About Us
Who We Are
Graham Hopkins: Director
Graham started fulltime with Do the Right Thing in April 2008 after nearly seven years as a journalist. He was Practice Editor of Community Care - the national magazine for social care. The company was set up in 2007 as a vehicle for his freelance work.
Before starting a new career in journalism, he spent a couple of years working freelance as a writer, trainer and consultant, having spent the previous nine years working for social services in the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, where as Head of inspection he ran an innovative local authority inspection unit, regulating the borough's care homes and day care facilities. His belief in putting service users at the heart of inspection is reflected in his book: An Inspector Calls: A practical look at social care inspection, published in 2000.
He is an acknowledged national expert in effective writing and communication in social care. He is author of Plain English for Social Services - A guide to better communication and The Write Stuff - How to write effectively in social care and related fields (both published in 1998).
Oh, and he's also knocked out a couple of history books as well. His first book was a biography of the famous mistress to King Charles II: Nell Gwynne - A Passionate Life (Robson Books, 2001). This was followed up by Constant Delights: Rakes Rogues and Scandal in Restoration England (Robson Books, 2002). So, he is clearly at the highbrow end of the market.
What we do
Why domestic violence?
When I worked in social services (1989-2000 if you're interested) and then as a social care journalist (2000-2008) I had always wondered why domestic violence was not a mainstream service rather than something on the edges of different people's work. And yet it can tell us so much.
There is no place like home. It is in the home that 1 in 4 women will experience violence in their lifetime from a partner or ex-partner; it accounts for a quarter of all violent crime and has the highest rate of repeat victimisation of any crime; domestic violence kills two women every week.
Violence can be physical ("He grabbed hold of my hair and held my face to the fire"); it can be being kept captive ("I was locked in a room and only allowed out to pick up my daughter from school"); it can be psychological ("He would call me a fat ugly cow, a bad mother and a useless piece of shit in front of anyone").
In 90% of domestic violence cases, children are in the same or next room. This - says the government - "often results in behavioural issues, absenteeism, ill-health, bullying, anti-social behaviour, drug and alcohol misuse, self-harm and psychosocial impacts". And yet there remains a worrying acceptance of violence among young people aged 16-20 which suggests that the cycle of violence will continue. Recent surveys have showed that 42% know girls who have been hit by their boyfriends; and that 50% of young men and 33% of young women said it was okay to hit a woman or force her to have sex in some circumstances.
Services for those who live with or have survived domestic violence have undoubtedly improved and expanded. But, clearly, much remains to be done. Funding is always -and always will be-an issue. But, more crucially, we all have to see the three elements in domestic violence as a whole: the perpetrator; the victim; and the children. And we need to work in an integrated way with all those elements at the same time.
I know that Do The Right Thing is only on the edges of the real work (which never fails to humble and inspire me in equal measure) but if we can help raise the profile, help raise awareness and help improve knowledge and skills through highlighting best practice, then we will be proud to do so.
Why not "domestic abuse"?
In general, I prefer the term "domestic violence" to "domestic abuse" - mainly because it puts a more frightening image into my head. The idea of physical violence, sexual violence, emotional violence and so on just seems more in tune with the reality. And I much prefer it to be spelt out in full rather than abbreviated to "DV" or "DA". Of course, we used to call it "wife battering". Now there's a phrase to put an image in your head - and a more telling one than the a somewhat verbally sanitised "DV" or "DA"
Why seminars?
It always struck me (which, on immediate reflection, is perhaps not the greatest opening phrase to use on a commentary on domestic violence) that whenever you attend national conferences that only one or two people ever get the chance to ask questions of "national" experts. The rest of us sit anonymously within the audience daring not to speak up for fear of making a fool of yourself, sounding unprofessional or simply nervously making a hash of speaking out loud.
And yet, having chaired many national conferences for Community Care magazine, which often attract the top names in a given field, I know that (with a few exceptions) so-called national experts are ordinary and engaging people who would welcome more to and fro with the audience.
So the idea behind our seminars was to put together a series of programmes that could easily be major national conference line-ups, but limit the numbers so that everybody could have the chance to question, challenge and comment. And not just, somewhat typically, at the end of a presentation either, but at any time during it. And we'd not just run one but three of them - in the North, Midlands and South - so people can come to an event nearby (and not face the usual trek to London).
We wanted to create a sort of University-type seminar experience: where the expert talks to a small group of people who interact. However, it didn't quite happen the way I wanted it to. Overall, perhaps things were too rushed and delegates, although encouraged to interact, on the whole didn't do nearly as much of that as I had hoped. Perhaps we are just creatures of habit - and simply fight shy of speaking up or out in a group. Interestingly, it was more animated in the sessions that we labelled "workshops". Even though I wanted the whole day to have the feel of a workshop (informal, relaxed, participative) it didn't come off.
I still think the idea for our seminars is a good one - but I need to think about how to better make it happen. And that might be less items on the programme and more time for each item. And maybe I'll call them workshops.