Stand By Her – Police Forces
Tackling Misogyny and Sexism
Tackling Misogyny and Sexism Training
Stand By Her equips people with the skills and confidence to recognise, challenge and prevent sexism, misogyny and harmful behaviours through bystander intervention.
Why Stand By Her?
Police forces are often the first people victims turn to. Every interaction has the power to build trust, improve outcomes and reinforce confidence in policing.
Stand By Her is an interactive training programme that equips officers, staff and leaders with the practical skills to recognise misogyny, challenge harmful behaviours, become effective allies and contribute to a culture where Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is everyone’s responsibility.
Stand By Her is based on behavioural insights, leading to behaviour change. It equips officers and staff to challenge inappropriate behaviour within the workforce, directly influencing the trust communities place in policing outside it.
The College of Policing says culture change is essential in Policing across the UK
The 2024 behavioural science review identified over 220 behaviours linked to sexism and misogyny, and more than 120 barriers preventing officers and staff from challenging inappropriate behaviour. Stand By Her: Tackling Sexism and Misogyny supports this need by building practical intervention skills, confidence and allyship. We are awaiting approval to be added to the College of policing Practice Bank, as a prevention initiative tackling VAWG through education and bystander intervention.
Our Stand By Her Training, Tailored to Your Needs
Who This Training Is For
⦿ Police and Frontline officers and staff
⦿ PCSOs
⦿ Contact handlers
⦿ Student officers
⦿ Leadership teams
⦿ Specialist safeguarding teams
⦿ Neighbourhood policing
⦿ Multi-agency partnerships
Training can also be adapted for wider criminal justice partners and community safety teams.
Case Study
Stand By Her: Success story with Nottinghamshire police
Following national scrutiny of policing culture, including Operation Hotton, the convictions of Wayne Couzens and David Carrick, and the Casey Review into the Metropolitan Police Service, Nottinghamshire Police recognised the need to proactively address sexism and misogyny. The force wanted a preventative approach to challenge harmful behaviours and strengthen workplace culture.
Specially developed for Nottinghamshire Police, Stand By Her: Tackling Sexism and Misogyny in the Workplace was piloted with the Senior Leadership Team in 2022 before being adopted as mandatory training across the force, with nearly 4,000 staff and officers expected to have attended by the end of 2027.
Participants described the training as powerful, insightful and relevant, valuing the engaging delivery, practical tools, safe discussions and suitability for all roles and ranks.
First-year results:
I wanted to identify meaningful training that addressed sexism and misogyny within policing. This was driven by an awareness that attitudes, language and behaviours—whether overt or subtle—can directly affect organisational culture, decision‑making and, ultimately, the service provided to victims. I wanted training that went beyond policy compliance and instead encouraged honest reflection, challenge, and behavioural change.This tailor made program met all those criteria
Shamshers personality, style and ease of communication resonated with me and the force. She is engaging, authentic and able to discuss challenging issues in a way that felt constructive rather than confrontational. Her approach provides the balance of challenge and relatability that I believe is essential to achieving genuine cultural change.
This training genuinely makes you stop and think. It challenges assumptions, prompts reflection, and encourages us to consider our own role in addressing behaviours and supporting others. It is engaging, insightful, and delivered in a way that lands well with the audience. I was with a really mixed group of all roles, ranks and ages, and the feedback was unanimously positive.
My biggest takeaway from the training is that it compliments the message from PSD and Upstander training, namely that there is a duty and responsibility on all of us to do something if we witness or become aware of inappropriate behaviours or comments. That does not always mean that PSD need to be involved, sometimes a challenge or reaction is appropriate and provides the individual learning and changes the culture.
Shamsher was brilliant, so knowledgeable, so enthusiastic and very, very infectious! It was entirely relevant to everyone in the room, regardless of rank or role – It was delivered at absolutely the right level and it was clear from glancing around the room at the time that Shamshe had everyone engaged. It was just a brilliant training input, and I said to Shamsher at the time how it was by far the best bespoke training I’ve had in a long time. The bystander behaviour input was definitely memorable, certainly the GENOVESE homicide in New York. All in all, just a fantastic use of everyone’s time and I would implore others’ to take advantage of the training – five star.
What Do We Focus On?
Preventative
Tackle misogyny at the earliest stage.
Sustainable
Deliver lasting solutions that build local skills
Empowering
Build confidence to intervene.
Book Tackling Misogyny and Sexism Training
Aims
The aim of the sessions was about reinforcing existing police guidelines and values set out in the Standards of Professional Behaviour and National Code of Ethics, as well as creating an environment of respect, inclusion and allyship to female staff and officers experiencing sexism and misogyny.
It was seen as a preventative program to address negative attitudes and behaviours when they first emerge, decreasing the chance of escalation to more harmful and serious levels.
Program Outcomes
⦿ Better understanding of how women in the police force are impacted by misogyny and sexism
⦿ Increase awareness of the role you can play in addressing this through a range of interventions
⦿ Improve confidence to intervene when witnessing misogyny
Backed by research. Proven in practice. Highly recommended by hundreds who’ve taken our training.
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