Support Resources
What is Intimate Partner Violence?
Intimate Partner Violence encompasses a wide range of violence, including physical violence (hitting, slapping, strangling/choking – any physical harm), sexual violence (any sexual act, attempt to obtain a sexual act, or unwanted sexual contact carried out through force, coercion, or intimidation, or when the victim is unable to consent), psychological violence (name-calling, threats, belitting, coercive control), and financial violence (controlling or limiting access to financial resources).
“Why Domestic Violence Victims Don’t Leave”
Leslie Morgan Steiner was in “crazy love” – that is, madly in love with a man who routinely abused her and threatened her life. Steiner tells the dark story of her relationship, correcting misconceptions many people hold about victims of domestic violence, and explaining how we can all help break the silence. (Filmed at TEDxRainier.)
Neighbours, Friends, Families, and Co-Workers
Do you want to learn more about the signs someone may be in an abusive relationship and how you can help them? Check out this video produced by the City of Nelson on the Neighbours, Friends, Families, and Co-Workers program.
Understanding the Power and Control Wheel
An illustrated breakdown of the ‘Power & Control’ wheel shows how patterns of abuse operate across different facets of an intimate relationship.
Understanding Intimidation
Through stories and examples, this video shows how emotional abuse and controlling behaviours can slowly take away a person’s independence—and why awareness is the first step toward safety and support.
Minimizing, Denying and Blaming
This video illustrates how abusers use minimization, denial, and blame to invalidate their partner’s experience, evade responsibility, and shift guilt—even when the abuse is real and harmful.
Emotional Abuse
This video breaks down how abuse can escalate, showing the subtle warning signs, patterns of control, and the courage it takes to reach out for help.
Using Children
This video explains how abusers may manipulate their own children as tools of control to pressure and harm the children’s mother.
Isolation
This video explains how abusers use isolation—cutting a partner off from friends, family, and support—to maintain power and control.
Coercion and Threats
This video explores how abusers use coercion and threats—instilling fear and pressure—to maintain power and control in a relationship.
Understanding Male Privilege
This video explains how the concept of male privilege functions as a framework of control—elevating abusers’ power while minimizing or invalidating their partner’s autonomy.
Intimate Partner Violence & Brain Injury
This video highlights that up to 90% of women victimized by intimate partner violence may have experienced a brain injury, for example, from strangulation, being hit on the head, or being shaken.
REVEAL-UTION
Produced by the Abbotsford Police Department and the Mouat Secondary School Theatre Department, this film depicts a violent and possessive high school relationship to raise awareness about red flag behaviours and demonstrate ways of providing support.