‘Changing our Heads’ : evaluation of the partnership between Shpresa Programme and Solace Women’s Aid to develop a specialist service for Albanian Speaking Women experiencing violence in London

In 2012, Shpresa programme, an Albanian community organisation, developed a partnership with Solace Women’s Aid (Solace), a specialist VAWG support service, to engage Albanian Speaking Women (ASW) in London around experiences of violence and abuse. There are three elements of support and intervention in the project: • workshops on domestic violence, delivered by an Albanian speaking worker, which are incorporated into Shpresa’s women’s support group sessions (the ARISE project); • individual casework, also delivered by an Albanian speaking worker based at Solace (the Empower project); and • workshops with children and young people about domestic violence. While some organisations provide specialist support for women from Eastern European communities who are experiencing violence (see Thiara, 2015), this project is the first to combine the expertise of an Albanian community organisation and a VAWG service provider. This meant a knowledge exchange between the two organisations, extending the skills and capacity of Shpresa staff and volunteers about domestic violence, and of Solace about the needs of Albanian speaking women (ASW), was core to the partnership. The project was funded by Trust for London and the Henry Smith Charity. In September 2013, the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) at London Metropolitan University were commissioned by Trust for London to evaluate the project. The evaluation brief required a focus on what lessons can be learned from this model of provision – a small community organisation acting as service commissioner - to inform the development of sustainable services for women from newly arrived communities in London. This final report is based on two years of delivery of the project, from 1st October 2013 to 30th September 2015. As a small scale process evaluation, the children’s workshops were not included.1 The report: • sets out the background to the partnership between Shpresa and Solace; • provides an overview of the project context by summarising what is known about Albanian communities in the UK and on Albanian-speaking women and violence; • outlines the evaluation methodology; • presents evidence of how the project met its objectives; and • offers reflections on this model of partnership for future commissioning. The title of the report - ‘Changing our Heads’ - refers to the way that workers spoke about the process of challenging attitudes and values, and also speaks to changes in practices that were necessary by each organisation in this new partnership

Deflection, denial and disbelief : social and political discourses about child sexual abuse and their influence on institutional responses : a rapid evidence assessment

The aim of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA or ‘the Inquiry’) is to investigate whether public bodies and other non-state institutions have taken seriously their responsibility to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales, and to make meaningful recommendations for change, to help ensure that children now and in the future are better protected from sexual abuse. As defined in current government policy in England and Wales, child sexual abuse involves forcing or enticing a child or young person under the age of 18 to take part in sexual activities. It includes contact and non-contact abuse, child sexual exploitation (CSE) and grooming a child in preparation for abuse (HM Government, 2015b). However, definitions and understandings of what counts as child sexual abuse have been subject to substantial change over time. As part of its work, the Inquiry commissioned this rapid evidence assessment (REA) to understand what the social and political discourses have been about child sexual abuse, and the ways in which these discourses may have influenced responses to child sexual abuse by institutions. These questions have cross-cutting relevance for the work of the Inquiry. The overarching aim of this REA was to summarise the existing evidence base about social and political discourses concerning child sexual abuse in England and Wales from the 1940s to 2017 and identify the ways in which those discourses may have influenced institutional responses to such abuse

Roads to Nowhere? Mapping Violence Against Women Services

This article reports on two separate research projects that use mapping techniques, specifically Geographic Information Systems (GIS), to assess the spatial characteristics of access to specialized support services for women who have experienced domestic/sexual violence, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), and sexual exploitation. In the first project, maps document the location of specialized violence against women (VAW) services across nations and regions of the United Kingdom, demonstrating many gaps in provision. In the second project, mapping techniques assess the distance and direction women traveled in their journeys to access specialized support services (specifically shelters) when escaping domestic violence. Policy outcomes and conclusions and possibilities for using GIS for feminist research on violence against women are discussed. </jats:p

Sexualised sexism: popular culture, sexualisation and violence against women and girls

As of July 2014, there have been a slew of campaigns, two Westminster government reviews and countless papers and books which have catapulted the issue of sexualisation into public, policy and academic arenas. The result is a range of perspectives which speak to differing priorities: much current policy concern is about ‘contamination’ of childhood; for some commentators, sexualised popular culture is evidence of progressive liberalisation of social attitudes; critical feminist analysis views the sexualisation of women and girls’ bodies in public space as part of ongoing social inequalities between women and men. Women’s organisations which are experts on violence against women and girls (VAWG) see similar patterns in sexualised popular culture as those that underpin the perpetration of VAWG: masculinity equated with sexual conquest, representations of women and girls as perpetually sexually available. This briefing makes a case for understanding and naming sexualisation as ‘sexualised sexism’ in order to make clear its gendered dynamics and role as a conducive context for violence against women and girls. A final section outlines how international human rights approaches support this analysis

From ‘no means no’ to ‘an enthusiastic yes’: Changing the Discourse on Sexual Consent Through Sex and Relationships Education

How sexual consent should be discussed with young people is the subject of current policy debates and contestations in the UK. While the current Westminster government violence against women and girls (VAWG) strategy (Home Office, 2011) and subsequent action plans recognise the importance of addressing consent, with no statutory relationships and sex education there are few contexts in which these conversations with young people routinely take place. Organisations that work with young people as victims/survivors of violence and through school-based primary prevention programmes have long identified sexual consent as an issue which requires specialist attention and intervention (see e.g. Coy et al., 2010; EVAW, 2011)

Like gold dust these days’: domestic violence fact-finding hearings in child contact cases

Fact-finding hearings may be held to determine disputed allegations of domestic violence in child contact cases in England and Wales, and can play a vital role for mothers seeking protection and autonomy from violent fathers. Drawing on the author’s empirical study, this article examines the implications for the holding of fact-finding hearings of judges’ and professionals’ understandings of domestic violence and the extent to which they perceive it to be relevant to contact. While more judges and professionals are developing their understanding of domestic violence, the ambit of when and how it is considered relevant to contact has grown increasingly narrow, which suggests that many disputed allegations of domestic violence are disregarded and women and children continue to be put at risk from violent fathers. This bifurcated approach is likely to have significant implications for recent developments in this area of family law which are considered in this article

Young women, local authority care and selling sex: Findings from research

Summary Researchers, practitioners and policy makers have noted the disproportionate number of young women with backgrounds of local authority care who are involved in commercial sex. However, the lack of knowledge about why this occurs means that there is little evidence with which to develop interventions. This article describes research that explored young women&apos;s routes into the sex industry from local authority care using a feminist participatory action approach. The women&apos;s life-story narratives demonstrate that the psycho-social legacies of their care experiences-how they defined themselves and placed themselves in the world-were instrumental in their entry into selling sex. From these themes, a framework for understanding young women&apos;s involvement in commercial sex is drawn that traces young women&apos;s paths from living in/leaving care to selling sex. The article includes discussion of the implications for social work practice with vulnerable young women and recommendations for interventions

Prostitution in (and out of) policy on violence against women and girls in the UK

The extent to which prostitution is addressed in Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) policy in the UK varies by nation, region and local area. Current Westminster government policy frames prostitution in terms of associated harm and exploitation, not as harm and exploitation, in sharp contrast to Scotland and some local areas. This short article extends Liz Kelly's (1988) continuum of violence against women to prostitution, drawing on definitions of VAWG, research evidence on harms and conceptual links between men's abusive practices. For policy, this means a re-orientation towards specialist support for women, including to leave prostitution, and seeking to end demand. There are also opportunities for Westminster government policy to create consistency in VAWG prevention work and sexual exploitation of children through a more coherent analysis of gendered violations and violences. While the focus is on UK policy, the case for including prostitution in strategic approaches to VAWG will have wider resonance