Understanding Coercive Control: Patterns, Risk and Response

Coercive control is now a criminal offence in Queensland and New South Wales, and the framework has reshaped how the sector understands domestic abuse. But the legal shift has outpaced practice: workers are being asked to recognise a pattern using systems, forms and instincts built around incidents. This course teaches pattern-based thinking — what coercive control looks like over time, why it is the strongest predictor of lethality, and how to document a course of conduct — alongside a clear-eyed look at what criminalisation does and does not deliver for victim-survivors.