Development
Worker to encourage agencies in Edinburgh
This
work stems from DVPP’s innovative work with men, in court mandated programmes.
However, this pilot project would not be part of DVPP, but instead would
be encouraging other services, both statutory and voluntary, who already work
with men to adopt good practice in terms of addressing men’s abusive
behaviour.
The
development worker (dw) would undertake awareness raising on the issue of male
violence against women, and would provide training to workers on working with
violent men, adopting the DVPP model, which is loosely based on the Duluth
model.
The
dw would make links with agencies like children and families social work teams,
community education teams, the Children’s Reporters Department, alcohol groups
and couple counselling services.
This
pilot project will develop work undertaken previously under the Daphne
programme. The dw will link with
the European Network of practitioners working with men to learn from the
experience of other countries, and share good practice.
The dw will investigate whether there is a directory of availbale
web-sites on the issue, and will publicise the pilot and its results on one or
more of these existing sites.
By
the end of the year it is hoped that an active group of practitioners will have
formed, who will explore possibilities on how to take this work forward in
Edinburgh.
There
will also be an end of year report compiled for decision makers at a city-wide,
Scottish and European level. It is
envisaged that this could inform current multi-agency work, including the
Scottish Partnership on Domestic Abuse, both in the UK and in other European
states. Aims:
·
To develop an
innovative pilot project linking with Edinburgh’s Multi-Agency Strategy on
Tackling Violence Against Women, making men visible;
·
To develop
European links to share good practice;
·
To increase
awareness amongst agencies on the issue of male violence to women;
·
To make men
visible in agencies responses to violence against women;
·
To increase
awareness on the issue of tackling men’s abusive behaviour;
·
To provide
training to workers working with men who are abusing or have abused women;
·
To improve
service providers responses to men who are abusive, thus improving services for
both women and men;
·
To produce an
end of year report of the success, or otherwise, of the pilot project to inform
decision makers and share good practice with European partners;
·
By the end of
the year of the project the aim is to have a pool of workers who could run a
voluntary group for men. Innovative
Nature
This
project would be an integral part of a multi-agency initiative to tackle male
violence against women.
It
would encourage the involvement of agencies not currently involved in
multi-agency initiatives
Current
provision in Edinburgh divides into two camps: small pockets of voluntary
services for men who are violent, which have to charge service users a fee due
to lack of funds and thus may exclude groups of men; and the court-mandated
system, working only with those men whose behaviour results in a criminal
conviction. |