Safe Haven Education was founded to strengthen how workplaces recognise and respond to coercive and controlling behaviour.

I spent over 15 years in senior commercial leadership roles across data, analytics and enterprise SaaS. My background is in Business Administration and Human Resources. I built and led revenue functions, worked closely with boards and operated in environments where governance, compliance and risk management were part of daily decision making.

At that time, I was living with coercive and controlling behaviour that neither I nor the organisation recognised. The behaviour did not fit common stereotypes of abuse, and there was no framework internally to interpret it as such.

That experience led me to formally study domestic abuse and coercive control. I trained in domestic abuse awareness and safeguarding, immersed myself in legislation including the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, and began analysing the gap between statutory definitions and workplace practice.

Safe Haven Education was built from that intersection of commercial leadership, lived experience and formal training.

I deliver domestic abuse awareness training, policy consultancy and professional development programmes for employers, HR teams, legal professionals and frontline practitioners across the UK.

I have since produced policy frameworks, analytical reports and professional briefings focused on prosecution outcomes, evidence gaps and workplace safeguarding standards. My work is designed for HR, legal, compliance and risk professionals who need clarity, structure and defensible processes.

SafePolicy™ is a structured workplace domestic abuse framework aligned to statutory guidance and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s Everyday Business findings. It is designed to be practical, implementable and robust under scrutiny.

I am also developing PatternShield™, an AI-enabled, research led pattern recognition platform designed to support professionals assessing evidence of coercive control and post separation abuse. The platform draws on my background in data and analytics and would not exist without that foundation.

This work is survivor informed, professionally trained and built for organisations that take safeguarding and governance seriously.

Deniz Erdem

Founder, Safe Haven Education | Founder, Professionals Against Coercive Control

Recommended Trainer, Employers' Initiative on Domestic Abuse (EIDA) | BA (Hons) Business Administration & Human Resources, Keele University | Domestic Abuse Practitioner | NCFE Certificate in Cyber Security