StoP was conceptually developed in the 2000s (Stövesand 2007). The innovative concept opened new ways of working against domestic violence. At that time, it was not yet foreseeable whether it would work in practice. After all, it cannot be taken for granted that sponsors could be found for such a new approach and, above all, to get people to come together in their spare time to work on a topic that is strongly associated with shame, taboo and danger. But it worked: in 2010, Sabine Stövesand, HAW Hamburg, and Simone Bock, director of the local youth centre, together with other local cooperation partners, launched the first StoP project in Hamburg, which is still active today! 

The establishment of StoP in Germany has been slow but steady. As of November 2024, there are StoP projects in 25 cities or districts in Germany: Hamburg (9 StoP projects), Berlin (3), Bersenbrück (1), Bielefeld (2), Bremen (1), Braunschweig (2), Burgdorf (1), Buxtehude (1), Dresden (1), Freiburg (1), Glinde (1), Oldenburg (1), Sulzbach (1).

The StoP projects are funded and supported by a wide range of organisations: from district centres to women's advice centres; there is (mixed) financing from municipal funds to funding from the TV lottery. The basic funding is usually supplemented by small amounts from neighbourhood councils and other local funds. This clearly shows that a wide range of organisations and funding bodies are interested in the project. 

In Austria, StoP was established and expanded between 2019 and 2024 by the Association of Autonomous Austrian Women's Shelters (AÖF) and its long-standing director, Maria Rösslhumer.

The Austrian pilot project started in 2019 in Vienna-Margareten. Although Austria has only a tenth of Germany's population, there are currently 35 StoP locations in all 9 federal provinces. Funding from the Ministry of Social Affairs has made it possible to expand StoP nationwide from 2021. There is a commitment for further expansion: StoP is to be expanded to 47 projects by 2026 (see StoP website Austria 2024). Most of the sites are located in urban areas, but many are also in more rural communities with 6,000 to 10,000 inhabitants. 

Additional StoP project funding has also been successfully acquired, such as two years of funding from the Ministry of the Interior for cooperation with the police and feminist men's work or “Active neighbourhoods stop violence against women in old age” (Ministry of Social Affairs). A dedicated media and public relations unit has been set up to support all 35 projects. 

A prerequisite for ensuring the quality of StoP work is further training (mandatory training) to become a StoP specialist (by S. Stövesand and team). To date, about 150 StoP organisers have been trained in Germany and about 60 in Austria, most of them women. This means that more than 200 professionals have been involved in StoP and most of them have been recruited as full-time StoP organisers. Demand remains high: the annual training courses are always fully booked.

To get StoP off the ground, the first step is to explore the community. Local leaders, i.e. role models and authorities who are well-connected in the community, are identified and won for StoP. In this way, StoP quickly develops its reach. The many intensive one-to-one interviews with key people at the beginning – in the pilot project 30 people were interviewed for between 1 and over 2 hours – are also an important first step in breaking the silence and finding out the opinions and attitudes in the community on the issue of partner violence. Building relationships with local leaders is also a key success factor in setting up neighbourhood action groups, our research shows. All StoP activists interviewed in the pilot project were invited to participate in StoP work by local leaders and accepted the invitation because they trusted these individuals (Wachter 2024). 

Comprehensive figures for action step 2 are available for Austria based on activity reports. From 2021 to 2022, 2,400 contacts were recorded in the course of personal discussions, interviews and surveys (StoP Austria Overall Coordination 2022: 4). From 2022-2023, 2.614 people were reached by conversations as part of action research (StoP Austria overall coordination 2023: 10).

In particular, the conversations held as part of the door knocking and community survey allow for a better assessment of the respective community regarding the issue of partner violence. In Vienna-Margareten (298 interviews), for example, it was possible to determine whether partner violence is a private or a social problem, whether domestic violence occurs in certain neighbourhoods, or how to overcome the fear of intervening in cases of violence. The results of these conversations became the starting point for specific StoP activities in the respective community. Up till today StoP Austria keeps growing!

It worked! Hundreds of people were mobilised and trained. They organised themselves into neighbourhood groups against domestic violence, taking a public stand, talking to other neighbours, supporting and protecting those affected. 

Active residents have also been successfully organised at all sites in Germany, with around 250 volunteering neighbours as the active core, who in turn reach 1,000s of local residents personally with their messages. In Hamburg Steilshoop alone, more than 15,000 people have been reached in small and large campaigns over the years. It can be said: community groups, meeting at kitchen tables and in neighborhood venues are the heart of StoP. 

Qualitative research of StoP showed how the competences of the Stop volunteers increased as a result of the group work (cf. Wachter 2024). While in the beginning it was more about gaining more knowledge about partner violence and expanding their repertoire of actions as witnesses of violence, over time they became more confident in going public, planning actions, advising and helping women affected by violence in their community. Central to all of these processes is collective organisation, mutual encouragement or, as one StoP activist put it:

The support from the organisers is very much appreciated by the active neighbours. Nevertheless, they see themselves as central actors in StoP: they confidently take up their position as trusted key and contact persons for partner violence in the neighbourhood, mentioning their qualities such as their knowledge of violence and help options, their common language with the residents (instead of a technical language) and their constant presence in the community. This has made it possible to bring the issue into people's everyday lives, to make them think about it and to offer support to those affected. People have changed through StoP, they have developed a different awareness and attitude. 

StoP community groups were gradually established in all 33 projects in Austria; some were all-women or all-men groups, others were mixed gender. In the funding period from 1 June 2021 to 31 May 2022, around 300 people took part in the StoP women's/ men's/ neighbourhood groups (StoP Austria 2022: 4). In the project period between 1 June 2022 and 31 May 2023, a total of 148 women's groupmeetings with a total of 867 participants, 22 men's groupmeetings with 108 participants and 52 neighbourhood meetings with a total of 368 participants took place throughout Austria (StoP Austria 2023: 10). 

StoP has also reached many young people through its programmes in cooperation with schools and youth centres with 200 young people participating. Young people received further training and are now involved as multipliers against partner violence and for peaceful relationships. A StoP Tiktok youth editorial team was founded in Vienna. Large numbers of children were reached via open formats, e.g. neighbourhood and summer festivals with games, button machines and wheel of fortune quizzes on StoP. 

A central part of StoP community work in Austria is the active participation of men in violence prevention work, which is also anything but a matter of course. Activating men is more challenging than activating women: the response is lower and it does not seem easy for men to find an ally role for themselves in the StoP network (cf. IKF 2022, Wachter 2024). Three male organisers were employed in Vienna. They reached out to other men and set public signals against partner violence, wether through poster campaigns with personal photos and messages, through joint public StoP men's runs against violence against women and children, as in Vienna with 80 participants, through seminars under the motto “Men take responsibility and show civil courage against partner violence” or regular StoP men's meetings. This makes it clear to the outside world that violence is not a “women's issue” – it it everyone’s business! 

StoP organisers and active community members have gone public in some 60 neighbourhoods and communities (with more to come) and initiated changes in everyday life. There are reports from the neighbourhoods that people know the activists and approach them, that they themselves ask for information material, that StoP stickers can be seen on bikes, cars and letterboxes, and that StoP posters can be seen on many buildings. This makes StoP visible, makes the issue visible and removes taboos. Success is when residents say they have listened more carefully in their neighbourhood since StoP has been there, or say.

A wide range of activities can be seen in the German StoP projects: “Show your face” poster campaigns, in which StoP activists have their faces photographed with a statement against partner violence; joint statements by local businesspeople; distribution of flyers and stickers, often in connection with women's rights days such as 8 March or 25 November; dance performances, cookbooks with recipes against violence, interviews in newspapers, local radio stations; StoP theatre groups for young people; dance performances, cookery books with recipes against violence, interviews in newspapers, local radio stations; StoP theatre groups for young people; social media; StoP performances with craft groups, re-dedication of monuments in public spaces, staircase concerts, award-winning plays, large information events for the residents of the community? There are no limits to creativity, the reach is in the thousands. 

Again, the starting point is always the local StoP groups, with the following key elements: familiarity with and trust in the people involved. The attitude towards them is formulated as follows: “If I know them, it's all right. If I only see unknown faces, I'm sceptical” (Activist). This makes it possible for more people to open up, seek help, change their attitudes or take part in campaigns. 

The StoP work has also been recognised through the implementation of large-scale community surveys. Firstly, the fact that these were designed together with active neighbours should be highlighted as a success: In the StoP pilot project alone, 695 door-knocking conversations were conducted with neighbours. Secondly, this raised awareness of StoP beyond the existing networks of active neighbours: The activists got to know many new people and thus achieved the status as a contact person on the subject of partner violence in the neighbourhood for people they had not known before (cf. Wachter 2024). 

Local public relations work is also intensively carried out in Austria. In addition, press relations and work with social media can be described as very successful: in 2021–2022, for example, 91 online articles were published in 35 different online media portals, 16 articles in print media, 12 TV reports, 5 radio reports and 2 podcast episodes (cf. StoP Austria overall coordination 2022: 4). In 2022–2023, there were 219 mentions in the media, 934 posts on Facebook and 285 posts on Instagram. Young people also created and published their own TikTok videos about StoP and partner violence (cf. StoP Austria overall coordination 2023: 11).

Networking and committee work is also a central component of StoP projects in Germany. New networks have been established, and existing ones have been sensitised to the issue of partner violence. Both organisers and neighbours are active in the development process, each bringing their own strengths to the table. On the one hand, by building trusting relationships with actors from the neighbourhood, it is possible to invite activists and coordinators to present StoP again and again, e.g. in the church or mosque. On the other hand, other actors in the neighbourhood contact the activists and coordinators specifically when they want to support people affected by violence: The existing network and the support services offered by StoP activists together with other community actors make it possible to build support networks (cf. Wachter 2024).

From the outset, the focus has been on networking with as many partner organisations and collaborators as possible from all sectors of society. In the first three years of the project in Vienna, for example, almost 200 organisations joined StoP and became actively involved. These included organisations from the fields of community work, housing, health, arts and culture, sport, religious communities, NGOs, business, politics and education. At the beginning of 2024, there were 639 project partners throughout Austria. 

In addition, since 2021 so-called multiplier seminars have been held throughout Austria, where interested people can acquire knowledge about partner violence and civil courage. A total of 3.909 people were trained between 2021 and 2024. 

The willingness to disclose and seek help is increasing! In all StoP groups there are women who open immediately or over time and report that they have been affected. There are also many people affected by violence who approach the activists and/or organisers. The silence about violence has been broken, people are no longer alone but have trustworthy contacts directly and in their immediate neighbourhood and receive support. 

As many Austrian StoP projects are based in women's shelters, women's advice centres and violence prevention centres and are therefore run by violence prevention experts, it is relatively easy for StoP organisers to offer advice to women. In addition, a StoP contact point has been set up in Vienna by two active StoP neighbours in order to reach out to those affected and inform and refer them to the most important support services. 

German projects report that women affected by violence turn to StoP coordinators and StoP activists. One district reports that the organiser provided 90 counselling sessions in a relatively small district in one year. 

StoP activists find many ways to support victims of violence, e.g. acute intervention as witnesses of violence; longer-term support for victims of violence (everyday help, support with visits to the authorities, etc.); acting as a bridge to social services, mediation, de-escalation, accompanying to counselling centres. Occasionally, discussions are also held with perpetrators, and they are referred to counselling centres. StoP volunteers are approached both at StoP events and in everyday life – when shopping, on the playground. All projects also involve women who have experienced violence themselves and who can talk about their experiences or engage in peer-to-peer discussions with people who have been acutely affected by violence (Wachter 2024). 

In almost all StoP sites, people have stayed involved continuously and that is a success factor, because nowadays commitment is often short-term and selective. And it is a success factor in itself, because the whole thing needs staying power, changes don't happen overnight with a topic that is so fraught with fear and shame, intimacy and also danger. The interviewees in the qualitative study also describe the changes in the neighbourhood and in themselves as a small-scale process: trust was built up and renewed in order to be able to talk about violence; their own processes of coming to terms with experiences of violence in their own relationships needed spaces that feel safe in order to be able to talk about them and ask for help and StoP provided them; inactive residents and cooperation partners have to understand what StoP is and what it wants to achieve. It needs time but: many of them do now! 

In Austria and Germany, through local work and media work, many allies have been found who publicly support StoP. From trade unions and real estate companies to the sports sector and local politicians: many are taking a public stand against partner violence and in favour of StoP. Just to name two examples: In Austria, 4000 doctors attended the Vienna Doctors' Ball organised by the Austrian Medical Association and donated the proceeds to StoP. In Germany there is good networking and cooperation with ZONTA clubs: StoP actors have been invited to speak at national conferences and there have been joint actions on 25 November. Nationwide connections such as cooperation with the Federal Association of Women's Outreach Clinics, the Coordination of Women's Shelters or invitations to Bundestag committees and working groups of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs also testify to the appeal of StoP. In Austria, the acquisition of national funding is one of the effects of this alliance work. 

StoP was one of the few projects selected by the EU Commission for funding in 2022 as part of the CERV/DAPHNE programme. Between 2023 and 2025, colleagues from 7 EU countries will be trained as StoP organisers and an international digital toolbox will be created as part of a two-year EU project called “StoP – Community Matters”.

StoP projects have succeeded in networking with each other; there are annual network Modul picture Networkingmeeting meetings that are currently attended by around 80 delegates from all parts of Germany and Austria. In the meantime, two StoP associations have also been founded (DE: 2020, AT: 2024), which support state and nationwide cooperation and launch supra-regional campaigns. 

Invitation of a StoP activist to the annual reception for volunteers hosted by German President Gauck; personal meeting with Chancellor Merkel (StoP Steilshoop).

Numerous awards and prizes were also presented to many StoP projects at regional level.

There are many other projects around the world that follow a similar approach to StoP and with which there is in some cases an intensive dialogue. In 2022, an international meta-study analysed over 50 projects worldwide (Gloor/Meier 2022) and the following aspects emerged as commonalities and elements of success:

By using these elements, great success has been achieved worldwide in increasing the willingness to disclose and intervene in cases of partner violence. 

Three highlights are briefly presented below: 

For example, the SASA! approach is funded by the UN and the World Bank, has been examined and evaluated in numerous scientific studies, including randomised control trials, and has been rolled out in over 30 countries and by over 75 organisations worldwide. It is particularly noteworthy that not only are significantly more people affected by violence talking about their experiences, but more people are willing to help them and take a stand against partner violence: It is also impressive that there has been an overall reduction in violence during the project periods. In one SASA! project, violence against women was reduced by 52%. Relationships are also changing: In one SASA! community, 67% of women and 86% of men report making joint decisions in their relationships. In controlled communities, i.e. those without a SASA! project, only 48% of women and 46% of men do so. Relationships are therefore organized on a more equal footing through community-based projects. 

In Cambodia, a model project called “Community Mobilisation to Prevent Violence against Women and Girls with Disabilities” was implemented. Before the project started, 70% of women with disabilities experienced violence in their daily lives. During the project, this figure fell to 27%. There was also a significant decrease in women's and girls' experiences of exclusion and marginalisation: in the community (-25%), in the family (-26%) and by institutions (43%). 

In Australia, a study (PCW 2015) found that consistent community work can reduce the prevalence of domestic violence. Over a 10-year period, a net saving of between 18 and 36 million Australian dollars was identified if community work was sustained. It is no coincidence that several countries, including Australia and New Zealand, have included community work in their national action plans against violence. This information is highly relevant for Germany, where the annual costs of partner violence are estimated at between 3.8 billion euros (Sacco 2017) and 32.5 billion euros (EIGE 2021), as adequate funding for prevention projects is not only urgently needed from a human rights perspective, but could also save massive costs in economic terms.