Domestic Violence Surges During Lock-down: The Answer a Gamified Alert App
An open source app being developed at the #UKvsCovid19Hack. Its aim is to support the overwhelmed support services, to help victims of domestic violence and human trafficking during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Unseen Crime
The expectation is that during a lockdown crime rates will be dropping across the country. But with this confinement countries on lockdown are seeing surges in cases of domestic violence (DV).
The DV support charity Refuge saw an increase of 700% in the number of calls to their hotline in just one day. Those locked in with their families for long periods are at increasing risk, and organisations working in this space are becoming overwhelmed.
Abuse morphs and the types of threats increase during a pandemic. Abusive partners may withhold necessary sanitary items or medical access, spread misinformation, use scare tactics as an excuse to isolate from friends/ family/children. Escape plans are disrupted due to travel restrictions, and shelters have stopped taking in new cases for fear of infection. These factors are feeding into the spike in cases resported.
The rise in numbers was a growing concern for Samra Salim, a young mother in London who had heard about the escalating cases, and thought that an alert system was needed, she suggested this idea at the #UKvsCOVIDHack, and a team of women came together to work on developing this solution.
Asma Bohl, a trustee of the Women’s and Girls network, in an informative session shared what she had been hearing from women working in this space. She told us that women were scared about the risk of being heard at home, when taking calls from their case workers who want to check in. That was a piece of information was difficult to digest by the team. The idea of a survivor being slowly cut off from all their systems of support and not being able to connect with their case worker, was something that we kept front and centre when designing the safety features of our app.
Gamified Alert App
We worked on developing a Safe Alert app with a gaming interface connecting service users with existing Case Workers / Support services. The main function of the app is to provide a discreet regular check in or alert to caseworkers or social organisations whom can help or monitor their situations, such as Refuge, A21, and the Women’s and Girls Network.
We found that the product is transferable to organisations working against human trafficking. As the product unique identifier is that it is completely confidential it keeps all information anonymous as the front end is like playing a regular game, but there is a secret messaging system embedded into the logic so that the service user is not at risk at any time but remains connected to their.
During the Hackathon we found Bluejeans, Google Slides, and Slack really useful to help us stay connected and collaborate virtually. We used Invision for the wireframing, and Survey Planet to user test.
How it works
The app has two versions, one interface for the service user to submit data, and one for the service provider to monitor the data. Here is the link to the wireframe for the service user experience, where they sign up, ‘practice’ the game, and then start playing i.e. sending notifications.
Connecting 3 same colored bubbles x 3 times in a row will alert a notification system based on basic stop light colour depending on level of distress (Red, Amber, and Green).
We were able to test and validate Bubbles with service providers and service users, with 82% saying users would find this app helpful. We were also able to test it with organisations working across both domestic violence and human traffiking.
Development
We are hoping to tweak similar games that have open source code, and add a secure interface. We are hoping to recruit a developer to bring it to life using Firebase, React and or C# to build the game and notification systems. Please feel free to commit to some of the development here: https://github.com/Sitaralove/Bubbles---UK-vs-Covid-19-Hack.
Eventually we hope to increase functionality to include: make it multiplayer so more people can be alerted, a destructible chat function, and pop up adds that can advertise other support services. Our aim is that this app be used widely by support service providers all over the world. Feel free to get in touch if you would like to know more, or collaborate.
The team
Sitara Zafar is a Product Manager experienced with Fintech products, (LinkedIn or Twitter @Sitara_Zafar).
Samra Salim is UX designer, certification done from General Assembly (Linkedin and Instagram)
Prabhjit Bains is a Voice & AI Producer at the BBC (LinkedIn)
Asma Bohl is an Occupational Therapist and Trustee of the Women’s and Girls Network (WGN)
Julia Abouaf is a Senior Manager, Experience Operations, TaskRabbit (LinkedIn)
Ruky South is a Product Designer, Sujester (LinkedIn)
Written By Prabhjit Bains & Sitara Zafar
