News and events
Zero Tolerance 2021 - 2022 Strategic Plan
Our strategic plan sets out our aims and approach to our work. You can download a copy of our strategic plan or continue reading.
Zero Tolerance works to end violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Scotland. We change attitudes and behaviour so that no level of Scottish society tolerates such violence and we hold abusive men to account.
We are the only organisation in Scotland that focuses on preventing all forms of violence against all women. For over 25 years, we have campaigned for change, developing a wealth of knowledge and practical skills: delivering training, producing resources, influencing policy, and building relationships with a wide range of partners to help us achieve our vision.
Our 2021-24 strategy takes the tools we have developed to prevent VAWG and embeds them in the structures and institutions that can extend their reach. We will work to support our public policy, our media, and our young people’s environments to contribute to ending, rather than perpetuating, violence against women and girls.
Within this strategy, we emphasise that prevention work must serve the needs of all women. Some groups of women, including minority ethnic, disabled and trans women, face multiple forms of oppression. This means they can be more vulnerable to men’s violence and it can affect them in ways that are not widely understood. As we action our strategic objectives, we commit to being inclusive of these groups of women, and to learning from them.
- Jude Henderson
Our vision
A Scotland free of men’s violence against women and girls.
Our aims
- We will lead campaigning in Scotland to end all forms of VAWG by raising public and political awareness of its cause and challenging gender inequality.
- We will challenge and support key institutions to embed VAWG prevention in their work.
- We will advance and share the evidence base on preventing VAWG.
- We will make Zero Tolerance a place where feminist leadership happens.
Our 2021 – 2024 strategic priorities
- Strengthen understanding of emerging and neglected forms of VAWG to enable more inclusive and impactful prevention activity.
- Drive improvements in media reporting on VAWG.
- Embed gender equality and VAWG prevention in children and young people’s environments.
- Make Zero Tolerance a place where feminist leadership happens.
Strategic Priority 1
Strengthen understanding of emerging and neglected forms of VAWG to enable more inclusive and impactful prevention activity.
While all forms of VAWG are too prevalent and tolerated in Scotland, some forms are better understood. Other forms are not, and new forms will continually emerge. In this strategic period, we will increase our knowledge of those areas of VAWG, and those groups of women, who are not as well-served by existing prevention activity. We will work to increase prevention activity that focusses where it is most needed,and is as inclusive as possible.
Objective 1
Increase understanding of emerging and neglected forms of VAWG among key groups and individuals.
Objective 2
Facilitate primary prevention action on emerging and neglected forms of VAWG.
Approach
- Build the knowledge base on preventing emerging and neglected forms of VAWG to inform our campaigns and support our influencing work.
- Work in partnership with specialist organisations to promote the inclusion of emerging and neglected forms of VAWG in prevention messaging.
- Lobby to include emerging and neglected forms of VAWG in public policy.
- Influence key groups and individuals to take action to prevent emerging and neglected forms of VAWG.
Strategic Priority 2
Drive improvements in media reporting on VAWG.
VAWG remains widely under-reported in the Scottish and global media. Where it occurs, reporting on men’s VAWG can increase understanding, but too often it encourages victim-blaming and excuses the perpetrator. In this period, we will build on our work with journalists, editors and media bodies to continue to improve standards of reporting on VAWG, and to increase the volume of accurate and responsible reporting taking place.
Objective 1
Strengthen standards of media reporting on VAWG.
Objective 2
Increase volume and proportion of accurate and responsible reporting on VAWG.
Approach
- Campaign to include content on VAWG in established professional guidelines for journalists.
- Work with supportive individuals and groups within the media to produce and promote accurate and responsible reporting on VAWG.
Strategic Priority 3
Embed gender equality and VAWG prevention in children and young people’s environments.
From the early years onwards, children are exposed to attitudes that perpetuate VAWG. These attitudes normalise abusive behaviour amongst young people and in later life. We will build on our work with youth workers, early years professionals, and schools, as well as on the policy frameworks supporting this work, to further embed key messages on gender equality and VAWG prevention in environments designed to support and educate young people.
Objective 1
Increase the number of children and young people’s environments actively promoting gender equality and challenging men’s VAWG.
Objective 2
Strengthen the VAWG and gender equality requirements of national frameworks and guidance.
Approach
- Engage key organisations in embedding learning on gender within core training and ongoing development of early years, education and youth work professionals.
- Encourage and support schools to adopt the Equally Safe at School model (in partnership with Rape Crisis Scotland).
- Advocate for key policy developments affecting children and young people to be informed by a VAWG perspective.
Strategic Priority 4
Make Zero Tolerance a place where feminist leadership happens.
As feminist leaders, we commit to challenging the status quo and delivering positive change towards gender equality. Feminist leadership is an ongoing learning process. It applies to every level in our organisation, including staff and board, and underpins everything we do.
Objective 1
Increase our collective understanding of feminist leadership models and practices and apply relevant learning to our ways of working at Zero Tolerance.
Objective 2
Empower our staff and volunteers to become active feminist leaders in their current and future roles through training, development, and learning opportunities.
Approach
- Invest in training to support our development as feminist leaders.
- Practice our learning by collectively developing a feminist accountability framework within which we hold ourselves and each other to account kindly, carefully, thoughtfully, and rigorously.
- Reflect regularly on our own practice, developing as a learning organisation committed to exploring the impact of our work.
- Share our learning to support every woman, everywhere to find their own path to feminist leadership to help change our world for the better.
How we will work
Ambitiously
- Believing fundamental change is possible.
- Choosing the activities that can bring about the most change.
- Focusing our resources on impactful projects.
- Taking informed risks.
In partnership
- Sharing expertise.
- Combining resources to maximise impact.
- Working with larger organisations to increase our influence.
- Amplifying the voices of smaller organisations, particularly those representing minority ethnicwomen.
Grounded in evidence
- Building in time to research and plan activities.
- Building in time to evaluate our work thoroughly and learning from this.
- Regularly reviewing the evidence on ‘what works’.
Inclusively
- Foregrounding the needs and voices of marginalisedwomen.
- Reviewing and monitoring our tools, materials, and communications to ensure they are inclusive.
Sustainably
- Demonstrating impact.
- Strengthening our brand.
- Diversifying income.
- Continually working to diversify our organisation and the groups and individuals we work with.
How we will get there
Alongside this 2021 - 2024 Strategic Plan, our work in this period will be guided by an Operational Plan and a Communications Plan.
RSS
