Specialist Training for Frontline Staff

mayday action's Coercive Control Awareness Training (CCAT) is a practical, evidence-based course designed for frontline staff — teachers, social workers, safeguarding officers, healthcare staff, housing staff, and law enforcement to help them:

• Recognise the characteristic signs and behaviours that indicate coercive control and a high-control groups influence
• Understand recruitment tactics and psychological manipulation
• Identify victims and survivors offering a trauma-informed approach that builds trust
• Avoid harmful misconceptions about high control groups and coercive control
• Understand the legal landscape, including current limitations and protections for group-based abuse
• Apply safeguarding best practice while respecting autonomy and avoiding replicating controlling dynamics

Many courses raise awareness of coercive control, but mayday action goes further — providing frontline staff with the skills, confidence, and tools to take meaningful action and create real change. It is practical, engaging and rooted in lived experience, offering frontline staff the tools they need to respond with confidence and compassion when encountering individuals under undue influence.

Participants leave with the awareness to identify signs of coercive control, the ability to take action, and the tools to create real change for victims and survivors.

What is coercive control?

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour used to dominate, manipulate, or isolate another person. It often involves psychological, emotional, and social tactics rather than physical violence. The goal is to take away the person's freedom — controlling what they think, do or feel — and making them dependent on the controller.

It is essential to recognise this pattern of control is not limited to intimate relationships. It is also used in high-control groups (HCG) or cult-like organisations, where leaders use manipulation, fear, and isolation to maintain authority over members. Tactics can include:

• Isolation — cutting off contact with friends, family, or outside information
• Gaslighting — making individuals doubt their own thoughts or experience
• Monitoring and surveillance — controlling communications, activities, or behaviour
• Emotional manipulation — using guilt, shame, or fear to enforce compliance
• Control over resources — limiting access to money or food, or limiting opportunties to gain independence

Whether in personal relationships or high-control groups, coercive control undermines autonomy and can have long-lasting psychological effects. Recognising these patterns is the first step toward regaining freedom and safety.