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This infographic shows your journey from Module 1 to Module 12.

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The 12 modules - what to expect

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Please familiarise yourself with the synopsis prior to Module 1

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DAHA Accreditation Leads Pilot Training Course Synopsis_v1_130421

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This course is being piloted as an accredited course that will provide you and future Leads with a recognised qualification.

You will receive the Assessment Task Workbook in Module 2, so you can work through it as you go along.

You will need to complete a number of assessment tasks throughout the course, with work being submitted every 4 weeks - in most cases the assessment tasks require you to answer questions based on what you learn along the way, or questions related to a case study.

The biggest task requires you to submit a Leads Accreditation Action Plan (LAAP). We will work on this action plan together starting from Week 6, where we introduce the plan, and then every week after that there will time allowed in each session to work on your plan with your peers, and alone.

You will have around 6 weeks after the course finishes to submit all of your assessment tasks.

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At the end of each module we will make suggestions for videos to watch or resources to read that are in Padlet. This is optional, although we do encourage you to spend a little time between Modules to reflect on what you are hearing about in each Module. We will make time at the beginning of each Module to hear these reflections.

In addition, you can add your own resources to the Padlet, or drop them into the chat for others to access.

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We get it. And we apologise in advance. Over the 12 weeks you'll view around 500 powerpoint slides. We've tried very hard to keep them to a minimum but in some of the modules there's no getting away from the fact we need to just give you lots of information.

Fear not. We also have plenty of opportunities for large and small group discussions, personal reflection time, and fun and useful (we hope) activities. As this is the pilot, we fully expect that in 2022, we'll have far fewer slides, as we fine tune the content - with your help along the way.

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We are very sensitive to the fact that you - and us - have been working from home for the best part of a year or longer. Our team meetings, client service delivery, training all takes place on our screens with Zoom, Teams and shared screens. We know this has taken place in often difficult and stressful circumstances - at the same time as homeschooling and /or sharing space with others in your household for example.

And we're all a bit over it. Some of you may be making your way back into the office, some of you have been back for a while, but one thing is certain - we are all a bit tired.

So we have developed the training to ensure that there are regular breaks, and reminders to get away from your screens, hydrate or if you need to - leave your camera off for a while.

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You have received calendar invitations for the days you have signed up for.

4 th May - 20 th July 2021
Tuesday afternoons: 1:30 - 5:00
Thursday mornings: 9.30 - 1.00
4/6 May - Module 1
11/13 May - Module 2
18/20 May - Module 3
25/27 May - Module 4
1/3 June - Module 5
8/10 June - Module 6
15/17 June - Module 7
22/24 June - Module 8
29 June / 1 July - Module 9
6/8 July - Module 10
13/15 July - Module 11
20/22 July - Module 12

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Meeting ID: 999 7640 1626
Passcode: 047012

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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Meeting ID: 973 0692 0861
Passcode: 929884

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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Link to Pre-Course Evaluation in Survey Monkey 

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Link to Pre-Course Evaluation in Survey Monkey 

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Your feedback and comments are important to us, as they provide us with information to improve future training experiences. The comments that you make will also be used for research and evaluation purposes.

All information for the evaluation will be collected anonymously and because the form is anonymous, we won't be able to identify it and withdraw it once you have submitted it. The results of this survey will be used to help measure the impact of the DAHA Accredited Leads Pilot Training Course taking place between 4th May and 22nd July 2021. The data will be summarised and shared with the management team.

The DAHA Accreditation Leads training course will meet the following 5 Learning Outcomes, and the evaluation questions are related to these outcomes. Please don't feel concerned if you can't answer some of the questions - the training will cover this - we just want to get a sense of where our participants are at in terms of knowledge and experience - and where you end up after the 12 weeks of training.

1. Understand the dynamics and impact of domestic abuse
2. Understand legislation and housing policy related to domestic abuse
3. Know how to identify and respond to domestic abuse using best practice components
4. Know how to improve services to domestic abuse survivors using DAHA as a model
5. Know how to lead a housing organisation through the DAHA accreditation process

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Your feedback and comments are important to us, as they provide us with information to improve future training experiences. The comments that you make will also be used for research and evaluation purposes. All information for the evaluation will be collected anonymously and because the form is anonymous, we won't be able to identify it and withdraw it once you have submitted it.

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University of York

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Creating Change That Lasts

Our decades of experience working with survivors, and the evidence of research, have taught us a better way. By listening to women we can provide help earlier and make sure its effects actually last.

Change That Lasts is an approach that places the survivor at the heart and builds responses around her needs and the strengths and resources available to her.

Too often this approach is considered too complicated and too expensive. So to make it clearer, we have created an infographic to represent a women's journey and the journey she could have taken. This illustrates the enormous cost, in human and financial terms, of not listening to women and responding to their needs.

We're going to keep advocating for a response to domestic abuse that has women at its centre. We are consulting with our membership on a cross-sector approach to domestic abuse that truly has the needs of survivors at its heart.
Safeguarding Adult Review - a call to build Change That Lasts
The below is a condensation of a complex and lengthy Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR). The names of both parties have been disguised and elements of the story condensed to protect the confidentiality and identity of Tracy's family.

You'll notice how Tracy used public and voluntary sector services, many times, and how each missed vital opportunities to understand Tracy's situation. Many professionals lacked the training and skills to understand the patterns of control and manipulation exerted by Tracy's husband. This SAR shows clearly how a narrow understanding of domestic abuse as 'physical violence' hides the range of perpetrator's behaviour which includes emotional abuse, coercive control, financial and economic abuse. The lack of awareness of how 'coercive control' is a central part of domestic abuse contributed to Tracy's isolation and worked against her attempts at seeking help, this was exacerbated by 'victim-blaming' from communities and professionals.
Background
Tracy is a lifetime resident of Sunderland. She has been married for over forty years. Now retired, she was an active trade union member and official and still has strong family and community networks. She manages an enduring mental health condition with anti-psychotic medication, she has good relationships with her GP and Community Psychiatric Nurse. Tracy regularly sees her family GP for blood tests, medication reviews and other routine appointments. After many years, she asks her family GP for help around the controlling behaviour of her husband, which she thinks is impacting on her ability to manage her mental health because of his surveillance and constant monitoring tactics.
We believe that there were significant 'missed opportunities' to make the behaviour of the perpetrator visible and offer Tracy a strengths-based, needs-led approach that would have helped build Space for Action.

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Our approach: Change That Lasts - Womens Aid

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Our decades of experience working with survivors, and the evidence of research, have taught us a better way. By listening to women we can provide help earlier and make sure its effects actually last. Change That Lasts is an approach that places the survivor at the heart and builds responses around her needs and the strengths and resources available to her.

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Challenging victim blaming culture - Jackson Katz

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Challenging victim blaming culture - Jackson Katz

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Jackson Katz is an American educator, film maker and author. He founded a gender violence and education programme called Mentors in Violence Prevention, which is used by various military and sporting organisations. He talks about how we can start to take steps towards challenging a victim blaming culture and the importance of the language that we use when talking about DV and SV.

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Jackson Katz: Violence against women -- it's a men's issue

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Domestic violence and sexual abuse are often called "women's issues." But in this bold, blunt talk, Jackson Katz points out that these are intrinsically men's issues -- and shows how these violent behaviors are tied to definitions of manhood. A clarion call for us all -- women and men -- to call out unacceptable behavior and be leaders of change.

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You must sign into your account on the DAHA website to access your enhanced toolkit

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User Registration - daha - Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance

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Your message is important to us, we will be in touch shortly.

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What should intersectional feminist leadership look like?

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What should intersectional feminist leadership look like?

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A panel discussion organised by Australian Women's Information and Referral Exchange (WIRE). This talk is about an hour long but well worth the time to hear from a range of Australian feminist leaders talking about what intersectionality means to them.

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WIRE panel: "What should intersectional feminist leadership look like, post COVID-19?"

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DAHA Enhanced Toolkit - Accreditation Standards and Criteria (PDF)

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DAHA Enhanced Toolkit - Accreditation Standards and Criteria (PDF)

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This is a PDF version of all of the criteria listed in the DAHA Enhanced Toolkit.

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If you are delivering or planning to implement a WHA or any of its components in your local area, we'd love to hear about it. Please get in touch with us via our contact page

1. Introduction

The introduction to the WHA Toolkit provides the background to the pilot project, which the Toolkit was produced as part of, and outlines each area of the project. Read the Introduction to develop an understanding of the Whole Housing Approach as a whole before exploring areas of the Approach in depth in the individual toolkits.

Click the images below to read the stories of Isla, Rashida and Rosa - three survivors who received support from a WHA project - and find out the impact this made on each on each of their lives:

Thanks to Scriberia for the the infographics!

2. Cost Benefit Analysis

This toolkit provides more information about the case studies that were included in the Introduction and the methodology that was used to carry out the cost benefit analysis. It provides templates for anyone interested in carrying out cost benefit analysis of their own domestic abuse interventions.
Economic abuse resources
3. Economic Abuse

This toolkit explores economic abuse in depth. Economic abuse is often a cause of housing instability for victim/survivors of domestic abuse, so it's important that anyone considering implementing the Whole Housing Approach has a solid grasp of economic abuse and how it can affect victim/survivors living in different housing tenures.
Refuge resources
4. Refuge Services

Refuge services are a lifesaving service for women and children fleeing domestic abuse. This toolkit is a reference guide for local authorities, commissioners and partnerships. It offers practical guidance for commissioning and funding quality, safe and specialist refuge services and aims to support the delivery of the new duties proposed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on funding support for victims and their children in accommodation based domestic abuse services, which includes refuge.

5. Social Housing

This toolkit is a reference guide for professionals working in the social housing sector including local authority housing solutions services, housing management, registered providers (housing associations), domestic abuse services and for victim/survivors to describe what they can expect from their local authority's housing service.

See the DAHA accreditation chapter below for a framework created especially for social housing providers and services to develop and embed good practice for an effective organisational and coordinated community response to domestic abuse.

6. Private Rented Sector

This toolkit highlights the challenges that victim/survivors experience in private tenancies and considers initiatives and offers guidance for engaging landlords and professionals working in the private rented sector (PRS) at a national and local level.

It is a reference guide for professionals working in the PRS including landlord professional bodies, local authorities (community safety teams, environmental health, private housing teams), private landlords and letting agents.

It is also a guide for specialist domestic abuse services who are ideally placed to be the lead service for delivering the initiatives set out this guide.

Private Rented Sector resources

7. Privately Owned Housing

This toolkit highlights the challenges faced by victim/survivors living in privately owned housing (POH) and offers guidance for working with professionals in the POH sector at a national and local level. It may also be of interest to other stakeholders who are key to meeting the needs of homeowners experiencing domestic abuse, including estate agents, sales teams, family and property lawyers, family courts, mortgage advisers, mortgage lenders such as banks and building societies, regulatory bodies and policy makers.

8. Supported Housing - Homelessness Services

This toolkit sets out the role of supported and sheltered housing in providing accommodation for victim/survivors of domestic abuse. It particularly focuses on homelessness accommodation settings including shelters or hostels and supported housing. It offers guidance for housing providers and commissioners who are working to improve their response to domestic abuse in these settings and in line with Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) standards.

9. Mobile Advocacy
Mobile advocacy resources
Mobile advocacy is a form of community-based domestic abuse advocacy support that has a focus on getting survivors into stable housing as quickly as possible. This role is like other types of community-based, specialist domestic abuse provision such as resettlement, outreach or floating support.

This toolkit is a guide for commissioners, operational managers, domestic abuse practitioners and/or coordinators and any other stakeholders involved in funding local domestic service provision. It offers practical guidance and resources to set up a mobile advocacy service and assess the quality of existing services.

This component of the Whole Housing Approach is inspired by the work of Professor Cris Sullivan and her colleagues at the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV). The following resources have been developed by the WSCADV and are part of their Domestic Violence Housing First approach and toolkit,

10. Co-located Housing Advocacy

Co-located housing advocates are employed by a specialist domestic abuse services and are usually based within local authority homelessness support services. They support victim/survivors who approach the local authority as homeless, and upskill local authority staff.

This toolkit is a guide for commissioners, operational managers, domestic abuse practitioners and/or coordinators and any other stakeholders involved in funding local domestic service provision. It offers practical guidance and resources to set up a co-located advocacy service in a local authority housing service and for assessing the quality of existing services. This toolkit can also be used as a reference for co-locating in another housing service such as a housing association or supported accommodation setting.

11. Flexible Funding

Flexible funding is a designated funding pot that domestic abuse support workers can access quickly and easily to enable victim/survivors to achieve safe and stable housing.

The purpose of this toolkit is to provide guidance and materials to help organisations set up flexible funding in their area. It is intended for commissioners and service providers, including domestic abuse services, housing providers, and local authorities.

Flexible Funding resources

This component of the Whole Housing Approach is inspired by the work of Professor Cris Sullivan and her colleagues at the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV). Flexible funding gives domestic abuse advocates / mobile advocates a tool to help survivors into stable housing as quickly as possible.

12. Housing First For Women

This toolkit is a reference guide for local authorities, housing providers and specialist domestic abuse services who are interested in setting up a Housing First project for women experiencing homelessness and Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). It includes key considerations and practical resources for planning, implementation and monitoring quality and effectiveness of a Housing First project.

Housing First For Women resources
If you'd like to find out more or are interested in signing up for accreditation, please contact daha_team@standingtogether.org.uk
13. Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance

This toolkit is for housing providers and services, domestic abuse services and local commissioners. It provides an overview of the Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance's (DAHA) accreditation process and offers guidance and resources for housing professionals to plan and implement DAHA accreditation across the organisation as part of the Whole Housing Approach (WHA). Obtaining accreditation not only enhances how housing providers interact with victim/survivors, it also strengthens the local area's coordinated community response to domestic abuse.

14. Managed Reciprocals

A managed housing reciprocal scheme enables individuals and families who are at risk of domestic abuse or violence and who have a social tenancy, to move to a safe area whilst retaining their tenancy. It is a formal collaboration between social housing providers that is coordinated by an independent agency.

This toolkit is a reference guide for local authorities, housing providers and specialist domestic abuse services who are interested in setting up a managed housing reciprocal scheme to support social tenants who need to relocate due to domestic abuse. It includes key considerations and practical resources for planning and implementation, as well as guidance on how to monitor the quality and effectiveness of a managed housing reciprocal scheme.

Managed reciprocals resources

15. Sanctuary Scheme

This toolkit is a guide for commissioners, operational managers, domestic abuse practitioners and/or coordinators, security installers and any other stakeholders involved in funding and delivering a local Sanctuary Scheme. It offers practical guidance and resources to assist local areas and service providers to assess the quality of an existing scheme or establish a new scheme where none currently exist.
Perpetrator management resources
16. Perpetrator Management

The purpose of this toolkit is to outline the options available to housing providers in engaging with perpetrators and holding them to account. The safety of victim/survivors is central to working with perpetrators. The aim of working with perpetrators is to keep victim/survivors including children safe. Housing providers therefore need to check how their intervention is impacting on safety. If the victim/survivor is not involved, it is not possible to do this.

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Whole Housing Toolkit - daha - Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance

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If you are delivering or planning to implement a WHA or any of its components in your local area, we'd love to hear about it. Please get in touch with us via our contact page The introduction to the WHA Toolkit provides the background to the pilot project, which the Toolkit was produced as part of, and outlines each area of the project.

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In your role as a Lead you are a facilitator, a change agent. Here are some useful tips for facilitating meetings.

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Facilitation is about taking responsibility for making meetings as easy, inclusive and effective as possible. It is rooted in the values of shared power, equality and the belief that everyone's needs matter and all voices should be heard.

There are two main areas to keep in mind when facilitating:

1. Creating a space where everyone feels valued and is able to participate fully in discussions and decisions.

2. Helping a group work efficiently and get tasks done, such as sharing information, reaching decisions, airing conflict or getting on with jobs.

Facilitation is a proactive role, but not a 'power-over' role. The facilitator doesn't have more power than anyone else, or makes decisions for the group. They should stay neutral in discussions, or make it clear when they are stepping out of the facilitator role to give their own opinion.

Facilitation tasks

Facilitation can involve different tasks depending on the situation. They can be taken on by one or more facilitators. This list of tasks will be relevant to most meetings:

Helping the group decide on a realistic agenda and time-frame for the meeting. Keeping the meeting on time, and ensuring that a written record is made of any action points and decisions agreed at the meeting. (A minute-taker can be appointed to make notes).

Finding out about and accommodating any access requirements in the group that will help people to participate, e.g. seating requirements, different ways of processing information, or regular breaks.

Regulating the flow of discussion, e.g. drawing out quiet people, or those with the most relevant experience. Often in meetings some people are heard more than others; this power dynamic can be a reflection of wider society. Facilitators should pay attention to who has spoken a lot and try to make sure everyone is heard.

Keeping the meeting focussed on one item at a time until the issue is resolved. This can be helped by clarifying and summarising points, and checking for agreement in order to make clear decisions.

Introducing facilitation tools where appropriate, e.g. ideastorms to help people come up with creative ideas, or small group conversations to increase participation. See Meeting Tools below.

Sometimes facilitation will involve helping the group address conflict, or reach agreement on a difficult decision. See our Consensus Decision Making resources for a suggested process.

Facilitation skills

Active listening: The conscious effort to get an accurate understanding of where someone is coming from. In active listening you set aside your own response to what someone is saying and instead focus on really listening and helping them feel heard.

Questioning: Asking questions can clarify issues and support people to explore their needs. Facilitators can ask clarifying questions to get a clearer understanding of what someone is saying, or put open questions to the group to open up more exploration.

Summarising: Regular summaries of the discussion can help avoid repetition by reassuring people their points have been heard, and highlighting the key issues raised. The facilitator should offer the summary tentatively and give people space to correct them, e.g. "What I've heard people saying so far is ... Did I miss anything out?"

Facilitating decision making

A key role for a facilitator in a decision making meeting is to help a group explore issues and reach clear agreements that work for the group.

In order to come up with decisions that people are as happy with as possible, it is important to give enough time to exploring the issue and understanding different perspectives. The diagram illustrates this point - the discussion needs to open out to explore differences before trying to come together in a proposal.

Another key point is to be as clear and explicit as possible at the point at which you are making a decision. Otherwise it is very easy for everyone to come away from the meeting with a different idea about what has been decided.

Read out the proposal and check who agrees with it. Take time to check everyone has a shared understanding of what they are agreeing to. In a simple majority vote you would be looking for over 50% of people to support the proposal, in consensus you would need everyone to at least give their consent for the proposal to pass, even if it wasn't everyone's preference. If you don't get enough agreement go back to the discussion stage and look for a new proposal.

Power and accessibility

Another important role for a facilitator is making sure that the meeting works for different people involved. At a minimum, a facilitator should take steps to meet access requirements, with the help of the rest of the group if necessary. It is also important to try to cater to different preferences and balance out power dynamics in the group.

Accessibility: Access requirements are things that people need to have in place in order to participate fully in the meeting. This might include physical things about the venue, like step-free access and accessible toilets. It could also be things about the meeting itself, like having a laptop with headphones and screen-reader software if someone needs it to read a long chunk of text, e.g. a policy you are agreeing on. Where possible, give people chance to tell you about their requirements before the meeting so you have time to make arrangements.

Preferences: We all have preferences about how we participate in meetings, e.g. do we prefer small groups or large ones? Can we concentrate if someone speaks for a long time? What makes it easy for us to process information, feel comfortable, have fun, speak our minds and hear what others have to say? When something is not our preference, it is possible to stretch ourselves and manage for a while. This may be at the cost of getting more tired, or not getting as much from the discussion. As a facilitator, building in lots of variety of activities will help balance things out so everyone gets their preferences met some of the time!

Power: The way that people participate in a meeting and whether they get heard by others is very closely related to how much power they have in the group! Facilitation will never 'solve' power imbalances. However, it can help to create a space where people are empowered to voice their thoughts and opinions and supported to listen and take into account what each other have said. Some practical ways of doing this include: spotting points that are getting missed and asking people to expand / repeat; using tools like a go round that enable everyone to be heard; challenging problematic behaviours and micro-aggressions.

Meeting tools

Agenda: A list of items you expect to cover in a meeting. This gives structure and focus to the meeting, and lets people know what to expect. It can be made in advance or at the start of the meeting. Collect agenda items from the group and estimate the time needed for each item. Try to be realistic, and prioritise if necessary. Sending the agenda in advance will give people time to think before the meeting.

Go-rounds: Hearing from everyone in turn on a certain question or topic. This can help the group hear from people who haven't spoken much, or test for agreement on something. It's also often used at the start of the meeting for people to introduce themselves. Clearly state the topic of the go-round and model an answer of the length you want, to ensure you stick to time.

Ideastorms: Getting out lots of ideas before evaluating them or making decisions can help people be more creative and see new solutions. Give a clear question and encourage people to come up with as many ideas as possible, e.g. shouting them out or writing them on post-its. Make sure all the ideas are recorded for later discussion.

Small groups or pairs: Splitting into small groups can help more people participate actively in the meeting. It gives people a chance to work out their thoughts before coming back to a whole group discussion. Explain clearly what you want people to discuss in their small groups, how much time they have and what they will need to feed back afterwards. Nominating a facilitator in each small group can help them stay on track.

Breaks and energisers: Breaks give people time to move around, process information or work out their thoughts. Build in regular breaks, or offer a quick group game.

For more facilitation ideas, and tips for troubleshooting meetings, see our longer Facilitating Meetings guide.

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A short guide to Facilitating Meetings - Seeds for Change

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A short guide to making your meetings effective, inclusive and enjoyable.

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Facilitator Toolkit - a guide for helping groups get results

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Facilitator Toolkit - a guide for helping groups get results

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if you missed this launch event, you can catch up on the recording here as a useful introduction to the WHA Toolkit. (2 hours).

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Whole Housing Toolkit Dissemination Event (05/11/20)

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Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales

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Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales

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You will need Chrome to view this video.

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Click on the little cross to open a new "padlet" box. Then write a little bit about yourself, and if you want to add a photo or a link to your website - anything you want! You do this by using the icons just below this writing.

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Hello - I'm one of your trainers for this pilot course. I was involved in developing the materials and I'm very excited to be delivering the course. You can find out more about me and my work at my website - www.debnicholson.com

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A guide to effective domestic abuse partnership work – The Coordinated Community Response (CCR)

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Add when finalised

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Zoom Fatigue is taxing the brain - article from Science magazine

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Zoom Fatigue is taxing the brain - article from Science magazine

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Jodi Eichler-Levine finished teaching a class over Zoom on April 15, and she immediately fell asleep in the guest bedroom doubling as her office. The religion studies professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania says that while teaching is always exhausting, she has never "conked out" like that before.

Until recently, Eichler-Levine was leading live classes full of people whose emotions she could easily gauge, even as they navigated difficult topics-such as slavery and the Holocaust-that demand a high level of conversational nuance and empathy. Now, like countless people around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrust her life into a virtual space. In addition to teaching remotely, she's been attending a weekly department happy hour, an arts-and-crafts night with friends, and a Passover seder-all over the videoconferencing app Zoom. The experience is taking a toll.

"It's almost like you're emoting more because you're just a little box on a screen," Eichler-Levine says. "I'm just so tired."

So many people are reporting similar experiences that it's earned its own slang term, Zoom fatigue, though this exhaustion also applies if you're using Google Hangouts, Skype, FaceTime, or any other video-calling interface. The unprecedented explosion of their use in response to the pandemic has launched an unofficial social experiment, showing at a population scale what's always been true: virtual interactions can be extremely hard on the brain.

"There's a lot of research that shows we actually really struggle with this," says Andrew Franklin, an assistant professor of cyberpsychology at Virginia's Norfolk State University. He thinks people may be surprised at how difficult they're finding video calls given that the medium seems neatly confined to a small screen and presents few obvious distractions.

Zoom gloom

Humans communicate even when they're quiet. During an in-person conversation, the brain focuses partly on the words being spoken, but it also derives additional meaning from dozens of non-verbal cues, such as whether someone is facing you or slightly turned away, if they're fidgeting while you talk, or if they inhale quickly in preparation to interrupt.

These cues help paint a holistic picture of what is being conveyed and what's expected in response from the listener. Since humans evolved as social animals, perceiving these cues comes naturally to most of us, takes little conscious effort to parse, and can lay the groundwork for emotional intimacy.

However, a typical video call impairs these ingrained abilities, and requires sustained and intense attention to words instead. If a person is framed only from the shoulders up, the possibility of viewing hand gestures or other body language is eliminated. If the video quality is poor, any hope of gleaning something from minute facial expressions is dashed.

"For somebody who's really dependent on those non-verbal cues, it can be a big drain not to have them," Franklin says. Prolonged eye contact has become the strongest facial cue readily available, and it can feel threatening or overly intimate if held too long.

Multi-person screens magnify this exhausting problem. Gallery view-where all meeting participants appear Brady Bunch-style-challenges the brain's central vision, forcing it to decode so many people at once that no one comes through meaningfully, not even the speaker.

"We're engaged in numerous activities, but never fully devoting ourselves to focus on anything in particular," says Franklin. Psychologists call this continuous partial attention, and it applies as much to virtual environments as it does to real ones. Think of how hard it would be to cook and read at the same time. That's the kind of multi-tasking your brain is trying, and often failing, to navigate in a group video chat.

This leads to problems in which group video chats become less collaborative and more like siloed panels, in which only two people at a time talk while the rest listen. Because each participant is using one audio stream and is aware of all the other voices, parallel conversations are impossible. If you view a single speaker at a time, you can't recognize how non-active participants are behaving-something you would normally pick up with peripheral vision.

For some people, the prolonged split in attention creates a perplexing sense of being drained while having accomplished nothing. The brain becomes overwhelmed by unfamiliar excess stimuli while being hyper-focused on searching for non-verbal cues that it can't find.

That's why a traditional phone call may be less taxing on the brain, Franklin says, because it delivers on a small promise: to convey only a voice.

Zoom boon

By contrast, the sudden shift to video calls has been a boon for people who have neurological difficulty with in-person exchanges, such as those with autism who can become overwhelmed by multiple people talking.

John Upton, an editor at the New Jersey-based news outlet Climate Central, recently found out he is autistic. Late last year, he was struggling with the mental load of attending packed conferences, engaging during in-person meetings, and navigating the small-talk that's common in work places. He says these experiences caused "an ambiguous tension, a form of anxiety."

As a result, he suffered a bout of autistic burnout and struggled to process complicated information-which he says is normally his strength-leading to feelings of helplessness and futility. To combat the issue, he began transitioning to working mostly from home and stacking all in-person meetings on Thursdays, to get them out of the way.

Now that the pandemic has pushed his coworkers to be remote as well, he has observed their video calls lead to fewer people talking and less filler conversation at the beginning and end of each meeting. Upton says his sense of tension and anxiety has been reduced to the point of being negligible.

This outcome is supported by research, says the University of Québec Outaouais's Claude Normand, who studies how people with developmental and intellectual disabilities socialize online. People with autism tend to have difficulty understanding when it's their turn to speak in live conversations, she notes. That's why the frequent lag between speakers on video calls may actually help some autistic people. "When you're Zooming online, it's clear whose turn it is to talk," Normand says.

However, other people on the autism spectrum may still struggle with video chatting, as it can exacerbate sensory triggers such as loud noise and bright lights, she adds.

On the whole, video chatting has allowed human connections to flourish in ways that would have been impossible just a few years ago. These tools enable us to maintain long-distance relationships, connect workrooms remotely, and even now, in spite of the mental exhaustion they can generate, foster some sense of togetherness during a pandemic.

It's even possible Zoom fatigue will abate once people learn to navigate the mental tangle video chatting can cause. If you're feeling self-conscious or overstimulated, Normand recommends you turn off your camera. Save your energy for when you absolutely want to perceive the few non-verbal cues that do come through, such as during the taxing chats with people you don't know very well, or for when you want the warm fuzzies you get from seeing someone you love. Or if it's a work meeting that can be done by phone, try walking at the same time.

"Walking meetings are known to improve creativity, and probably reduce stress as well," Normand says.

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'Zoom fatigue' is taxing the brain. Here's why that happens.

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Jodi Eichler-Levine finished teaching a class over Zoom on April 15, and she immediately fell asleep in the guest bedroom doubling as her office. The religion studies professor at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania says that while teaching is always exhausting, she has never "conked out" like that before.

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Rebecca is the Whole Housing Programme Manager at Standing Together and has worked in the field of domestic violence for the past 10 years. Her experience includes delivering and managing frontline services for women and children, coordinating a local community response to domestic abuse in health and housing settings and working with organisations to develop in-house interventions that enhances how they deliver services to survivors and children.
In previous roles, Rebecca was the Development Manager at Women’s Aid Federation of England working on the Change that Lasts project, a needs-led and whole community response to domestic abuse that is being piloted across the country. She has also worked with the South East Coast Ambulance Service to set up a domestic abuse pilot, the first of its kind at an ambulance service in England, which introduced screening tools, trained champions and referral pathways to local services. Rebecca is also a guest lecturer at Goldsmith’s University for their MA Understanding Domestic Violence & Sexual Abuse course.

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Before joining Standing Together as CEO, Guddy worked at Peabody Housing Association for nearly 11 years, first as Community Safety Manager, then as a Senior Business Partner for Domestic Abuse.
Guddy has trained over 43 Housing Providers nationally and is the housing representative for the National Violence Against Women’s and Girls stakeholder panel hosted by the Home Office.
She has spoken at International conferences in Czechoslovakia, Brighton, Belfast, Taiwan and the Hague about her work in housing and domestic abuse. She is a trustee of AVA and a 2016 Winston Churchill Fellow and was shortlisted for Red Magazine's Pioneering Woman of the year Award 2016.

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Where is your organisation at with DAHA accreditation?

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Where is your organisation at with DAHA accreditation?

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Hello, I am the Head of Housing for CHS Group based in Cambridge, and the DAHA lead. We have around 3000 homes across Cambridgeshire, of many types e.g. general needs, supported, older people, shared ownership. We will be working towards re-accreditation in 2022, so I'm very pleased to be joining this course.

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DAHA Training & Project Officer :)

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Hello,
I am the Housing Options Team Leader for East Cambridge DC and the lead for the DAHA

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Hello, I am a Regional Manager at Saxon Weald Housing Association. We are based in Horsham. We provide housing in the Horsham District, Southampton and parts of East Sussex. I am really excited to be apart of this training course.

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Craig is Director of Housing at Longhurst Group, which has over 23,000 home cross the East and West Midlands. Craig leads the Housing, Income Recovery and Legal Enforcement Teams and is Domestic Abuse lead for the organisation. Craig has led the organisational response to DA for over 3 years and also sits on the National Housing Federation Domestic Abuse Steering Group.

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Hi, I am the Housing Manger - Tenancies at Estuary Housing Assoc.

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Hello!  I work for Cambridge City Council as the Housing Manager for Housing Support and Performance.  I also
lead on adult safeguarding and domestic abuse across the Council.  I'm very happy to be here to build my knowledge ready for our re-accreditation in 2022 :-)

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Hello, I am Lillie Green the Domestic Abuse and Housing officer within Public Health at Leicestershire County Council. I will be supporting Leicester City, Rutland and the district borough councils on their journey to achieve the DAHA accreditation :) Looking forward to learning with you all.

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Hi everyone, I'm going to be the DAHA lead for Evolve Housing + Support, a London based organisation working across several boroughs. Looking forward to working with you all on the course

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Hi All. Hi I'm Lucky Khan and I am the Customer Partnership Manager at Accent. We work across 17 LA's :)

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Hi All. Hi I'm Lucky Khan and I am the Customer Partnership Manager at Accent. We work across 17 LA's :)

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Hi all, I’m one of two Senior Housing Officers who manage the team of Housing officers at Huntingdonshire District Council a Local Authority in Cambridgeshire.

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Hello - I am the Interim Head of Housing for West Kent Housing Association, we provide housing in Kent.  I have just reviewed our DA policy and am leading us through accreditation.  Look forward to getting to know the group over the next two months.

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im the DAHA lead at Broadacres housing in north yorkshire

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Hello everyone, really nice to meet you!

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Hello everyone, really nice to meet you!