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New partnership between VISION and the Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network

We are pleased to announce a new, one-year partnership with the Violence, Abuse and Mental Health Network (VAMHN).

VAMHN is a network of individuals and organisations aiming to reduce the prevalence of mental health problems by addressing associated violence and abuse, particularly domestic and sexual violence.

The interdisciplinary cross-sector network brings together and supports research by experts from a range of disciplines, sectors, and backgrounds – some with lived experience, others with expertise from the work that they do, and survivor researchers with both.

VAMHN’s work aligns with our own goals of improving measurement of violence and better use of data to prevent and mitigate the harm that violence causes to health and wellbeing.

VAMHN has done sterling work engaging with survivors of violence in co-producing research and creating a Lived Experience (LE) Advisory Group. They will support VISION as we build and expand on LE engagement across our project.

For further information on VAMHN, please see: The Violence, Abuse, and Mental Health Network

Or contact us at VISION_Management_Team@city.ac.uk

Illustration by Elnur/Shutterstock.com

Podcast on police and domestic violence publication

Hear VISION Senior Research Fellow, Ruth Weir, in conversation with Jackie Turton, University of Essex, as they discuss their recent publication, Policing Domestic Violence: Risk, Policy, and Practice, with Jules Pretty of The Louder than Words podcast series.

Ruth and Jackie collaborated with two serving police officers, Kate Barrow-Grint and Jacqueline Sebire, to write a book that improves police force understanding of the dynamics of how domestic abuse occurs, how best to respond to and investigate it, and, in the longer term, how to prevent it.

It is a unique collaboration of real-life policing experience blended with the latest academic research and best practice to update some of the theoretical analysis and to highlight areas of good practice like what works and why.

To listen to the podcast please see: The Louder than Words podcast

Or contact Ruth at ruth.weir@city.ac.uk

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VISION member awarded UKDS Impact Fellow focused on the socioeconomics of violence

We’re delighted that one of VISION’s core researchers, Dr Niels Blom, has been awarded a prestigious UK Data Service (UKDS) Fellowship.

The award will be used to improve the reach and impact of Niels’ research on violence and abuse and its relationship with job loss, health, and wellbeing. He is using several UKDS datasets, including the UK Longitudinal Household Survey and the Crime Survey for England Wales, to understand the link between violence, particularly intimate partner violence, and its socioeconomic, wellbeing, and health impact.

For more information about Niels, his work, and what he hopes to get out of the Fellowship scheme, see his blog on the UKDS website.

The UKDS is funded by the UKRI and houses the largest collection of economic, social and population data in the UK. Its Data Impact Fellowship scheme is for early career researchers in the academic or the voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VSCE) sector. The focus in 2023 is on research in poverty, deprivation, the cost of living crisis, housing and homelessness, using data in the UK Data Service collection. The purpose of the programme is to support impact activities stemming from data-enhanced work.

For further information on the UK Data Service please see: UK Data Service

To read Niels’ blog please see: UK Data Service Data Impact Fellows 2023: Niels Blom – Data Impact blog

Or contact Niels at niels.blom@city.ac.uk

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Measuring violence using administrative data collected by specialist domestic and sexual violence and abuse support services

Interpersonal violence, which can include various forms of domestic and sexual violence and abuse (DSVA) is a leading cause of death, particularly among young adults. In the UK, specialist DSVA services provide much-needed support to victim-survivors of these types of violence, and some provide support for perpetrators to change their behaviour. To monitor and support their work, specialist services collect data on violence. This data has the potential to improve understanding of violence but presents unique challenges.

In this review, VISION researchers Dr Annie Bunce, Dr Sophie Carlisle and Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa describe and discuss some of the key challenges facing the data collected by specialist services.

Inconsistencies in data collection arise due to the differing remits and priorities of specialist services, which mean violence and abuse are defined and measured in slightly different ways by these organisations. Particularly, the review highlights the significant variation in outcomes and outcome measurement tools used to evidence the effectiveness of services and interventions.

Specialist support services collect valuable data on many and multiple types of violence, the wide impacts of violence on victim-survivors’ lives, and information about perpetrators. As the data are not collected for research purposes, a considerable amount of work is often required to make the data suitable for statistical analysis. Critically, the piecemeal and insecure funding of specialist services limits their capacity to collect and analyse data.

Together these issues make it challenging to collate data from specialist services and use it to inform measurements of violence.

The researchers recommend the development of a core outcomes framework, exploration of methods for linking specialist services data with other sources of administrative data on violence, and sustainable funding for third sector specialist support services.

For further information please see: Social Sciences | Free Full-Text | The Concept and Measurement of Interpersonal Violence in Specialist Services Data: Inconsistencies, Outcomes and the Challenges of Synthesising Evidence (mdpi.com)

Or contact Dr Annie Bunce at annie.bunce@city.ac.uk

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Young People and Intimate Partner Violence: Experiences of Support and Services in England

Although estimating the prevalence of victimisation among young people is challenging, previous research indicates that around a fifth of young people have experienced physical violence from an intimate partner, half experienced emotional victimisation, and a quarter report some type of unwanted sexual contact. National UK crime surveys consistently find young women to be at greater risk of victimisation than those over 25, and intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA) is one of the leading risks of death globally for younger women (aged 20–24).

In this paper, VISION Director Professor Gene Feder and colleagues from the University of Bristol and University of Central Lancashire, explored young people’s experiences of seeking or receiving institutional help and support in relation to IPVA.

Semi-structured interviews were carried with 18 young people aged 18 to 25, using Life History Calendars. Experiences of range of types of services in relation to intimate partner violence were explored, including support from education; primary and maternity services; third sector organisations; and counselling and support workers.

Participants said that they wanted clearer information to be provided in schools on identifying abuse from a younger age and better signposting and access to specialist services. They described how they benefited from equal power dynamics in relationships with professionals where they were supported to make their own decisions.

The authors found that young people often view adult support services as not for them and more needs to be done to understand effective responses to IPVA among different groups. Professionals in all sectors (including schools) need IPVA trauma-informed training that encourages equal power dynamics, with a clear understanding of and access to referral pathways, to be able to respond better to the specific needs of young people experiencing IPVA.

For further information please see: Young People and Intimate Partner Violence: Experiences of Institutional Support and Services in England | SpringerLink

Or contact Dr Maria Barnes at maria.barnes@bristol.ac.uk

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Webinar: Police body-worn cameras & domestic violence responses

Dr Mary Iliadis, Deakin University

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 over. 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.

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Varying definitions and measurements of violence limit reduction strategies

Violence reduction is a United Nations (UN) sustainable development goal (SDG) and is important to both the public health and criminology fields. The collaboration between the two has the potential to create and improve prevention strategies but has been hampered by the usage of different definitions and measurements.

In this paper, VISION researchers Dr Niels Blom, Dr Anastasia Fadeeva and Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa explore the definitions and measurements of violence by the World Health Organization, UN, and Council of Europe to arrive at a harmonized framework aligned with the SDGs.

Violence and abuse are defined by these organizations as intentional actions that (are likely to) lead to harm, irrespective of physicality or legality. When recording violence and abuse, health- and justice-based administrative systems use different codes which cannot directly be translated without resorting to broad overarching categories.

The researchers propose a framework to record violence that includes individual and event identifiers, forms of violence and abuse (including physical, sexual, and psychological), harm, and individual and event characteristics.

For further information please see: Social Sciences | Free Full-Text | The Concept and Measurement of Violence and Abuse in Health and Justice Fields: Toward a Framework Aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (mdpi.com)

Or contact Niels at Niels.Blom@city.ac.uk

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Webinar: Parental and child mental health and intimate partner violence

This webinar is over. 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

Different childhood adversities lead to different health inequalities

Even experiencing just one type of adverse childhood experience (ACE) increases the risks of poor health outcomes in adulthood, including health-harming behaviours, poor sexual and mental health, and crime and violence.

Among people experiencing one type of ACE, this study examined which ACEs were most strongly related to each type of health harms, using a combined study sample of 20,556 18–69 years living in England and Wales. The research team, including VISION researcher Mark Bellis, found that sexual abuse in childhood strongly predicted subsequent obesity. Sexual abuse also showed the biggest increase in later cannabis use. Household alcohol problems in childhood was the ACE most strongly associated with violence and incarceration in adulthood.

Toxic stress can arise from ACEs such as physical and sexual abuse, but other more prevalent ACEs, for example verbal abuse and parental separation, may also contribute substantively to poorer life course health.

For further information, please see: Comparing relationships between single types of adverse childhood experiences and health-related outcomes: a combined primary data study of eight cross-sectional surveys in England and Wales | BMJ Open

Or contact Mark Bellis at M.A.Bellis@ljmu.ac.uk

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