The Open2Change team focus on intervention and prevention services to those who recognise their harmful behaviours in relationships.

Open2Change is a specialist behaviour change programme supporting individuals aged 16+ who recognise harmful behaviours in relationships and want to make positive change.

Delivered through structured 1:1 support, Group and our Early intervention support, the programme focuses on accountability, safety, and long-term behaviour change to reduce harm and support healthier relationships.

Early intervention, Group & 1:1 tailored intervention programme
Early intervention for harmful behaviours in relationships
Focus on accountability, change, and safety

Our interventions and services delivered in Swindon, Wiltshire & BANES:

Referral form

Swindon Domestic Abuse Support - Hand of young supportive man consoling his friend or one of attendants with post traumatic syndrome caused by dramatic life event - Swindon Women's Aid, SWA

Short-Term intervention

16-18

We can also deliver 6-8 weeks short-term intervention support for young people aged 16-18 who may be displaying harmful behaviours.

Delivery:

Assessment and risk
Understanding abusive behaviours
Emotional regulation
Relationships, respect and boundaries
Accountability, repair and future planning
Transition review

18+

Our short-term support is designed to be delivered over 6-8 weeks through tailored 1:1 sessions, helping to engage adults aged 18+ and provide early intervention that supports emerging positive change.

Delivery:

Assessment and risk
Understanding abusive behaviours
Emotional regulation
Relationships and parenting
Accountability, repair and future planning
Transition review

One-two-one Behaviour Change Programme

Our 1:1 behaviour change programme provides tailored support for individuals aged 16+ over a 20-week period. Through structured one-to-one sessions, the programme aims to promote accountability, encourage positive behavioural change, and support individuals to develop healthier coping strategies and decision-making skills.

Delivery:

Assessment and risk
Understanding abusive behaviours
Emotional regulation
Relationships and parenting
Accountability, repair and future planning
Transition review

Group-work Programme

Our group work programme is delivered weekly over 22 weeks for adults aged 18+. Each group supports 10–12 participants at a time, providing a safe and structured space to encourage reflection, accountability, positive behavioural change, and peer support through guided sessions and facilitated discussion.

Delivery:

1:1 Assessment
Introduction session
Understanding abusive behaviours
Impact of attitudes and beliefs of abuse
Thoughts, Feeling & Behaviours
Accountability, Reflection and impact of abuse
Impact on children and parenting
Managing conflict, boundaries and consent
End session
1:1 end review meeting

Independent Evaluation of Open2Change by the University of Worcester

Read the evaluation here

Last year, the University of Worcester commenced an initial evaluation of the programme, led by the Senior Lecturer within the Violence Prevention, Trauma and Criminology Department, Dr Beverley Gilbert. Dr Gilbert is an internationally renowned expert in domestic abuse, having spent 30 years working as a police officer and probation officer, including specialising as a Detective Family Protection Officer and in the Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme.

The final report highlighted the significant and sustained improvements in participants’ wellbeing as a direct result of participation in the programme, and the resulting impact on their ability to reduce conflict and abuse within their relationships, both intimate and in wider community life.

University of Worcester's Dr Bev Gilbert and Dr Mikahil Azad with SWA's Kate Rowland and Louisa Wrighton

Dr Gilbert said: “Open2Change offers something so valuable in communities; working one-to-one to address the root cause of domestic abuse as well as protecting the victims. It’s uniquely positioned to contribute to more flexible, culturally responsive interventions in both community and custodial contexts.

One size fits all does not work when working with prevention of abuse, it has to be bespoke to the individual and this one-to-one approach achieves that. There’s a gap in support for people who want to change but don’t have anywhere to go for help to unpick the harm and make changes. Open2Change allows people to do this and address the whole self, including wider aspects too such as mental health, finances, addiction and housing issues.”

Louisa Wrighton, Open2Change Manager, added: “If we are to one day see a society where abuse doesn’t exist, then we need an integrated, whole family approach that doesn’t just support victims but tackles the behaviour at the root cause of the abuse. Right from the start of the programme five years ago we saw the changes people could make in their behaviour and the knock-on effect on their victims but we felt it was important to have an evidence-based approach so asked the experts at University of Worcester to formally review. “

“The Open2Change programme is forever developing and we continue to make changes according to the needs of our clients and team. This evaluation has not only confirmed that what we are doing is contributing to the prevention of domestic abuse but also changing lives for the better. It’s given us a direction and focus to continue improving the programme so that we can continue widening our reach and the potential to put an end to domestic abuse.”

Read the Plans for the next stage of development of the O2C programme here.

Recommendations and Action plan

“It’s kind of hard to get your voice across, especially when there’s people that are a bit more louder, a bit more rejective of their thoughts and feelings. So working one to one is a lot easier to like, get across what I need to get across and actually have that time to explain what I mean, instead of like, everything being brushed off.”

M1 said that he would not have considered undertaking O2C if it had been delivered within a group work setting, “I don’t think I would no, not if I had to come here and it was a group. I probably wouldn’t have opened up as much because of the way I am, because I am introverted. I wouldn’t feel comfortable opening up to a group because I feel like everyone would be judging you there, and it wouldn’t feel as, I don’t think it feels beneficial to me you know?

“T6, spoke about the time during the Open2Change programme, “It was also nice to have longer sessions, it was an hour. It was nice to have that time per week to actually just offload a bit. Looking at this perspective and that perspective and you telling them how you implement things and intimate work as well. It’s like self teaching as well as a therapy session at the same time.”

It took us quite a while to get started because, umm, I got so much baggage through the years and my history and all that stuff, and a lot of my stuff is built on trauma. We had to try and go through that and every time we tried to go through that, obviously [facilitator] wanted an explanation or why I feel like that. So we’ve been breaking it down every single day of how I was seeing it and it just took a lot longer to like, to take down the paperwork and move on through that.”

“I think she’s genuinely a caring and empathetic sort of person. I think you’ve got to be to do a job like that. I’m not saying the probation officers and that that I’ve had haven’t been, but I think sometimes, I don’t know what their workload is like, but I think in a lot of services, as you know, they’re so stressed and all that, they haven’t just got the mental capacity to give you that much of themselves that they’d probably like to. Do you know what I mean? Because their caseload is too, they’re too thinly spread across, over all the, you know?”

“TL1 spoke about the skill of the programme facilitator and her communication skills, “[The facilitator] is good at her job as well. Like she seems to ask the right questions and we seem to get places… we get to the root of what the problem has been and make me see it from a point of view where I can like, basically get to see it as well.”

“M1 within Focus Group 1 spoke about the skill of the programme facilitator compared to other counselling or mental ill health support he had experienced. He felt that programme work had been rigid and non-specific to his situation previously, so he had dropped out of completing sessions there. He spoke of being addressed as he termed it, a ‘normal person’ and this mattered to him, “She speaks with me as if she’s known me for years, you know, doesn’t talk down to me, doesn’t treat me like I’m a bad person. Yeah. I wouldn’t open up as, as much as I have, if I felt like I’m being judged or if I’m being kind of put down or felt, you know.”

“How it affects other people because I struggle, I have my whole life, with emotion and understanding how actions affect other people other than myself. I do struggle quite badly with like emotional and stuff So the way [Facilitator] does it, and the way that we communicate in the meetings have helped me understanding certain things like emotion and how I’ve made other people feel.”

“Enhancing how to communicate with my partner really, rather than never communicating. That was a big thing. Just argued all the time. We was basically butting heads, there was no communication, no talking past anything, no talking through anything. Now we actually sit there and if there’s something bothering us, we’ll sit down and discuss what it is and then we’ll try to discuss like how we can move past that, rather than leaving it and then arguing about it every single day.”

“A lot of sessions made an impact. I’d walk out of there feeling like a broken person to be honest with you every week. That’s because I’d re-lived a lot of stuff, and I realised that all my traumas that I’ve gone through, speaking through them, and we’re getting to the root of the problem…. I know I need to do this. It might be hard, it might be like, upsetting to me, but when I leave, like I said, I leave and I’m broken. When I wake up the next day, I feel so much more relieved and I feel like I am getting answers.”

“I am a completely different person. I wouldn’t stand here and have a conversation with you now [research process]. That was the kind of person I was. I would just tell you to fuck off. It’s just not happening. That’s how I was. I’m not like that now. I am a completely different person now from doing all this. I think that’s because of the realisation of pointing out, you’re not that sort of person now. I remind her of that because some days I fall back into that mindset of that’s who I am. I am not. I am not a bad person, even now. I am me. This is where I wanna be, this is what I want for my life. [programme facilitator] reminds me of that.”

“I’m still going to use the techniques that [programme facilitator] has taught me. Basically, I try to talk myself away for five minutes and think, is this what I want in my life.”

“Just wanted to be a better person you know mate. Simple as that really, I just wanted to be a better person. I know I’ve got a lot to offer to whatever in the world, and all that…. It’s taught me a lot about myself.”