Archives

Webinar: Exploring Natural Language Processing in violence prevention data

Do you work with text data in the field of violence prevention?

Are you interested in exploring how Natural Language Processing (NLP) can be used as an analytical tool?

Research Fellow Darren Cook from the UKPRP VISION Consortium and the Violence & Society Centre at City, St George’s, University of London will demonstrate how NLP techniques can be applied to domestic violence and abuse data in an upcoming webinar on 13 November 2025 from 10 – 10:50 am.

What is NLP?

Natural Language Processing (NLP) focuses on the interaction between computers and human language, such as interpreting and categorising free text from police or medical notes. This approach enables machines to understand, interpret, and generate human language in meaningful and useful ways. It allows computers to analyse and process text data, capturing not only the content but also the intent and emotion behind the words.

13 November 2025, 10 – 10:50 am, online only 

To register for the event and receive the Teams link, please email: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

VISION/VASC Webinar Series: Understanding Economic Abuse

Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs

We are pleased to announce our next webinar for the VISION and Violence & Society Centre (VASC) Webinar Series on Tuesday, 28 October, 11.00 – 11.50.

Dr Nicola Sharp-Jeffs is a leading international voice on economic abuse and author of Understanding and Responding to Economic Abuse.

She also founded Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA) in 2017 following her Churchill Fellowship to the US and Australia to learn about best practice in responding to financial abuse. After seeing the innovative responses to economic abuse in these countries, Nicola was determined to ensure that women in the UK had access to the same support. Throughout her leadership, SEA has pioneered innovative practice, policy and legislative approaches to economic abuse in the UK.

After seven successful years, Nicola Sharp-Jeffs stepped down as CEO in May 2024 and now works as an expert advisor and consultant to organisations working to build women’s economic safety and secure economic justice.

In this webinar, Nicola will share her expertise and insight about economic abuse. She will highlight the need to develop effective responses, and the imperative that all women, everywhere, should have equal access to and control over the economic resources they need to live the life they want.

Please join the VISION research consortium and the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s University of London to hear more about Nicola’s research and practical experience to raise awareness and implement effective measures to reduce and prevent economic abuse.

To register for the event and receive the Teams link, please email: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

The purpose of the VISION/VASC webinar series is to provide a platform for academia, government and the voluntary and community sector that work to reduce and prevent violence to present their work / research to a wider audience. This is a multidisciplinary platform and we welcome speakers from across a variety of fields such as health, crime, policing, ethnicity, migration, sociology, social work, primary care, front line services, etc. If interested in presenting at a future Series webinar, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

This webinar series is sponsored by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (VISION; MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s, University of London.

VISION hybrid seminar: An overview of systematic reviews on violence 

This event is in the past.

Join us for a hybrid seminar at City St George’s on 10 September exploring two VISION systematic reviews: one on experiences of violence among people in insecure migration status and the other on the effectiveness of UK domestic and sexual violence and abuse support services and interventions.

The interdisciplinary UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) Violence, Health and Society (VISION) consortium brings together evidence on violence prevention from across health, social, crime and other sectors. A key method for producing comprehensive evidence syntheses is the systematic review.

In this seminar, we bring together two very different systematic reviews of evidence on violence:

  • The first presentation, by Alexandria Innes and Hannah Manzur, is global and examines the nature and prevalence of violence among people in different types of insecure migration status.
  • The second presentation, by Annie Bunce and Sophie Carlisle, focuses on the UK and summarises what we do and don’t know about the effectiveness of domestic and sexual violence support services and interventions. 

For further information, please also see the VISION Policy Briefings stemming from the research:

  1. Insecure migration status increases risk of multiple forms of violence
  2. Measuring the effectiveness of UK support services and interventions for domestic and sexual violence and abuse

Register in person or online here: Ticket Tailor – VISION Hybrid Seminar – 10 Sept 2025

  • In person: Rhind Building, St John Street, London, EC1R 0JD followed by an afternoon tea in the Violence & Society Centre. 
  • Online: A Microsoft Teams link will be emailed the morning of the seminar

For further information, please contact VISION_Management_Team@citystgeorges.ac.uk

VISION/VASC Webinar Series: The intersection of a gendered economy and violence prevention

Mary-Ann Stephenson

This event is in the past.

We are pleased to announce our next webinar for the VISION and Violence & Society Centre (VASC) Webinar Series on Tuesday, 17 June, 11.00 – 11.50.

Mary-Ann Stephenson is the Director of Women’s Budget Group (WBG), a feminist think tank that works in research, advocacy and training to realise a gender equal economy in the UK. As an influential link between academia, the community and voluntary sector, and through their activities of government building and exchanging evidence, data, knowledge, and capacity, WBG’s work often interlinks with violence-prevention research and policy.

Examples include their 2019 report, Benefits or barriers? Making social security work for survivors of violence and abuse across the UK’s four nations, written with Surviving Economic Abuse and End Violence Against Women Coalition. Findings highlighted that the social security systems across the UK failed survivors of violence and abuse when they needed help most.

In 2024, WBG published Funding for violence against women and girls services: Briefing for a new government. Recommendations included:

  • A commitment to long-term grant funding for specialist women’s services, including ringfenced funding for services led ‘by and for’ Black and minoritised women, Deaf and disabled women and LGBT+ survivors.
  • More specialist training for police dealing with VAWG cases.
  • Reform social security (including uprating benefits and scrapping the benefits cap and two-child limit) to ensure women’s economic independence and their ability to leave abusive relationships.

In this webinar, Mary-Ann will highlight WBG’s programme of work demonstrating that a gender equal economy and the embedding of gender equality policymaking are necessary in the reduction of violence against women.

Please join the VISION research consortium and the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s University of London for what will be a fascinating exploration of economic inequality through a gendered lens.

To register for the event and receive the Teams link, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

The purpose of the VISION/VASC webinar series is to provide a platform for academia, government and the voluntary and community sector that work to reduce and prevent violence to present their work / research to a wider audience. This is a multidisciplinary platform and we welcome speakers from across a variety of fields such as health, crime, policing, ethnicity, migration, sociology, social work, primary care, front line services, etc. If interested in presenting at a future Series webinar, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

This webinar series is sponsored by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (VISION; MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s, University of London.

Upcoming event: Economic abuse – new research to inform prevention  

This event is in the past.

Join us for an in person seminar on 6 May exploring the picture of economic abuse in the UK and the systems that enable it followed by a morning tea

Economic abuse is a legally recognised form of domestic abuse that often occurs within the context of intimate partner violence. Control over an individual or family’s money and the things that can be bought can have long-lasting and damaging effects. New research is crucial to building the knowledge base and contributing to the burgeoning scholarship.

Join the Violence & Society Centre and the UKPRP VISION research consortium on Tuesday 6 May from 10 am – noon in Rhind Building at City St George’s, University of London, for a seminar highlighting: 

  • the nature and impact of economic abuse in the UK; 
  • the perpetuation of this abuse through family-owned companies; and 
  • the misuse of financial products, services and technologies provided by banks in order to harm intimate partners 

Dr Vanessa Gash will chair the seminar and introduce our guest presenters with expertise in researching economic abuse: 

  • Rosa Wilson Garwood, Surviving Economic Abuse 
  • Dr Vivien Chen, Monash University 
  • Dr Belén Barros Pena, City St Georges 

Agenda 

  • 10:00 – 10:10      Welcome from the Chair, Dr Vanessa Gash, City St George’s
  • 10:10 – 10:30      Understanding the nature and impact of economic abuse in the UK, Rosa Wilson Garwood, Surviving Economic Abuse 
  • 10:30 – 10:50       Hidden risks of economic abuse through company directorships, Dr Vivien Chen, Monash University (Australia) 
  • 10:50 – 11:10       Addressing fintech-facilitated economic abuse through participatory design methods, Dr Belén Barros Pena, City St George’s  
  • 11:10 – 11:30      Panel Q & A facilitated by Vanessa Gash 
  • 11:30 – Noon      Tea / networking in the Violence & Society Centre 

The seminar will be in Rhind Building, St John Street, London, EC1R 0JD, and end with a panel discussion and Q&A followed by a morning tea in the Violence & Society Centre.  

Please register here: Economic abuse seminar

For further information, please contact VISION_Management_Team@citystgeorges.ac.uk

Upcoming event: Weaving Stories of Peer Sexual Abuse 

This event is in the past.

Insights from a youth co-created animation project

Weaving Stories is a pilot animation project developed by County-Durham arts education company, Changing Relations, and funded via the VISION research consortium through the Small Projects Fund.

The animation was co-produced with Secondary-aged students, survivors of peer sexual abuse, and an artistic team, to amplify young people’s voices on the theme of unwanted sexual behaviour and the culture that enables it. The students and young survivors shaped every aspect of the animation.

An interdisciplinary Steering Group of academic researchers, creative practitioners, and child protection and sexual violence specialists from a North East school and Rape Crisis centre, were also involved in the project.

With this animation and associated school based learning programme, Changing Relations seeks to influence knowledge, behaviour, and institutional change using the impactful animation as stimulus for reflection. Following this pilot project, VISION and Changing Relations have organised a one-hour webinar for UK policymakers and practitioners to:

  • Watch the co-created animation (20 minutes)
  • Hear young people’s perspectives on the key themes and co-production approach
  • Explore the animation’s potential impact on school cultures, disclosure, help-seeking, and victim-blaming attitudes
  • Engage in academic-informed analysis of trauma-informed safeguarding and youth-centred approaches to sexual violence prevention
  • Gain practical insights on using creative participatory approaches to engage young people in conversations about violence and abuse
  • Consider actionable recommendations for policy and practice
  • Contribute your reflections

This webinar will be of interest to a wide range of professionals who work with adolescents and / or in violence-prevention. Educators, social workers, academics, and third sector, central and local government policy analysts and researchers in particular may be interested.

There are two dates providing the option to choose between a more practice or policy oriented session:

  • Thursday 8th May 1-2pm for policymakers
  • Wednesday 14th May 3-4pm for practitioners

Speakers and facilitators

  • Lisa Davis, Managing Director, Changing Relations
  • Kate Gorman, Creative Producer and Artistic Director, Changing Relations
  • Kimberly Cullen, Knowledge Exchange Manager, UKPRP VISION research consortium, City St George’s UoL

Webinar registration

To register for free for either the 8th or 14th of May, please visit our page on Ticket Tailor.

The webinar will be on Microsoft Teams and you will receive the link on the day you choose to attend.

For further information, please contact VISION_Management_Team@citystgeorges.ac.uk

VISION/VASC Webinar Series: Into the Light Index

This event is in the past.

We are pleased to announce our next webinar for the VISION and Violence & Society Centre (VASC) Webinar Series on Tuesday, 21 January, 1100 – 1150.

Deborah Fry, Director of Data at Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute and Professor of International Child Protection Research at University of Edinburgh, will present on the Into the Light Index, published last year on the prevalence of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse. She will also discuss some of the measurement challenges in this field and how they are documenting and exploring those challenges.

Professor Fry undertakes primary research to measure the magnitude, drivers and consequences of violence against children, barriers and enablers to appropriate prevention and response systems including in school settings and the effectiveness of existing interventions.

She leads the data division at Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute. The Data Institute, funded by the Human Dignity Foundation, aims to take a data driven, evidence-based approach to understanding the prevalence of child sexual exploitation and abuse across the globe and translating that data into sustainable action that safeguards children. The mission is to establish a world leading independent institute that gathers, translates and visualises the prevalence of child sexual exploitation and abuse across the world.  

To register for the event in order to receive the Teams invitation, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

The purpose of the VISION/VASC webinar series is to provide a platform for academia, government and the voluntary and community sector that work to reduce and prevent violence to present their work / research to a wider audience. This is a multidisciplinary platform and we welcome speakers from across a variety of fields such as health, crime, policing, ethnicity, migration, sociology, social work, primary care, front line services, etc. If interested in presenting at a future Series webinar, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

This webinar series is sponsored by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (VISION; MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City St George’s, University of London.

Empowering voices against ‘honour’-based abuse: A call to action

This event is in the past.

There is an urgent need for specialist support for Middle Eastern, North African (MENA) and Afghan women and girls living in the UK, with many facing the particular risk of ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA).  On 18 October, the women’s rights organisation IKWRO held the impactful “Celebrating Courage: Empowering Voices Against Honour-Based Abuse” conference. It was hosted at City St George’s and proudly supported by the Violence and Society Centre (VASC) and VISION consortium.

The powerful event featured art, presentations, panels, film, and spoken word performances that shed light on the often-overlooked experiences of ‘honour’-based abuse (HBA) and the urgent need for education and prevention.

HBA disproportionately affects women and girls, it frequently goes unrecognised and is often conflated with domestic violence. Through this event, IKWRO, VASC and VISION aimed to illuminate the unique aspects of HBA and foster a deeper understanding of its implications.

A diverse group of speakers, including survivors, advocates, lawyers, and researchers, shared their insights and experiences. This included powerful testimonies from victims/survivors, bravely recounting their experiences of HBA. Their voices resonated throughout the room, creating a sense of solidarity and support, while also providing a safe space for discussion.

Over 100 people attended. A conference highlight was the strong presence of representatives from police and central government. Their attendance demonstrated a commitment to addressing HBA and offered them and other attendees a unique opportunity to engage directly with key figures at the forefront of the fight against HBA.

One salient moment during the conference occurred when VISION researcher Dr Ladan Hashemi, during the discussion with the police officers regarding enhancements to law enforcement responses, emphasised that “violence constitutes violence, and abuse constitutes abuse, regardless of an individual’s identity or background. It is essential for law enforcement agencies to acknowledge their obligation to prevent and mitigate HBA in the United Kingdom”.

The event also featured innovative approaches to communicating the issue of violence through art and spoken word. These forms of expression not only captivated the audience but also fostered a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding HBA. By bringing art into a conference setting, IKWRO, VASC and VISION wanted to highlight the positive impact of creative communication, showcasing the experiences of survivors and the urgent need for change.

In honour of the International Day of the Girl Child, this event was an important step toward raising awareness about HBA and the specific challenges faced by women and girls in the UK to police, government, specialist services, academic researchers and the general public.  A world free of abuse and violence requires the prevention of HBA, and for IKWRO that starts in their home base of London.

Key to the event was the organisation and support of VISION’s Knowledge Exchange Manager, Kimberly Cullen, and Dr Hashemi. IKWRO, VISION, and VACS will continue to work collaboratively to elevate the voices of survivors and advocate for meaningful change in the fight against ‘honour’-based abuse.

Photo caption: IKWRO and VISION. Photograph supplied by IKWRO.

Report launch: A transformative justice framework to address adolescent relationship abuse

This event is in the past.

Despite a general awareness of the prevalence of harm young people are experiencing in their relationships, there is little data and evidence supporting the prevention of and responses to such harm through the adoption of a survivor centred transformative justice approach.

Talia Kensit, founder and former CEO of Youth Realities, explored adolescent domestic abuse as a Fellow with the Churchill Fellowship, a UK charity which supports individual UK citizens to follow their passion for change, through learning from the world and bringing that knowledge back to the UK.

Her travels and research resulted in Prevention, Intervention and Healing: Addressing Adolescent Relationship Abuse, a framework of best practice upheld by the theory of transformative justice. It is Talia’s recommendation that in order to address the epidemic of harm experienced by young people in their intimate relationships, we must implement polices and practice through prevention, intervention and healing.

The Violence & Society Centre at City St George’s, UoL, and the UK Prevention Research Partnership VISION consortium are pleased to host Talia’s Churchill report launch on Wednesday 6 November from 4 – 6 pm at City St George’s, UoL, Clerkenwell campus.

Talia will also be joined by:

  •  Ruth Weir, City St George’s, UoL, Taking a collaborative approach to understanding more about abuse in teenage relationships
  • Christine Barter, University of Central Lancashire, Qualitative findings looking at the nature and impact of IPVA in young people’s relationships
  • Jeff Temple, University of Texas, Dating violence prevention program: implementation and effectiveness

Seating, drinks and nibbles will be provided.

To register for the event: Select tickets – Report launch: A transformative justice framework to address adolescent relationship abuse – City St George’s , University of London, Clerkenwell campus (tickettailor.com)

For questions about the event: violenceandsociety@city.ac.uk

All those registering will receive an email by 30 October from the Violence and Society Centre with the room and building number where the launch will be held on our Clerkenwell campus.

New book & upcoming launch- Tackling Domestic Abuse & Sexual Violence: A Systems Approach

This event is in the past.

Tackling Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence: A Systems Approach is a newly edited collection, curated by University of Suffolk colleagues, Dr Olumide Adisa (and Co-Investigator at VISION, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Violence & Society Centre, City St George’s) and Professor Emma Bond, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research and Knowledge Exchange.

The book’s chapters use retrospective case studies to engage with a systems approach to discover new thinking and applications that may best suit the area of domestic abuse and sexual violence (DASV). All the chapters showcase systems approaches in varying ways to ignite new inquiries and conversations about grappling with the greater complexity of problems.

Dr Adisa and Professor Bond, together with their collaborators, will launch the book at a special event at City St. George’s University of London on Tuesday, 26 November at 5.30 pm. They will explain the book and share their inspiration for the themes covered. A panel of speakers will share their collective vision for systems change in tackling DASV in different systems. The event will also feature poetry (spoken word) performances based on lived/living experiences of domestic abuse and as a survivor-centred response to the book’s themes.  

Dr Adisa said:

“I am incredibly excited about the launch event. I have been overwhelmed by the positive and heartwarming reaction to the book from those committed to tackling the problem of DASV and those sadly affected by DASV. I have been impressed with the brilliant contributions made by all the authors who are deeply committed to bringing about change. This event is an opportunity to hear from some amazing speakers and forge new encounters and connections, united in our quest to reduce DASV and mitigate its devastating impact on children, families, and communities.”

Professor Sally McManus, Director of the Violence and Society Centre, and Co-Deputy Director, VISION, said:

“Dr Adisa works at the forefront of systems thinking. This new collection – co-curated with Prof Bond – brings a radical new approach to addressing violence and abuse, rooted in diverse real-world examples of challenge and change. The book houses many rich voices, distinct yet drawn together through common themes of complexity and hope.”

Please join Dr Adisa, Professor Bond, and their fellow collaborators at their 26 November book launch at The Pavilion, University Building, City St George’s, from 5:30 – 7 pm. Drinks and nibbles will be provided.

Registration is required for this free event: Select tickets – Book launch: Tackling Domestic Abuse & Sexual Violence – A Systems Approach – The Pavilion, University Building, City, University of London (tickettailor.com).

This book launch is hosted by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (VISION) (MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London (VASC).