institutions around them to respond well. Its material is organised around Listening, Exploring, Responding, Learning and Participating, and is published in multiple languages (including Spanish and Arabic).

Its design philosophy is a useful counterpoint to the “panic button” model of safety tech: instead of a device that summons help in a crisis, Insight Exchange produces reflective resources (e.g. My Safety Kit), practice programs for responders (e.g. Responders Lab), and communication-ecosystem audits (e.g. No Hidden Door) grounded in what victim-survivors say keeps them safe and well.

Connections

Informed byTrauma-Informed Design
CentresVictim-Survivor
AddressesDomestic Family and Sexualised Violence
ProducesMy Safety Kit
ProducesResponders Lab
ProducesNo Hidden Door

Sources

https://www.insightexchange.net/

Tags: #org #australia #lived-experience

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no-hidden-door

No Hidden Door

Insight Exchange (DVSM) · Website audit + reports + guidance + art collection · 2021–2022

Summary

No Hidden Door reframes every sector as a possible “door” to information and support for victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexualised violence — and argues that because safety and communication are inextricably linked, the quality and safety of public-facing communication (especially websites) is itself a safety matter. Many victim-survivors only ever browse a website and never make contact, so unclear, opaque or unsafe digital “doors” can extend an abuser’s control and leave people unable to navigate support.

Between October and December 2021, Insight Exchange audited 200+ websites across five industries (including NSW Health, Employee Assistance Programs, support services, and police) as sample doors in the information ecosystem, publishing an executive summary and per-sector reports. The work includes practical guidance for industry staff who design website content and functions relating to violence and abuse — focused on content and function rather than aesthetics — and a commissioned art collection by Louise Whelan dramatising how the burden of effort to find, ask for and access help currently falls on the victim-survivor.

Connections

Produced byInsight Exchange
PromotesDiscreet Access
- Calls for “discreet, dignified and supportive” digital doors.
AddressesTech-Enabled Abuse
- Opaque communication lets people using abuse extend control.
CentresVictim-Survivor
AddressesDomestic Family and Sexualised Violence

Sources

https://www.insightexchange.net/no-hidden-door/

Tags: #resource #report #communication-design

responders-lab

Responders Lab

Insight Exchange (DVSM) · Free facilitated virtual session (~2 hrs) · Groups of 10–30

Summary

The Responders Lab is a free, facilitated, peer-learning experience from Insight Exchange designed to deepen how everyday people understand and respond to domestic, family and sexualised violence. Its premise is that every response matters — that each of us is a friend, colleague, neighbour or family member who may be confided in, and that responses are ongoing rather than a single reaction to a disclosure.

Four content modules — “Our Interactions,” “Our Responses,” “My Ecosystem Matters,” and “Follow My Meaning” — emphasise dignity, not operating from assumptions, and keeping the victim-survivor at the centre of their own ecosystem. Sessions run as two-hour virtual workshops for groups, with content developed from local and international lived and learned expertise and offered in English, Spanish and Arabic.

Connections

Produced byInsight Exchange
TeachesBystander Intervention
- Frames everyone as an ongoing “responder,” broader than crisis-moment bystanding.
Informed byTrauma-Informed Design
CentresVictim-Survivor
AddressesDomestic Family and Sexualised Violence

Sources

https://www.insightexchange.net/responders-lab/

Tags: #resource #training #responders

my-safety-kit

My Safety Kit

Insight Exchange (DVSM) · Reflection resource (booklet + animations + decision-making tool) · Free

Summary

My Safety Kit is a reflection resource from Insight Exchange for people who are, or may be, experiencing domestic, family and sexualised violence. Rather than triggering an alarm, it supports a person “at their pace, at their lead” with information and reflection questions about how they see their situation and what they might be weighing as they look ahead. It includes a decision-making tool and reflection questions across areas of wellbeing — material basics / economic wellbeing, love and connection, participation, learning, physical and mental health, and safety — and is available as a booklet (including a My Safety Kit Aotearoa edition) with short introductory animations.

It is accompanied by de-identified lived-experience insights (e.g. “Sam” and “Alex”) that map real experiences against the kit’s focus areas, illustrating what a person may be doing — or not doing — to stay safe and well within their relationship.

Connections

Produced byInsight Exchange
Informed byTrauma-Informed Design
CentresVictim-Survivor
SupportsRisk Assessment
- Self-directed reflection rather than an actuarial checklist.
AddressesDomestic Family and Sexualised Violence
AddressesEconomic Abuse

Sources

https://www.insightexchange.net/my-safety-kit/

Tags: #resource #reflection #lived-experience

domestic-family-and-sexualised-violence

Domestic Family and Sexualised Violence

Domestic, family and sexualised violence (DFSV) is the framing used across Australia — and by Insight Exchange — to name the spectrum of violence and abuse occurring within intimate, family and domestic relationships, including its sexualised dimensions. It maps onto Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence and Sexual Violence while deliberately keeping family relationships and lived experience in view.

In this vault

Subtype ofGender-Based Violence
CentresVictim-Survivor

victim-survivor

Victim-Survivor

Victim-survivor is the term used in much lived-experience-led practice (including Insight Exchange’s) for a person who has been subjected to violence and abuse. It deliberately holds both realities at once — the harm done to a person and their ongoing agency — and signals a stance of centring that person’s own meaning, pace and decisions, as in Trauma-Informed Design and Survivor-Centered Design.

In this vault

Related toTrauma-Informed Design
Subjected toGender-Based Violence

trauma-informed-design

Trauma-Informed Design

Trauma-informed design builds tools around the realities of people who have experienced violence: defaults that fail safe, control left in the user’s hands, language that validates rather than directs, and the assumption that a device may be monitored. It is closely tied to Survivor-Centered Design and underpins discreet, dignified experiences. Insight Exchange’s resources — My Safety Kit, Responders Lab, No Hidden Door — are practical expressions of the approach.

Insight Exchange

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