Co-Creating in Close Collaboration with Community Stakeholders: Transferable Lessons Learned from the Development of a Group-Based Intervention for Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Survivors in Sweden

There is a lack of step-by-step guides for developing evidence-based interventions through close collaboration between researchers and practitioners that emphasize genuine co-creation. The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed description of the five-year participatory action research- and iterative-design-inspired development process that resulted in a 12-week group-based intervention to support reorientation and post-traumatic growth among intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors. This paper presents a case study based on an analysis of meeting agendas and notes, observations, successive versions of the intervention, and interviews with staff at partnering women’s shelters and female victim-survivor intervention participants, conducted from 2021 to 2025. This study offers future intervention developers three actionable recommendations: (1) invest in relationship building and establish a collaborative project culture characterized by epistemic equality between academic researchers and practitioners, manifested in non-hierarchical decision-making; (2) create a purpose-built framework for genuine collaboration and co-creation, like the one presented in this project, which combines participatory action research and iterative design approaches; and (3) ensure a shared vision and a formalized agreement regarding future uses and rights connected to the intervention. By offering key transferable recommendations, this paper contributes to teams embarking on intervention development alongside end-beneficiaries and community stakeholders in women’s shelters and beyond.