Frieda's Hub / The Friedom Framework
Our own cultural social-ecological model, built from our research with racialised victim-survivors of sexual violence and abuse. It reads harm and equity across six levels at once, with three navigational principles running through every one of them.
The model
The six levels
A cultural social-ecological model moves the focus away from holding survivors responsible for ending the harm done to them, and looks instead at the root causes and the systemic contributors.
Biological and personal history factors that shape the likelihood of being subjected to violence and abuse, or of choosing to perpetrate it, including age, race, gender, gender identity, education, income, substance use and a history of abuse.
Close relationships that raise the risk of experiencing or perpetrating violence. A survivor’s closest circle of peers, partners and family shapes their behaviour and the range of their experiences.
The settings where social relationships happen, including schools, workplaces, neighbourhoods and religious communities, and the characteristics of those settings associated with victimisation or perpetration.
The broad factors that create a climate in which violence and abuse is either facilitated or condemned, including rape myths, controlling images, stereotypes and victim-blaming attitudes.
The people, leaders and institutions with power over policy, procedure and governance, and those who benefit from them, and how policy and practice uphold racism and other oppressions.
The history and historical experiences of racialised communities, and how that history has affected individuals and the collective. Understanding it allows for more transformative processes and strategies.
The three navigational principles
Cultural competemility, anti-racism and intersectionality guide how the framework is applied. Each was chosen for its ability to address the intersecting layers of oppression that shape the experiences of racialised survivors.
The synergy between cultural competence and cultural humility, with humility permeating each of the five components of competence. It holds the skills, knowledge and attitudes to work effectively with culturally diverse communities, while preventing practice that overlooks how dynamic culture is.
An active process of identifying and challenging racism and redistributing power in an equitable manner. It means changing policy and practice within systems and organisations, as well as individual beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
Born from Black feminism, a critical lens on how intersecting identities and power structures create compounded oppressions, and on what that means for the response a survivor receives.
Without anti-racism, cultural competemility risks staying superficial. Without intersectionality, anti-racism risks missing how race works with gender, class and other markers. Without the other two, intersectionality stays an abstract idea rather than a tool for change.
Using the framework
The Friedom Framework is our own model. If you would like to use it in training or in service delivery design, under licence, please contact us to talk.
How we use the framework
Every commission is shaped by the framework, from service review through to policy and governance.
Go to Consultancy →The six levels and the three principles run through the accredited programme and through our workshops.
See the programme →The Intersectional Risk Tracker Tool (IRTT) and the Domestic Abuse, Stalking, Harassment and Honour-Based Violence and Abuse (DASH) Companion read risk the way the framework reads a life, across systems rather than around them.
Go to Tools →Our needs assessment with racialised victim-survivors in the West Midlands, which the framework grew out of.
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