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VISION/VASC Webinar Series: IPV and the LGBTQI+ communities

    This event is in the past.

    We are pleased to announce the VISION and Violence & Society Centre (VASC) Webinar Series.

    The purpose of the 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.

    Our first webinar is Tuesday, 20 February 2024, 1300 – 1350. We welcome Dr Steven Maxwell, Research Associate in the School of Social & Environmental Sustainability and Associate in the School of Health and Wellbeing, at the University of Glasgow.

    Steven will present his research on intimate partner violence within the LGBTQI+ communities. He is a former mental health nurse and completed his PhD in Global Public Health at University College London in 2021. Steven’s PhD explored HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis uptake/adherence among men who have sex with men who engaged in sexualised drug use. His current interest is researching health inequities/social justices across minority and deprived populations, particularly sexual & mental health, and related substance use.   

    To register for the event in order to receive the Teams invitation and / or if interested in presenting at a future Series, please contact: VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

    The VISION/VASC Webinar Series is sponsored by the UK Prevention and Research Partnership consortium, Violence, Health and Society (MR-V049879) and the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London.

    Event: Zero tolerance to female genital mutilation

      This event is in the past.

      The International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is 6 February every year. The United Nations Assembly designated the day with the aim to amplify and direct the efforts on the elimination of this practice.

      In support to highlight the day and the horrific practice of FGM, IKWRO, a London-based human rights organisation for Middle Eastern, North African and Afghan women and girls living in the UK, is hosting Zero tolerance to female genital mutilation on 5 February 2024, 2 – 5 pm, in London at Resource for London, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA.

      The event brings together experts and survivors to shed light on the challenges and gaps in safeguarding women and girls globally in the context of FGM:

      • Payzee Mahmod, Campaign Manager at IKWRO
      • Naana Otoo-Oyortey, Executive Director of FORWARD, an African diaspora women’s rights organisation in the UK
      • Mama Sylla, an FGM survivor and chairwoman of La FRATERNITE UK, a London-based registered charity
      • Shamsa Araweelo, an FGM survivor and social activist
      • Janet Fyle, Royal College of Midwives’ (RCM) Professional Policy Advisor and a Cardiff University School of Policy Law accredited Expert Witness
      • Jaswant Kaur Narwal, Chief Crown Prosecutor
      • Aisha K. Gill, Ph.D., CBE is Professor of Criminology at University of Bristol
      • Detective Superintendent Alex Castle, Metropolitan Police and Lead Responsible Officer for Harmful Practices and co-chair of the London Harmful Practice Working Group

      Speakers and attendees will engage in discussions about the pressing issues surrounding FGM such as the challenges and barriers to disclosure, reporting and prosecution and explore ways to bridge the existing gaps through policy changes, community involvement and institutional improvements.

      For further information on the free event and to register, please see: Zero Tolerance to FGM Conference

      Or please contact VISION Senior Research Fellow, Dr Ladan Hashemi at: ladan.hashemi@city.ac.uk

      Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

      VISION Research Fellows presenting at Crime Surveys User Conference 2024

        This event is in the past.

        VISION researchers Dr Polina Obolenskaya, Dr Elouise Davies and Dr Niels Blom will present at the Crime Surveys User Conference 2024 on 6 February 2024 in Islington, London.

        The event brings data producers and data users together to share updates on the development of the surveys and to showcase research that is being carried out using the data. It is organised by the UK Data Service in collaboration with the Office for National Statistics, Scottish Government and the Home Office.

        Polina, Elouise and Niels will each discuss the findings of their recent research using the Crime Survey for England and Wales:

        • Polina – The rise, fall and stall of violence in England and Wales: How have risks of violence changed for groups in the population?
        • Elouise – When there’s more than one assailant: Understanding variation in victims’ needs
        • Niels – New Crime Survey for England and Wales integration code: Impact for investigating
          rare events such as different intimate partner perpetrator types

        For further information on the conference, please see: Crime Surveys User Conference 2024.

        For further information on their research, please contact Polina, Elouise or Niels at: polina.obolenskaya@city.ac.uk; e.davies4@lancaster.ac.uk; or niels.blom@city.ac.uk

        Photo by Headway on Unsplash

        VISION Adolescent Domestic Abuse conference

          This event is in the past.

          If registered, please enter through the main entrance in the University Building, across from Northampton Square, a green space with a gazebo. There is also a silver sculpture in front of University Building.

          Only those that registered will be able to enter the conference room.

          To register please see: VISION and VASC Adolescent Domestic Abuse conference

          The UK Prevention Research Partnership Violence, Health & Society (VISION) consortium and the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London, are pleased to announce the Adolescent Domestic Abuse conference.

          Thursday 18th April 2024, 10:00 – 17:00 followed by a reception 
          Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre (Tait Bldg), City, University of London, EC1B 0HB 

          Adolescent domestic abuse, which includes physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse that occurs between young people who are, or were, dating, is often overlooked in research, policy and practice. The current definition of domestic abuse leaves those aged under 16 in teenage relationships falling into the gap between child protection procedures and adult-focused domestic abuse policy. 

          The conference brings together academics, practitioners, and policy makers to share existing research, policy and practice.

          Registration is required and free. This is an in person conference only and catering will be provided. If you cannot attend but would like the slides, please contact the email listed below.

          The programme: 

          • 9:30 – 10:00 Registration & refreshments 
          • 10:00 – 10:20 Welcome & setting the scene, Dr Ruth Weir, Violence and Society Centre, City, University of London and Katy Barrow-Grint, Assistant Chief Constable, Thames Valley Police
          • 10:20 – 10:40 Introductory Speaker, Louisa Rolfe OBE, Metropolitan Police and National Police Chief Council lead for Domestic Abuse
          • 10:40 – 11:00 Rapid evidence review on domestic abuse in teenage relationships, Flavia Lamarre, and Dr Ruth Weir, City, University of London
          • 11:00 – 11:30 Learning from the lived experience, SafeLives Changemakers
          • 11:30 – 12:00 Researching abuse within teenage relationships: A critique of a decade’s work and what we could do better, Professor Christine Barter, Co-Director of the Connect Centre for International Research on Interpersonal Violence and Harm, University of Central Lancashire 
          • 12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
          • 13:00 – 14:20 Panel 1: Teenage relationships and abuse: What the research says, chaired by Professor Sally McManus, Director of the Violence and Society Centre and Deputy Director of the VISION research project
          • Panel 1: Step up, Speak Out: Amplifying young people’s voices in understanding and responding to adolescent domestic abuse, Janelle Rabe, Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse, Durham University
          • Panel 1: ‘In practice it can be so much harder’: Young people’s approaches and experiences of supporting friends experiencing domestic abuse, Jen Daw and Sally Steadman South, SafeLives
          • Panel 1: Healthy relationships: children and young people attitudes and influences, Hannah Williams and Sarah Davidge, Women’s Aid
          • Panel 1: Intimate partner femicide against young women, Dr Shilan Caman, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
          • 14:20 – 14:35 Break
          • 14:35 – 15:35 Panel 2: Sexual violence in teenage relationships, chaired by Katy Barrow-Grint, Thames Valley Police
          • Panel 2: “Always the rule that you can’t say no”: Adolescent women’s experiences of sexual violence in dating relationships – Dr Kirsty McGregor, Loughborough University 
          • Panel 2: Empowering Youth: Addressing Online Pornography and Adolescent Domestic Abuse – Insights from the CONSENT Project – Berta Vall, Elena Lloberas and Jaume Grané, Blanquerna, Barcelona, Spain and The European Network for Work with Perpetrators of Domestic Violence, Berlin, Germany
          • Panel 2: Image-Based Sexual Abuse as a Facet of Domestic Abuse in Young People’s Relationships – Dr Alishya Dhir, Durham University
          • 15:35 – 15:50 Break
          • 15:50 – 16:50 Panel 3: Specialist services and local government, chaired by Dr Olumide Adisa, University of Suffolk
          • Panel 3: The role and value of Early Intervention Workers in supporting children and young people aged 11–18 in a domestic abuse service context – Elaha Walizadeh and Leonor Capelier, Refuge 
          • Panel 3: Prevention, Identification, Intervention and Protection: Learning on teenage domestic abuse from a multi-agency model in the London Borough of Islington – Aisling Barker, Islington Borough Council
          • Panel 3: Tackling adolescent domestic abuse in Lambeth – Rose Parker, Erika Pavely, Ariana Markowitz, and Siofra Peeren, Lambeth Health Inequalities Research and Evaluation Network 
          • 16:50 – 17:00 Closing remarks and next steps
          • 17.00 – onwards Drinks reception, Conference attendees are invited to a drinks reception in the Oliver Thompson foyer

          The abstracts

          The abstracts and information on the poster presentations and stands are below for downloading.

          ADA-abstracts-allDownload

          For further information and any questions, please contact VISION at VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

          Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

          Webinar: Ontological Security Theory & Migration Studies

            Dr Alexandria Innes

            This event is in the past.

            VISION researcher and City, University of London International Politics Senior Lecturer, Dr Alexandria Innes, will be speaking with Professor Catarina Kinnvall (Lund University) and Dr Marcus Nicolson (EURAC Research) on 23 January 2024 at 1 pm CET about ontological security.

            Ontological security refers to a person’s sense of existential safety in the world. The theory was originally used by the psychiatrist R.D. Laing to explain how his patients’ experienced reality in a way that did not conform with normative experiences. Later, the theory was revisited by sociologist Anthony Giddens (1991), who emphasised the role of routines, societal trust, and biographical narratives in providing individuals with a sense of security.

            The webinar explores the use of Ontological Security Theory in migration studies and political science. Prof Kinnvall will draw on her expertise in the study of minority groups to show how a strong conceptualisation of home is key for individuals to develop feelings of ontological security and highlight the role that state-level narratives play in these processes. Dr Innes will provide insights from her research on the life histories of individual migrants to argue that a strong biographical narrative and sense of trust in their surroundings are necessary to perform security.

            This webinar is part of the EURAC Research online series “Diversity Matters”. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the webinar series explores the impact of migrations, diversities and mobilities on increasingly superdiverse territorial realities. The series is a forum for experts to share their work and expertise with an audience of fellow academics, students, decision-makers and practitioners.

            To register and for further information please see: Ontological Security Theory & Migration Studies webinar

            For any questions or comments, please contact Andri at alexandria.innes@city.ac.uk

            Making change happen in primary care: the story of IRIS

              VISION Director and Professor of Primary Care at the University of Bristol Medical School, Gene Feder, was a keynote speaker at the webinar: Making change happen in primary care – The IRIS story, on 28 November 2023.

              With his co-presenter, Medina Johnson, CEO of IRIS, they shared the story of the concept and ambition that led to the beginning of the social enterprise established in 2017 to promote and improve the healthcare response to domestic violence and abuse (DVA).

              DVA is a violation of human rights that damages the health of women and families. The health care sector, including primary care, has been slow to respond to the needs of patients affected by DVA, not least because of uncertainty about the effectiveness of training clinicians in identification and engagement with survivors of abuse.

              To address that uncertainty, Gene and Medina conducted a cluster-randomised trial in Hackney and Bristol, finding that both identification and referral to specialist DVA services substantially increased in the intervention practices.

              In the webinar they mapped the (not always smooth) trajectory from trial results to a nationally available programme commissioned by Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and local authorities in over 50 areas to date, including getting into guidelines/policy, further implementation research, negotiating with commissioners, and setting up a social enterprise (IRISi) to drive the scaling up of the intervention.

              For further information please watch the webinar video below.

              For any questions or comments, please contact IRISi at info@irisi.org

              State Violence – An online research symposium

                This event is in the past.

                We invite you to attend State Violence: An online symposium, Thursday 19 October at 13.00 BST. This symposium brings together researchers in International Relations to discuss the conceptual development, critical concerns, causes, ethics, and empirical realities of state violence.

                This discussion starts from the premise that we do not dedicate enough time in IR to the violence of the state. We ask what this means in global systems and structures, as well as in lived experiences and everyday realities. Themes include legal violence, epistemic violence, colonial violence, digital violence, human rights activism, and affective atmospheres of violence.

                We invite you to participate in a thought-provoking discussion that pushes the boundaries of international relations theory. The event will involve a panel of four speakers, each taking a different approach to the theme of state violence. It will be followed by 45 minutes of participatory Q&A where we invite the audience to submit questions and fuel further discussion.

                The speakers and chair are:

                Leonie Fleischmann – Senior Lecturer in International Politics and Human Rights at City, University of London

                Jasmine Gani – Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Co-Director of the Centre for Syrian Studies at the University of St Andrews

                Ty Solomon – Professor of International Relations in the school of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow

                Sasikumar Sundaram – Lecturer in International Politics, Foreign Policy and Security Studies at City, University of London

                Chair: Alexandria Innes – Senior Lecturer of International Politics and researcher in the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London and Co-Investigator in the VISION consortium

                To register please see: Webinar Registration – Zoom

                The symposium is facilitated by the International Ethics Section of the International Studies Association; the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London; and the Societal Insecurities Research Cluster in International Politics at City, University of London.

                For further information, please contact Andri at alexandria.innes@city.ac.uk

                Presentations from 2nd VISION annual conference now available

                  We are pleased to provide the presentations from our 2nd annual conference held 21 September 2023 at Mary Ward House in London. 

                  The theme was Responding to violence across the life course. Sessions included presentations on childhood and teenage years; working life, poverty & economic impacts; older years; and social inclusion in policy and research. The conference concluded with a panel discussion on violence and complex systems.

                  Seventy-seven academics, central and local government officials, practitioners, and voluntary and community sector organisations attended from a range of health and crime / justice disciplines.

                  Please feel free to download the presentations below. Each session is one download.

                  Photo caption: Dr Ladan Hashemi, Senior Research Fellow at VISION, answers a question after her presentation, ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences and Childhood Obesity:​ Exploring Potential Mediating and Moderating Factors​’

                  Download the Welcome slides

                  VISION-Annual-Conference-2023_Welcome-1Download

                  Download the slides from Session 1 – Childhood and teenage years

                  VISION-Annual-Conference-2023_Session-1-Childhood-and-teenage-yearsDownload

                  Download the slides from Session 2 – Social inclusion in policy & research

                  VISION-Annual-Conference-2023_Session-2-Social-inclusion-in-policy-and-researchDownload

                  Download the slides from Session 3 – Working life, poverty and economic impacts

                  VISION-Annual-Conference-2023_Session-3-Working-life-and-economic-impactsDownload

                  Download the slides from Session 4 – Older people

                  VISION-Annual-Conference-2023_Session-4-Older-people

                  Call for proposals now closed: Adolescent domestic abuse

                    The call for proposals for the Adolescent Domestic Abuse conference on 18 April 2024, is now closed.

                    The event is free to attend, and registration will open in early 2024. For any questions or comments about the upcoming conference in the meantime, please contact Ruth Weir at ruth.weir@city.ac.uk or VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk.

                    We invited proposals for conference presentations and welcome applications from researchers, academics, practitioners, and policy makers. 

                    Adolescent domestic abuse, which includes physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse that occurs between young people who are, or were, dating, is often overlooked in research, policy and practice. The current definition of domestic abuse leaves those in teenage relationships falling into the gap between child protection procedures and adult-focused domestic abuse policy (Barrow-Grint et al, 2022).    

                    The Crime Survey for England and Wales finds that women aged 16 to 19 are more likely to experience domestic abuse than any other age group (ONS, 2020), but despite the prevalence, women in this age group are less likely to be referred to support services (SafeLives, 2017). The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 brought in new legislation that saw children who live in a home where domestic abuse takes place recognised for the first time as victims in their own right. The Act also lowered the minimum age for a person to be classified as a victim of domestic abuse from 18 to 16 years.

                    However, research from SafeLives found that, on average, experiencing abusive behaviour from a partner begins at age 14 or 15, leaving a gap in recognition and support for those under the age of 16 (SafeLives, 2017).  Research among those aged 11-16 in Wales found a range of mental health and social impacts associated with experiencing domestic abuse, including teenage pregnancy, self-harm and violent behaviour (Young et al, 2021). 

                    These challenges are echoed by those trying to police domestic abuse, with the Assistant Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police questioning whether the age at which domestic abuse is recognised in law and practice for victims and perpetrators should be lowered to 13.

                    We acknowledge this is a complex and contested question that needs significant research and nuanced consideration from many angles. For example, consideration of intersectional issues such as the criminalisation of young people and the lack of alternatives to custody currently available to those who use harmful or abusive behaviours, as well as issues pertaining to cultural backgrounds. 

                    Proposals for single presentations on topics relating to adolescent domestic abuse were encouraged to include – but not limited to – the following topics:  

                    • Empirical evidence on victimisation and/or perpetration of adolescent domestic abuse 

                    • Evidence on different approaches, theories or practices in response to adolescent domestic abuse  

                    • Policy or practice initiatives, developments or frameworks (including legal) regarding adolescent domestic abuse

                    The conference is organised and hosted by the following:

                    Photo by Eliott Reyna on Unsplash

                    Webinar: Police body-worn cameras & domestic violence responses

                      Dr Mary Iliadis, Deakin University

                      This event is in the past.

                      Wednesday, 9 August, 10:30 am – Noon, in-person and online

                      The VISION Consortium and the Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London, welcome Dr Mary Iliadis, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Deakin University in Australia. She will present ‘The merits and risks of police body-worn cameras in domestic and family violence responses’ based on her recent publication in Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy.

                      Dr Iliadis will discuss the significant investment by Australian police agencies in the use of body-worn cameras (BWCs). Preliminary evidence suggests that when used in the context of domestic and family violence, BWC footage may strengthen evidential cases and prosecutions. There is, however, a paucity of research examining the merits of, and risks posed by the use of BWC footage in domestic and family violence incidents and legal proceedings.

                      Notably absent in much of the literature are the views and experiences of police officers who, as initial owners of BWC footage, are likely to affect how it is produced and interpreted. 

                      Her work is the first Australian study to examine how police officers, as users and operators of BWC technology, perceive the use of BWC footage in DFV-related civil and criminal legal proceedings in two Australian state jurisdictions: Western Australia and Queensland. The findings highlight the importance of exercising domain-specific, rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach when it comes to understanding the benefits and limitations of BWC technology.

                      Join us in person at the Violence & Society Centre in the Rhind building on City campus from 10:30 am – noon or online. If in person, please note this seminar was originally in A01 College Building but is now in the Violence and Society Centre, 1st floor, Rhind Building.

                      Booking is required. Please email VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk and state whether you will be in person or online. A link will be emailed on the day to those attending online. Light refreshments will be served afterwards for those in person.