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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.

    Cost effectiveness of primary care training & support programme for secondary prevention of DVA

      Recent research evaluated the cost-effectiveness of the Identification and Referral to Improve Safety plus (IRIS+) intervention compared with usual care using feasibility data derived from seven UK general practice sites.

      IRIS+ is a training and support programme for clinicians working in primary care to aid in their identification of those experiencing or perpetrating domestic violence / abuse (DVA).

      VISION Deputy Director, Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa and Director, Professor Gene Feder, worked with their University of Bristol colleagues to conduct a cost–utility analysis, a form of economic evaluation comparing cost with patient-centred outcome measures, as a means to measure the benefit obtained from the treatment or intervention.

      The specific cost-utility analysis they conducted assessed the potential cost-effectiveness of IRIS+ which assists primary care staff in identifying, documenting and referring not only women, but also men and children who may have experienced DVA as victims, perpetrators or both.

      The analysis showed that in practices that adopted the IRIS+ intervention, a savings of £92 per patient occurred. The incremental net monetary benefit was positive (£145) and the IRIS+ intervention was cost-effective in 55% of simulations (when the model is repeated with different assumptions).

      The research team therefore concluded that the IRIS+ intervention could be cost-effective in the UK from a societal perspective though there are large uncertainties. To resolve these the team will conduct a large trial with further economic analysis.

      For further information please see: Primary care system-level training and support programme for the secondary prevention of domestic violence and abuse: a cost-effectiveness feasibility model | BMJ Open

      Or contact Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa at e.capelasbarbosa@bristol.ac.uk

      Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash

      COVID-19 adaptations to a training and support programme to improve primary care response to domestic abuse

        Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa, VISION Deputy Director has recently published, COVID-19 adaptations to a training and support programme to improve primary care response to domestic abuse: a mixed methods rapid study in the BMC Primary Care journal, with Lucy Downes, IRIS Network Director.

        Increased incidence and/or reporting of domestic abuse (DA) occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of the lockdowns across the UK, services providing support to victims had to adapt and consider adding methods of remote outreach to their programmes.

        Identification and Referral to Improve Safety (IRIS) is a programme to improve the response to domestic abuse in general practice, providing training for general practice teams and support for patients affected by DA. The COVID-19 pandemic required those running the programme to adapt to online training and remote support.

        Estela and Lucy employed a mixed methods rapid approach to this research in order to gather evidence around the relevance, desirability and acceptability of IRIS operating remotely. Quantitative IRIS referral data were triangulated with data from surveys and interviews. They found that the adaptation to online training and support of IRIS was acceptable and desirable.

        This study contributes to practice by asserting the desirability and acceptability of training clinicians to be able to identify, ask about DA and refer to the IRIS programme during telephone/online consultations. The findings from this study may be of interest to (public) health commissioners when making commissioning decisions to improve the general practice response to domestic abuse.

        For further information please see: COVID-19 adaptations to a training and support programme to improve primary care response to domestic abuse: a mixed methods rapid study | BMC Primary Care (springer.com)

        Or contact Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa at e.capelasbarbosa@bristol.ac.uk

        Photo by Chris Yang 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

          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

            Criminology hindered by lack of longitudinal data to study consequences of victimisation

              VISION researchers Dr Vanessa Gash and Dr Niels Blom write in their latest publication, Measures of Violence within the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey and the Crime Survey for England and Wales: An Empirical Assessment, that the field of criminology has been hampered by a lack of longitudinal data to examine the consequences of victimisation.

              However, recently, ‘Understanding Society’, the United Kingdom Household Panel Survey (UKHLS), began fielding a small battery of questions relating to violence experience. Here, we examined the strengths and weaknesses of these UKHLS measures with similar indices from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), a widely used and regarded but cross-sectional survey.

              Vanessa and Niels empirically assessed the extent to which the UKHLS variables are comparable with those in the CSEW to determine the viability of the UKHLS for the longitudinal study of (fear of) violence and its consequences.

              Overall, they regarded the UKHLS to provide an important resource for future panel research on the consequences of victimisation. They found the indicators measuring physical assault to be similar in both sets of data, but also noted differences in prevalence and/or different distributions by socioeconomic group for the indices relating to being threatened and of feeling unsafe.

              Nonetheless, Vanessa and Niels maintain their utility for researchers in this field, allowing researchers to uncover new inequalities in violence exposure.

              For further information please see: Measures of Violence within the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey and the Crime Survey for England and Wales: An Empirical Assessment

              Or contact Dr Vanessa Gash at vanessa.gash.1@city.ac.uk

              Illustration by People Images – AI on Adobe Stock (licensed)

              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

                Mental health in the workplace: how employers should respond to domestic violence

                  This event is in the past.

                  VISION member Sally McManus will be talking at a Westminster Insight event on Supporting Women’s Health in the Workplace on 20 March 2024.

                  Sally will use a life-course approach to understanding women’s mental health and wellbeing at work, including the impact of the psychosocial working environment, bullying and harassment at work, and what support and signposting employers can offer in relation to domestic violence.

                  For further information, please contact Sally at sally.mcmanus@city.ac.uk

                  Photo by Etty Fidele on Unsplash

                  Dr Annie Bunce receives award at Lancet Public Health Science conference

                    Dr Annie Bunce

                    Dr Annie Bunce, VISION Research Fellow, was awarded Best Oral Presentation at the Lancet Public Health Science conference in London this November. She presented on the Prevalence, nature and associations of workplace bullying and harassment with mental health conditions in England: a cross-sectional probability sample survey.

                    Annie’s research, conducted with VISION colleagues Ladan Hashemi, Sally McManus, and others, presents the first nationally representative findings on the prevalence of workplace bullying and harassment in England for over a decade. Annie analysed data from the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey (APMS) to demonstrate: the prevalence of workplace bullying and harassment (WBH) in the working population in England; the nature of WBH experienced, who it was perpetrated by and the types of behaviour it involved; and associations between the experience of WBH and indicators of adverse mental health.

                    The study is unique in that the APMS makes robust assessments of mental health – operationalising diagnostic criteria – which provides an accurate assessment of clinical need. Implications for employers, policymakers, health services and researchers are outlined.

                    For the article, please see: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02066-4/fulltext

                    Please contact Annie at annie.bunce@city.ac.uk for further information.

                    Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

                    VISION Research Fellow chaired European Public Health Association conference symposium

                      Dr Anastasia Fadeeva

                      We’re delighted that one of VISION’s core researchers, Dr Anastasia Fadeeva, chaired a symposium at the upcoming European Public Health Association (EUPHA) conference in November in Dublin.

                      The workshop, Responding to violence and abuse across the life-course, presented a range of analyses – drawing on data from New Zealand, Germany and the UK – that addressed the ways in which violence and abuse manifest at different life stages, including in childhood, among working-age adults, and in later life.

                      The presentations highlighted differences across the life course, as well as commonalities. They demonstrated the long-term, even life long, shadow that violence and abuse can cast over people’s health, and provided evidence of the extensive costs for society. Health impacts were shown to be broad, not only anxiety and depression, but substance dependence, chronic physical health conditions, and related health risks such as obesity.

                      This symposium comprised four presentations that each considered violence and abuse prevalent at a particular stage of life, and provided evidence to inform the sensitive tailoring of responses from and for families, schools, health and social services, workplace human resource employees, and care and residential homes. 

                      For further information on the conference, please see: 16th European Public Health Conference (ephconference.eu)

                      Or contact Anastasia at anastasia.fadeeva@city.ac.uk

                      Photo by Priscilla Du Preez ?? on Unsplash