Consultation with Victims-Survivors of Violence Against Women and Girls - Imkaan/MOPAC

Imkaan has been commissioned by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) to collate the views of women and girls affected by gender-based violence via a series of focus groups and interviews to inform the development of the second London VAWG strategy.  This work provides the opportunity for women and girls to influence future planning in London. We would like to involve:

  • Former-service users of voluntary sector specialist provision, statutory services and criminal justice agencies.  This will include women exiting prostitution.
  • BME (Black, Minority and Ethnic) women and girls including those who have experienced forced marriage, female genital mutilation and “honour”-based violence.
  • Young women under the age of 18 including those who have been/are associated to gangs.
  • We will explore any barriers to accessing service provision e.g. disability, sexual identity, and age.

The objective of this piece is to obtain the perspectives of women and girls to strengthen our understanding of service gaps and needs, pathways through which women and girls in London access protection and support and identification of promising practice in prevention work.  We will also develop recommendations on effective service models, and a report will be produced in June 2013.

If you work in this area and would like to contribute to the project please contact ika@imkaan.org.uk or call 020 7250 3933. 

Read more

Representations of Gender in Advertising.  Original by Sarah Zelinski, Kayla Hatzel, and Dylan Lambi-Raine for their women and gender studies class. 

Briefing: Model Outcomes Framework and Service Standards for Violence Against Women and Girls services

  • Women’s Aid and Imkaan in partnership are developing a model outcomes framework for survivors of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and, based on this framework, are issuing new National Service Standards for VAWG Services.
  • The outcomes framework will serve multiple purposes. At a local level, organisations will be able to continuously identify survivor needs and develop their services accordingly, ensuring improved responses to VAWG . The framework will also provide a set of survivor-identified outcomes to inform funders’ commissioning processes.
  • At a national level, the outcomes framework will enable nationwide data collection to build a clear evidence base of the nature and extent of VAWG, to assess the effectiveness of the range of support and interventions available, and to provide an opportunity for benchmarking and best practice development.
  • The service standards will serve as a set of guidelines for commissioners and funders looking to fund and/or evaluate services. They will further enable sector-wide improvement, service responsiveness and development.
  • The outcomes framework and service standards will have an integrated human rights framework to ensure services and interventions are human rights focused and are in line with national and  international duties to protect survivors,  prevent VAWG, and to improve justice responses to survivors through partnership working.
  • We are working with voluntary sector organisations with specialisms across the equalities strands to ensure outcomes of survivors with protected characteristics are encompassed in the framework.
  • We are additionally sharing information and knowledge with Respect, a national membership organisation that provides helpline support to male victims of domestic abuse, with a view to enabling the development of a male survivors’ outcome framework. This is in response to emerging evidence of the different needs of male survivors and therefore the different service responses required.
  • The outcomes framework and service standards are being developed in on-going consultation with support staff, management, and survivor representatives from Imkaan and Women’s Aid member organisations. The draft outcomes framework will be presented at Women’s Aid conference in July 2013.
  • For more information contact the Capacity Building team:  Camille Kumar , Katy Taylor or Janet McDermott: info@ayaproject.org.uk

Imkaan’s Accredited Training Programme is Open for Bookings

Accredited Training Programme

24-25 April Understanding the effects of DV on BME women
OCN Levels One and Two
London

15-16 May Understanding the effects of DV on BME women
OCN Levels One and Two
Sheffield

26-27 June Understanding forced marriage and ‘honour-based’ violence; Risk and Case Management
OCN Level Two
London

10-11 July Understanding forced marriage and ‘honour-based’ violence; Risk and Case Management
OCN Level Two
Sheffield

To book a place on any of these courses, or to request in-house training, please email bookings@imkaan.org.uk.

For more information about Imkaan’s training programme click here.

Imkaan contributions to the 57th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women now available on our website

Over the past two weeks, Marai Larasi (Executive Director at Imkaan) has contributed to five sessions at the Commission on the Status of Women; for the UN, the Home Office, the Canadian Government, and two NGO forums.  Marai also lobbied on behalf of UK VAWG services at other sessions during this time.  

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the United Nation’s principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women.  Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment worldwide.  

You can view some of Marai’s contributions to this year’s CSW on our Resources page, under ‘External Contributions and Mentions’.

The CSW has now agreed conclusions on the elimination and prevention of all forms of VAWG.  Amongst the agreed conclusions, Imkaan particularly welcomes those that promote equal access to education, encourage appropriate responses to VAWG by statutory services, recognise the specific needs of women in conflict and post-conflict situations, migrants, and women with HIV, and the important role of the media and ICT in eliminating VAWG.

We have provided a small briefing on the agreed conclusions on our website here, and the full list of agreed conclusions should be available on the CSW website soon.

While there is much work to be done, the CSW conclusions present a critical opportunity for states to implement, strengthen and monitor the work to eliminate and prevent all forms of violence against women and girls.  We will continue to lobby UK government to encourage targeted efforts to ensure that the conclusions are adopted to strengthen existing work on VAWG in the UK.