by Slachtofferhulp Nederland

Registration for this workshop is now closed as the maximum number of participants has been reached.

Strengthening the One-Stop Model: Guiding Victims through Generic and Specialist Support Services

Slachtofferhulp Nederland is the Dutch generic support organization that aids victims of criminal acts, traffic accidents, and major incidents, closely collaborating with specialist support services, especially for victims of sexual and domestic violence.

This 1.5-hour interactive workshop will showcase two client journeys—one involving sexual violence and the other domestic violence—introducing two collaboration models. It will clarify how clients are guided through different support systems, encompassing both legal and psychosocial aspects, and highlight the monitoring of their journey.

The session will cover:

• Presentation of two collaboration models with generic and specialist support services for clients experiencing sexual and domestic violence, encompassing legal and psychosocial aspects.
• Implications for support services due to new laws on sexual violence, leading to an increased influx of victims.
• The development of a new client support system enabling the monitoring of client’s post-referral.
• A debate on the pros and cons of the two models and strategies to address gaps in support.

Interactive workshop in two parts by Federal Public Service Public Health (BE):

1. Demo BITS (Belgian Incident Tracking System)

In case of collective emergencies, the Federal Public Service for Public Health of Belgium is responsible for the organization of medical-psychosocial assistance. One of the tasks is to set up a registration of all those affected. However, the evaluation of various past emergency situations in Belgium showed that the registration was difficult and became almost an impossible task in complex incidents.

Following the 2016 terror attacks in Brussels, the authorities financed the development of an integrated collaborative system for victim registration that would enable all stakeholders to work within the same environment.

BITS is designed as an application, which can be used both on mobile devices or on the web and to which each user has a unique personal access. The system was consequently launched in April 2022 and has been successfully put to test in both exercises as well as in actual crisis and large scale incidents.

The foundation of BITS is to locate, trace and then identify who is involved. We want to know where the affected people are, what their medical condition is and give them a “name” as quickly as possible. With BITS, emergency services from the medical-psychosocial chain have the possibility to do this in a simple way. The starting point is the fitting of a wristband with a unique code to which data can then be linked. Each individual relief worker can, based on his specific task, complete the pathway and file of those affected step by step. This applies to the relief workers on site, in hospitals and those working in reception centers responsible for receiving the uninjured and family members.

A second important foundation of BITS is the registration of search queries. One can look up a missing person and check if this person was registered along the chain of assisting services. If the missing person is not found, a thorough registration of the search query will contribute to the identification of persons who are not yet known. Think of seriously injured persons in hospitals or deceased persons.

Based on all registrations, a wide variety of lists and overviews can be generated. This information is used to adjust the emergency assistance and to inform the partners in a crisis center. It also offers an overview that contains the necessary information to organize the aftercare. In this part of the workshop we will give a short demo on how the system works.

2. Debating session: Understanding the Psychosocial Impact of CBRNe Incidents on Emergency Management and Long-term Victim Support

The psychosocial aspects of CBRNe (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive) incidents significantly influence the efficiency of various emergency management pillars as well as long term support.

Research shows that the fear and uncertainty surrounding CBRNe incidents can contribute to an increase in stigmatization of affected individuals, overwhelming demand for medical services, decreased willingness to intervene from first responders, and high levels of psychosocial problems especially in vulnerable populations and first responders alike. Understanding the potential psychosocial consequences and aligning with the particular needs of victims will improve the response for all different multi-sectoral actors involved.

This psychosocial impact extends to factors such as adherence to protective measures (e.g., iodine intake, decontamination), the willingness of responders to engage, evacuation readiness, and the enduring mental well-being of all involved personnel. Furthermore, protective measures, designed for safety (e.g., iodine consumption, radiation monitoring, sheltering in place, and evacuation), may also impact the well-being, both physically and mentally, of those affected. Therefore, a crucial necessity is the collaborative, multidisciplinary approach and proactive consideration of potential strategies to address these challenges.

Understanding that the psychological and social effects of CBRNe incidents require integrating psychosocial health aspects into all phases of the emergency cycle, from preparation to immediate response and the extensive aftermath.

This part of the workshop aims to explore these multifaceted predictable challenges and identify comprehensive strategies for addressing the psychosocial impacts of CBRNe incidents within the realm of emergency management and long term victim support.

by Project BeneVict

Based on the common problematic areas which were identified in the research that was conducted for the assessment of the Victims’ Rights Directive in 26 EU Member States through project BeneVict, the workshop will explore how victims’ rights organisations could include advocacy and policy work in their activities. The workshop will help organisations understand the environment they are working in and help them launch an advocacy campaign. It will explore the key factors they need to consider when developing national or EU advocacy initiatives.

by Victim Support England & Wales

In 2021 Victim Support England and Wales worked with the Welsh Assembly Government to launch an all Wales campaign on Hate Crime, including a television advertisement to be shown during prime television slots. The advertisement can be viewed here – Hate hurts Wales | GOV.WALES.

An essential element of this campaign was to use real people’s stories and experiences to show the impact hate crime can have on every part of someone’s life. They set up a Lived Experience Advocacy Forum of Hate Crime victims who worked directly with the marketing team on everything from storyboards, choosing actors and reviewing footage.

In this session they will share their experience and learning of empowering victims to share their stories for media campaigns, including the barriers they faced and the solutions they developed. They will also lead on discussions around some of the considerations of such media campaigns.

Could raising awareness of Hate Crime in this way actually lead to further offending and victimisation? Are we potentially re-traumatising victims who see the advert?

Lastly the session will ask participants to think of a campaign for their service:

• How could they amplify victims voices in this campaign?
• How would you make it relevant to the issues you are facing in your area?

See potential session overview below:

• Introduction (10 minutes)
  • Introduction of Victim Support England and Wales
  • Opportunity for participants to introduce themselves
• Campaign Overview (20 minutes)
  • Viewing of the Hate Hurts Wales video campaign
  • How we set up and involved the Lived Experience Advocacy Forum
  • Barriers along the way
  • Sharing best practice
• Discussion on the pros and cons of using victims voice in campaigns (20 minutes)
  • Topics we had to consider (examples above)
• Activity: Putting learning into practice (30 minutes)
  • Participants will apply insights gained from the workshop to develop a campaign focused on addressing the pressing issues in their community, with a particular emphasis on amplifying the voices of those affected
• Reflections and aspirations based on the workshop (5 min)
• Session Close

The aim of the workshop is to provoke meaningful discussion around how we can involve the voice of the victim in our campaigns and motivate others to understand how they can replicate something similar in their work. We hope that by sharing best practice, more victim’s voices can be heard through our work.

PART #1 by Validity Foundation:

Connected: Coordinating Support Services for Women with Disabilities

Gender-based violence against women with disabilities is over-looked and under-reported. While women with disabilities are more likely to be victims of violence, at the same time they face greater barriers reporting a crime and accessing support services. In practice, the intersectionality between gender and disability means that neither generic nor specialist services alone are well placed to provide the necessary support. Effective coordination between existing services – and in particular between generic victim support, specialist support for victims of gender-based violence, support services for women, and disability services – together with accessibility measures, would transform the experiences of women with disabilities.

The workshop will address the following:

• What are the barriers experienced by women with disabilities accessing victim support services? What impact do those barriers have?
• Three tools that can help overcome those barriers, based on experiences in different EU countries: o Cooperation protocols between victim support services, disability services and other specialist service providers. o Multi-disciplinary teams. o Specialist facilitators or intermediaries who can help communication between women with disabilities and support services.
• Action planning and identifying steps workshop participants can take in their organisations.

The workshop will be interactive using quizzes, a case study and role play to engage participants. The workshop is based on the findings from the DIS-CONNECTED project, an EU funded initiative taking place in five countries – Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovakia – focusing on improving ways that women and children with mental and psychosocial disabilities can report violence and access support services.

At the end of the workshop participants will:

• Understand the physical, communication, attitudinal, and institutional barriers experienced by women with disabilities when they access victim support services.
• Have knowledge of how to implement three different approaches to addressing barriers.
• Identified barriers and challenges in their own organisations for assisting women with disabilities.
• Have a short action plan for what they can change in their organisation to better serve women with disabilities who have been victims of crime.

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PART #2 by The European Sex Workers Rights Alliance (ESWA)

Empowering Justice: Insights from Participatory Research on Access to Justice for Sex Worker Victims of Crime

Over the last two years, ESWA has worked in partnerships with 15 sex workers’ rights organisations in 12 countries on a Feminist Participatory Action Research that explores the relationship between sex workers and the police. Based on 222 interviews with sex workers who had direct experience with the police and other law enforcement agencies (either as victims, witnesses or ‘criminals’), the research analyses key factors impacting sex workers’ access to justice.

In this session, ESWA will present key findings of the research (which will be fully published on June 2nd 2024 for International Sex Workers’ Rights Day) and in particular how criminalisation and policing limit sex workers’ access to justice. The session will also discuss how to design and implement participatory research, led by the affected communities.

The objective of the session will be to provide a space for VSE members and conference attendees to understand the obstacles sex workers and generally disadvantaged communities face in accessing justice. We will examine some of the underlying reasons behind why certain groups under-report crimes, explore possible, innovative ways of effective collaboration between sex workers’ rights organisations, victims’ rights and law enforcement agencies (across services and sectors).

The session will be facilitated by an ESWA team member, as well as an ESWA member in Croatia NGO Flight, and will include specific case studies highlighting positive collaborations taken from our research.

Methodology:

• Presentation of the research findings
• Case studies: why don’t sex workers report?
• Facilitated discussion with workshop participants

by Project Chat4Victims

CHAT for Victims is an European project, coordinated by Victim and Witness Support Service Croatia, that aims to improve the support system for victims of crime who are persons with disabilities by implementing an accessible live chat service. During the workshop, the scope of the project will be presented, as well as the main findings of the conducted research on how to provide accessible distant support. Participants will also learn more about the challenges and barriers persons with disabilities face when seeking support. Based on these findings, participants will analyze and discuss guidelines on how to provide accessible chat service and facilitate accessing the information and support for victims of crime who are persons with disabilities. They will also have a chance to implement these findings through practical individual and group activities.

Workshop will be held by Ivana Prović and Maja Štahan.

by NATAL (ISRAEL)

Case study: the Collaboration Created to Support the Survivors of the Nova Festival Massacre (October 7, 2023)

On October 7, 2023, the Nova Festival, as well as two additional music gatherings, turned into a scene of terror, when Hamas terrorists launched a merciless and largescale terrorist attack on the participants. 364 people were murdered, many of whom were raped and mutilated, and 40 taken hostage. In view of the severe and widespread consequences of the terrorist attack, the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, the Federation of Local Authorities in Israel, the Ministry of Health, the Youth Authority in the Ministry of Development of the Negev and the Galilee, the Community Security Authority, Mifal HaPais (the national lottery of Israel), private civilian initiatives, philanthropists, the Israeli Coalition for Trauma, and NATAL, joined forces, with the aim of formulating immediate intervention plans for the survivors of the parties. This partnership is the first of its kind dealing with a crisis the size and impact of which was never experienced before in Israel, creating new knowledge and protocols. This collaborative effort’s goal is to minimize, as much as possible, the consequences of the traumatic event and help the party survivors reach an optimal return to functioning and a full life. The inter-ministerial and inter-sectorial collaboration includes a traumaaware professional treatment support program for party survivors and their families; professional training and guidance for the teams that care for the community; locating, reaching out and assisting survivors to access services and utilize rights; as well as guiding local authorities in the provision of an adapted response.

In our workshop we would like to expose participants to the complexities, challenges, dilemmas, and advantages to developing inter-sectorial partnerships and collaborations in order to provide a holistic and comprehensive response to large scale crises and events that impact a large number of victims and circles of vulnerabilities. We plan to simulate a crisis situation in which participants will divide into groups and receive different roles (such as NGO, Government Ministry, Local Authority, Civilians, Businesses and others). They will then be asked to put together an initial response to the crisis. Following their group work, we will reconvene and hold a discussion, using the Nova Festival Inter-Sectoral Partnership as a case study.

by WEISSER RING (GERMANY)

This proposed side event for the 2024 VSE Annual Conference delves into the topic of ensuring the quality and standard compliance of victim support services. The focus is on a comprehensive, multi-level training system designed for 2,700 volunteer victim support workers of Weisser Ring. The training system encompasses basic, advanced, and regular training, covering diverse subject areas like criminal offenses, victim groups, leadership, and other relevant fields. Various forms of implementation, including in-person, online, and hybrid training, will be explored. The session concludes by examining methods to guarantee both the quality of the training itself and the overall learning success.

For the interactive part of our workshop, we want to encourage a discussion with the participants. The goal is to have an exchange so that everyone can learn from one another.

The following questions are supposed to be our guideline for the discussion:

• What education or qualifications are required for your employees?
• How are your employees trained, is there a structured onboarding process?
• What do your employees need to be successful in helping victims? What kind of education do you provide?
• Which topics are addressed during the onboarding? (Legal issues, communication, victimology, psychotraumatology)
• Are there any topics that you believe are missing or not covered adequately?
• Are there continuing education opportunities? What are they? Are they in-house training sessions or do you rely on external providers?
• Is the support for specific victim groups only possible after specific training on the subject? (e.g., sexual abuse, stalking, domestic violence, etc.)
• Does your organisation have its own academy or a department for education and training? How is this department equipped? (Staff, budget, trainers, etc.)

by Victim Support Sweden

Registration for this workshop is now closed as the maximum number of participants has been reached.

This workshop will discuss the concept of secondary victimisation of victims and witnesses in connection with criminal proceedings. We will highlight specific risk factors or points in time when victims/witnesses are at increased risk of suffering harm and secondary victimisation. Workshop participants will be invited to discuss ways in which greater cooperation between criminal justice agencies can help to identify signs of secondary victimisation and what steps can be taken to limit such risks.

We will also present the results from the COVIS project´s new impact measurement tool to identify what support victims/witnesses themselves found most helpful in connection with a trial and what impact the support had for their ability to participate in the criminal hearing. This topic is particularly important given that the updated draft EU Directive on victims´ rights includes a new right for victims to access information and emotional support at court in connection with criminal trials/hearings. By understanding how the criminal justice process impacts on victims/witnesses, we can work to ensure that our national justice systems implement the new right in a mindful manner and adopts a more victim-friendly approach. This will better enable victims to access justice, recover from the negative effects of the crime and return to living a fulfilled life with reduced risk of suffering harm from the criminal justice process itself.

by EMDR

The contribution of EMDR psychologists to the latest critical and mass events regarding a shooting in Prague will be described. The implications for Specialised Psychological support will be outlined in terms of symptom reduction, stabilisation, trauma confrontation, and community protective factors that promote resilience. According to research and international guidelines, EMDR therapy can make a significant contribution to this population to prevent mental disorders, resolve risk factors, and facilitate integration and adjustment in the aftermath of such events, using and transforming the critical experiences that survivors were exposed to in a constructive way. EMDR treatment is implemented in this humanitarian emergency in different phases of trauma, both individually and in groups.

During the presentation, it will be described how EMDR clinicians have been involved with different purposes in the aftermath of the shooting:

• To intervene in the acute phase of traumatisation, reducing arousal reactions and preventing the accumulation of traumatic stress.
• To intervene with these young survivors to reduce risk factors for mental and emotional disorders.
• To intervene with the groups to enhance resources and protection factors.
• To process the traumatic images and moments of extreme stress.
• To intervene with first responders exposed to high levels of stress related to their work.
• To prepare survivors for future challenges, such as returning to the university, etc