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Emma Chandler: From my story to a voice at the table
by Emma Chandler
Business Development Consultant - England and Wales
Last month, I had the privilege of spending time with the Home Office, contributing to important work exploring fraud through abuse of position and bringing my own experience of coercive control and economic abuse into the conversation.
I came away feeling incredibly positive about the experience.
There is something very powerful about being invited into a room not simply to tell your story, but to contribute to the thinking. I felt listened to, respected and, importantly, that my experience was valued alongside the professional expertise and different perspectives around the table. For me, that is what meaningful involvement should feel like.
As a woman who has experienced economic abuse, I know how complex the intersection between relationships, trust, money and control can be. I also know that what vulnerability looks like from the outside doesn't necessarily tell you what is happening behind closed doors. That became a particularly interesting part of the conversation for me. At the time I was experiencing economic abuse, I was also a business owner. I was working, generating income and outwardly functioning as a capable and financially independent woman.
Yet I was still vulnerable to an abuser exploiting my trust and misusing his power.
It raises important questions about how we understand vulnerability, not as a label attached to a particular "type" of person, but in the context of the surrounding circumstances, relationships and power dynamics. These are complex questions, which is exactly why bringing together different perspectives, including real experience, is so valuable.
I'm genuinely grateful to the Home Office team for creating the space for those conversations and for the care and consideration with which my contribution was received.
The work continues, and we are due to come together again in the autumn to explore the legislative and policy landscape further, before moving into discussions around vulnerability typology, an area I am particularly interested in contributing to. There is much more work and collective thinking ahead, and I am conscious that I am just one voice and one story within a much wider picture.
But I am incredibly proud to have that voice at the table.
Because when our experiences, research, policy and professional expertise come together constructively, there is a real opportunity to improve how women subjected coercive control and economic abuse are understood and supported.
I'm looking forward to continuing to listen, learn and contribute to what comes next.
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