VISION director Gene Feder draws on his experience of three decades of research into healthcare responses to domestic violence, highlighting mistakes made and lessons for better research.
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Small projects funded by the VISION consortium
We are pleased to announce the five successful proposals for the VISION Small Projects Fund.
Over 70 proposals were submitted to our call for projects that contribute to VISION objectives. This incredible number highlighted not only the strong interest there is in violence-related research, but also the urgent need for increased funding for this type of work.
It was a difficult selection process, and we were sorry that we could not fund more.
The successful projects were selected by a panel that included experts by experience, and representation from specialist services and a range of academic institutions from around the country. The final portfolio was selected to ensure some diversity of sectors, disciplines, methodologies, and regions.
Each project will enhance the VISION research and inform our work. We are excited to work with each of the Principal Investigators (PIs) and their partners.
- Changing Relations Community Interest Company (C.I.C), Weaving stories of peer sexual abuse, PI: Lisa C Davis
- Surviving Economic Abuse, A rapid impact survey to monitor the nature and prevalence of economic abuse in the UK, PI: Rosa Wilson-Garwood
- Anglia Ruskin University, ‘Nothing about us without us’: Investigating the impact of the leadership of ethnic minority women on domestic abuse service provision in East England, PI: Mirna Guha
- University of West London, Enhancing the wellbeing of victims of Hate Crimes who occupy multiple minority identities, PI: Maya Flax
- University of South Wales, Stalking and Young People in Wales: Exploring and increasing knowledge, awareness and understanding, PI: Sarah Wallace
For further information on the individual projects, please see the VISION Small Projects Fund webpage: Funded Small Projects – City Vision
Final reports from each of the projects will be published on the VISION website when available. We will also organise project presentations via the VISION and VASC Webinar Series and advertise the events on the VISION Publications, Events & News webpage.
Illustration from licensed Adobe Stock library
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
A health perspective to the war in Israel and Palestine
Gene Feder, VISION Director and Professor of Primary Care at the University of Bristol, has written an opinion piece with colleagues commenting on events in Israel and Gaza from a public health and primary care perspective. Responding to the war in Israel and Palestine was published in December in the online edition of the British Journal of General Practice.
Gene and his colleagues are GPs working to further the development of family medicine in the occupied Palestinian territory, specifically in the West Bank, but with links to family medicine in Gaza through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and through Medical Aid for Palestinians. They also have friends and family in Israel and Palestine.
They have three responses to the current crisis as informed by their work as GPs and connection to Palestinian primary care:
- A plea for the protection of health care and health professionals amid the war
- A plea for the preservation of public health amid war
- A recognition that in the aftermath of October 7th and the invasion of Gaza, the widespread direct and vicarious trauma in Israeli and Palestinian populations will result in permanent physical and emotional damage: the former in the shape of orthopaedic, neurological, and gynaecological (as a result of rape) harm, the latter in the form of widespread anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder which will also cascade down the generations.
Given VISION’s commitment to developing evidence on violence prevention, we will be organising roundtable meetings bringing together researchers focusing on post-conflict violence reduction. This is an opportunity for dialogue, perhaps leading to new perspectives and research including systematic assessment of sustainable post-conflict interventions as well as further joint activities.
For further information on the opinion piece, please see: Responding to the war in Israel and Palestine
Photograph by Emad El Byed on Unsplash
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
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.
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
VISION responds to Parliamentary, government & non-government consultations
Consultation, evidence and inquiry submissions are an important part of our work at VISION. Responding to Parliamentary, government and non-government organisation consultations ensures that a wide range of opinions and voices are factored into the policy decision making process. As our interdisciplinary research addresses violence and how it cuts across health, crime and justice and the life course, we think it is important to take the time to answer any relevant call and to share our insight and findings to support improved policy and practice. We respond as VISION, the Violence & Society Centre, and sometimes in collaboration with others. Below are the links to our published responses and evidence from June 2022.
- UK Parliament – Women and Equalities Committee – Inquiry: The rights of older people. Our submission was published in November 2023
- UK Parliament – Women and Equalities Committee – Inquiry: The impact of the rising cost of living on women. Our submission was published in November 2023
- UK Parliament – Women and Equalities Committee – Inquiry: The escalation of violence against women and girls. Our submission published in September 2023
- Home Office – Legislation consultation: Machetes and other bladed articles: proposed legislation (submitted response 06/06/2023). Government response to consultation and summary of public responses was published in August 2023
- Welsh Government – Consultation: National action plan to prevent the abuse of older people. Summary of the responses published in April 2023
- Race Disparity Unit (RDU) – Consultation: Standards for Ethnicity Data (submitted response 30/08/2022). Following the consultation, a revised version of the data standards was published in April 2023
- UK Parliament – The Home Affairs Committee – Call for evidence: Human Trafficking. Our submission was published in March 2023
- UN expert – Call for evidence: Violence, abuse and neglect in older people. Our submission was published in February 2023
- UK Parliament – The Justice and Home Affairs Committee – Inquiry: Family migration. Our submission was published in September 2022 and a report was published following the inquiry in February 2023
- Home Office – Consultation: Controlling or Coercive behaviour Statutory Guidance. Our submission was published in June 2022
For further information, please contact us at VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk
Photo by JaRiRiyawat from Adobe Stock downloads (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
Download the slides from Session 1 – Childhood and teenage years
Download the slides from Session 2 – Social inclusion in policy & research
Download the slides from Session 3 – Working life, poverty and economic impacts
Download the slides from Session 4 – Older people
