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What we do

“I felt abused but I would never have said it was abuse. I didn’t think it was valid because he hadn’t hit me.”

Our work

We work in partnership with the frontline organisations that directly support victim-survivors. We support them to identify and respond to economic abuse. Although we don’t provide direct support to victim-survivors, we are an associate member of Women’s Aid and endorse its aims.  

We focus on making change by working in four key areas:  

  • Public understanding and behaviour change: We work to raise public awareness of economic abuse and to begin tackling public behaviour changes.
  • Professional response and systems change: We work with women’s sector professionals to help them understand and respond to economic abuse, and drive improvements across the financial services sector that support victim-survivors of economic abuse.
  • Legal, regulatory and public policy change: We work with decision-makers for changes in legislation, policy and regulation in the financial services and women’s sectors, and influence government policies and practices.
  • Survivors, partnerships, evidence and equality: We work closely with survivors and conduct high-quality research to ensure all our projects and partnerships reflect their needs and promote equality.

Read more about our work in our 2022-25 strategy ‘Making Waves’.   

Our strategy - making waves

How we work 

To drive change for victim-survivors of economic abuse, we are committed to understanding the problems they face. Two core principles are at the heart of our work:   

We are survivor-centred  

Being led by survivors is central to our work. We work alongside a group of women – the Experts by Experience Group (EEG) – who share their knowledge and experiences to shape our work.  The EEG is for women aged 18 and over who are no longer in a relationship with the abuser. 

We recognise the need to create accessible spaces that victim-survivors feel able to participate in. The EEG is inclusive of transwomen, and we provide both single-sex and trans-inclusive spaces for EEG members.  

We are evidence-based 

We conduct research with victim-survivors and learn from the growing wider evidence base on economic abuse. We analyse the issues victim-survivors and professionals share through the Financial Support Line and evaluate our projects to help the development of frontline services.   

Our teams

Specialist team
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Our specialist team use their expertise to provide support and guidance to professionals working with victim-survivors in the financial services and women’s sectors, as well as in the debt, money, benefits, housing and utilities industries. The team:

Advocacy and communications team
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Our advocacy and communications team works to raise awareness of economic abuse among the general public as well as decision-makers in industry and government. The team:

  • develops information for victim-survivors and the professionals supporting them
  • engages with the media to share information and survivors’ stories
  • influences changes to government policy that reflect the needs of victim-survivors of economic abuse
  • works with corporations, industry bodies and regulators to drive system and policy changes.

Impact and partnerships team
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Our impact and partnerships team ensures that SEA’s work makes as much of a difference as possible to the lives of victim-survivors, and identifies who we need to work with to make change happen. The team:

  • conducts research that contributes to changes in policy and practice
  • ensures our work is underpinned by evidence
  • evaluates what interventions are effective in addressing economic abuse
  • pilots new approaches and ways of working (such as the Economic Abuse Evidence Form)
  • manages a programme of training for professionals to influence deep and lasting change.

Development team
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Our development team works with partners and donors to secure funds for SEA, and shapes our fundraising strategy to ensure a diverse range of funding sources.

Operations team
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Our operations team provides the organisational infrastructure for SEA. The team provides support in finance, HR and governance to enable the charity to function as efficiently and effectively as possible.

More information

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