VIVIEN – Victim Violence Educational Network: An educational project to improve the ability to assist women victims of violence, aims to contribute to prevent and to tackle violence against women (VAW), with a specific focus on women with disabilities.

The VIVIEN project is coordinated by Giolli Cooperativa (Italy) and carried out by four countries: Italy, Finland, Bulgaria and Croatia. The project lasts for two years until the end of 2020. The project addresses current challenges and needs of civil contribution to governmental efforts to end violence against women and take into consideration the specific vulnerability and needs of women with disabilities.

The problem

Studies of literature has shown that violence is under-reported by women both to police and victim support organizations. One reason is that professionals who have first contact with victims are not well prepared to recognize, support and help the woman properly. Sometimes even worse, though often subconsciously, they share the same gender stereotypes of perpetrators.

Thus, there is a societal need the professionals to deepen their understanding of the victims emotions and, advised by disabled, to improve their ability for empathy and building trust.

Objectives

• To improve in a systematic way the competence of professionals (police, judicial system, school, health and welfare system) who have first contact with women at risk or victim of violence, with special emphasis on the disabled: avoiding secondary victimization, reducing stereotypes, learning how to treat victims properly, enabling them to early detect violence
• To develop models for raising the competence of professionals transferable to other countries

Activities

• Trainings – sectoral and inter-sectoral; basic, intermediate and advanced
• Meetings – of partners, of stakeholders, of beneficiaries for evaluation
• Forum-Theatre performances – as educational tool for sensitization
• Supervision – for support to prepared multipliers
• Dissemination conference – to present and discuss results

Type and number of persons benefiting from the project

DIRECT BENEFICIARIES:

• 500 professionals, who are crucial to avoid secondary victimization and therefore to help women to report more easily the case of violence. Professionals come e.g. from:
  • local/state police,
  • judiciary (judges, prosecutors, lawyers),
  • school (teachers),
  • health care system (first aid staff, gynecologists, nurses, midwives, dentists, pediatricians, family doctors),
  • helpline staff and social services (social workers and educators in services for family).

• 130 responsible at various levels: directors, managers, chiefs department, coordinators, responsible of a single unit (police, school, health, welfare system, judiciary, etc.) where to implement the project experimentation and the same Institutions where the 500 professionals come from. There might be challenges to include the new awareness/competence in trainees’ daily work. So we want to engage also who has responsibilities in order to facilitate a structural change in the Institution.

INTERMEDIATE BENEFICIARIES

• 90 students in Medicine, Social Work and Law, in order to promote a new awareness from the beginning of their career, and to stimulate the possibility to include this kind of training in the formal education at University and beyond.
• 100 Institutions who our target groups belong to in order to affect them with an effective approach to manage violence against women and help the trainees to create a consistent working context.
• 100 women and disabled organizations involved in the project.

FINAL BENEFICIARIES

• Women at risk of or in situation of violence and specifically the disabled
• Organisations in Europe dealing with this topic
• Public Institutions who has first contact with women victims of violence
• Professionals all over Europe dealing with the topic.

Expected results

• Improved competences of professionals to deal with violence against women, to avoid secondary victimization, to analyze their own stereotypes, to early detect violence, to treat victims properly
• Experimented and evaluated effective and transferable Training Paths for professionals
• Ensured sustainability of internal institutional capacity
• Improved Procedures within and among institutions
• More “close to life” education and training of future professionals
• Expanded public-private partnership in combating VAW with the inclusion of organisations of disabled
• Raised professional and public awareness of the specific vulnerability to violence of disabled women reducing the risk of ‘invisibility’ and stand-by witnesses