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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.

        Webinar: Hate crime and human rights – Taiwan, UK and global perspectives

          This event is in the past.

          28 June 2023, 12:30 – 13:40 BST, online

          The Violence & Society Centre at City and the UKPRP VISION Consortium are pleased to invite you to Hate Crimes and Human Rights: Taiwan, UK and Global Perspectives.

          Po-Han Lee and Wen Liu are members of TUSHRN, an ESRC funded network of sex, gender and sexuality health (SGS) researchers in Taiwan and the UK, which includes City, LSHTM, and Lancaster. They will be visiting the Centre on 28 June to present their research:

          • Queer Politics in South/East Asia: State-Sponsored Hate and Political Cultural Relativism (by Po-Han Lee)
          • Anti-Asian Violence Amidst US-China Geopolitical Conflicts: The Limits of “Hate” Discourses and Cross-Racial and Cross-National Solidarity (by Wen Liu)

          Please register by emailing your interest to VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk. An invitation with the Teams link will be emailed to you 28 June.

          Please see below for the programme and the presenters’ biographies.

          Programme

          12:30-12:35 Introductions

          12:35-1:00 Queer Politics in South/East Asia: State-Sponsored Hate and Political Cultural Relativism (by Po-Han Lee)

          1:00-1:25 Anti-Asian Violence Amidst US-China Geopolitical Conflicts: The Limits of “Hate” Discourses and Cross-Racial and Cross-National Solidarity (by Wen Liu)

          1:25-1:40 Overall Q&A and reflections

          Biographies

          Po-Han (Peter) Lee:

          Po-Han Lee is an Assistant Professor at the Global Health Program and the Institute of Health Policy and Management at National Taiwan University. Previously trained in International Law and Political Sociology, he has been studying the construction, circulation and consumption of the right to health discourse in global health policymaking. Po-Han has been a member of the Feminist Review Collective (UK) and a senior editor for Plain Law Movement, the first multimedia platform for legal and human rights education in Taiwan. He recently published the book, Towards Gender Equality in Law (2020), which he co-edited with Gizem Guney and David Davies, and his new book, Plural Feminisms: Navigating Resistance as Everyday Praxis, coedited with Sohini Chatterjee, is being published later in 2023.

          Wen Liu:

          Wen Liu is an Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Trained as a critical social psychologist and informed by queer and critical race theory, her book project (forthcoming from the University of Illinois Press) investigates diasporic Asian American subjectivities and their geopolitical alignments in times of US-China interimperial rivalry.

          Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

          Webinar: Parental and child mental health and intimate partner violence

            This webinar is in the past.

            27 June 2023, 17:00 – 18:30 BST, Zoom

            VISION director, Professor Gene Feder, led the webinar, Interrelationships between parental mental health, intimate partner violence and child mental health – implications for practice, with Dr Shabeer Syed and Dr Claire Powell on behalf of the NIHR Children and Families Policy Research Unit.

            They presented findings from a mixed methods study that seeks to improve responses to families affected by intimate partner violence (IPV) and parents and children’s mental health problems.

            Then, they presented preliminary findings on the relationship between parental IPV and a range of clinically relevant adversity and mental health-related indicators (www.acesinehrs.com) in anonymised health records from parents and children presenting to GPs, A&E and hospital admissions between one year before and five years after birth.

            Their research shows that 1 in 5 (20%) families experienced IPV, although only 1 in 50 (2%) had IPV recorded in the GP record.  Recording of other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) was better, with 1 in 2 (53.4%) families having at least one recorded in the early life course. Compared to families without ACEs, families with ACEs had a higher risk of parental IPV, especially when at least one parent and child had recorded a mental health problem. Gene will discuss the implications of these findings for national guidance on supporting families experiencing IPV and mental health problems, articulating how data already within medical records can help identify those families. 

            For further information please see: Interrelationships between parental mental health, intimate partner violence and child mental health – implications for practice – ACAMH

            Photo by Sebastián León Prado on Unsplash

            Technology-facilitated abuse seminar

              This event is in the past.

              Wednesday 10 May 2023, 1 – 2 pm, hosted by the Oxford Internet Institute

              Dr Leonie Tanczer, Associate Professor in International Security and Emerging Technologies at University College London and Co-Investigator of the UKPRP Violence, Health and Society (VISION) consortium, presented on technology-facilitated abuse (“tech abuse”) in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV) .

              She examined the “boundary questions” that tech abuse creates and provided an overview of the current research landscape whilst discussing the findings of a recent comparative survey conducted with UK and Australian support sector representatives.

              For further information on the seminar please see: Technology-facilitated abuse in the context of intimate partner violence Tickets, Wed 10 May 2023 at 13:00 | Eventbrite

              Photo by David Carillet / Shutterstock.com

              Policing Domestic Abuse hybrid seminar

                This event is in the past. Wednesday 1 March 2023, 10:30 am – Noon, in person and online

                Hybrid event – Policing Domestic Abuse | Faculty of Law (ox.ac.uk)

                Dr Ruth Weir, Senior Research Fellow with the UKPRP VISION consortium, will be presenting with her colleagues, Chief Superintendent Katy Barrow-Grint (Thames Valley Police), Professor Jackie Turton (University of Essex) and Dr Jackie Sebire (Institute of Criminology), on their book, Policing Domestic Abuse.

                The book is dedicated to improving the practice of the policing of domestic abuse. Its objective is to help inform those working in policing about the dynamics of how domestic abuse occurs, how best to respond to and investigate it, and in the longer term how to prevent it. An effective investigation and the prosecution of offenders are considered, as well as an evaluation of the success of current treatment options. Policing domestic abuse can only be dealt with through an effective partnership response. The responsibilities of each agency and the statutory processes in place when policy is not adhered will also be outlined. The aim is to help shed light on the challenges of policing domestic violence and the links between academic research and best practice.

                Mental health and wellbeing data – webinar for researchers

                  This webinar focused on quantitative analysis of secondary data, to provide insight into population mental health and its social determinants. It took place on Teams Monday, 6 March 2023, at 14:00-15:30.

                  Speakers included VISION researcher Sally McManus, who discussed England’s main mental health survey, the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS). The survey series covers anxiety and depression, alongside items on violence and abuse.

                  This webinar formed part of a series organised by Understanding Society, UK Data Service, Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) and the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). The Data Resource Training Network is a collaboration between a number of ESRC-funded resource centres working together to promote the value and use of social science data.

                  Photo credit: Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

                  Connect Centre webinar: Reducing domestic abuse by improving the measurement and analysis of data

                    This event is in the past.

                    Wednesday 15 February 4 – 5 pm, hosted by by School of Social Work, Care and Community – UCLan

                    Reliable and valid measures of domestic abuse (DA) at the individual, neighbourhood, regional and national levels are crucial. A clear understanding of the nature and extent of the problem will allow us to respond appropriately to reduce levels of DA, reduce harm resulting from DA, and protect lives. A number of sources of information are available, each with their own strengths but each with considerable weaknesses.

                    One source that is little used but shows promise is data from police information systems (as distinct from data from the Police National Computer). Ongoing work by the VISION consortium will address the challenges of working with data from different police forces. The main aim of VISION – a five-year national project funded by a £7million grant from the UKPRP – is to optimise and synthesise fragmented data on all forms of violence from multiple sources (police, surveys, courts, health etc) within a shared framework.

                    Dr Les Humphreys is a Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice and Policing at UCLan. Prior to joining UCLAN, he worked at Lancaster University for almost 20 years in various academic roles. He is a quantitative criminologist specialising in carrying out longitudinal analysis, and his research involves applying sophisticated statistical methods to all types of criminal justice data.

                    Book launch for new publication aimed at improving police responses to domestic abuse

                      How to respond and investigate domestic violence

                      On 15 November 2022, City, University of London hosted a book launch for Policing Domestic Violence, written by Katy Barrow Grint, Thames Valley Police; Dr Jacqueline Sebire, Cambridge University; Professor Jackie Turton, University of Essex; and Dr Ruth Weir, City, University of London. The event, held in The Pavilion, was attended by local police forces including the Metropolitan Police and Thames Valley Police as well as academics researching domestic violence. The keynote speakers were Louisa Rolfe, OBE, Assistant Commissioner of the Met, and Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner.

                      The book, Policing Domestic Violence, is dedicated to improving the practice of the policing of domestic abuse. Its objective is to help inform those working in policing about the dynamics of how domestic abuse occurs, how best to respond to and investigate it, and in the longer term how to prevent it. Divided into thematic areas, the book uses recent research findings to update some of the theoretical analysis and to highlight areas of good practice: ‘what works and why’. An effective investigation and the prosecution of offenders are considered, as well as an evaluation of the success of current treatment options. Policing domestic abuse can only be dealt with through an effective partnership response. The responsibilities of each agency and the statutory processes in place when policy is not adhered to are outlined.

                      Written with the student and budding practitioner in mind, this book is filled with case studies, current research, reports, and media examples, as well as a variety of reflective questions and a glossary of key terms, to help shed light on the challenges of policing domestic violence and the links between academic research and best practice.

                      Photo caption: from left to right – Dr Ruth Weir, City University; Dr Jackie Turton, University of Essex; Nicole Jacobs, Domestic Abuse Commissioner; Louisa Rolfe, OBE, Assistant Commissioner at the Metropolitan Police; and Katy Barrow Grint, Thames Valley Police