IPVoW Improving intervention in intimate partner violence against older women
This is an EU-funded research project which focuses on the situation of elderly fe-male victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). Seven partners from six countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, United Kingdom) with different wel-fare regimes and gender equality traditions will carry out research on IPV against elderly women and develop recommendations for policy makers and service provid-ers for elderly female victims of domestic violence. The project runs for two years until 2010. Project partners are the University of Bialystok (Poland), the Academy of Science (Hungary), the University of Sheffield (UK), the Institute Cesis (Portugal), the Institute of Conflict Research (Austria), the German Police University (project man-agement Prof. Thomas Görgen), and Zoom e.V. (Germany).
As a first step, every country will perform a secondary data analysis and thereby compile nationally available data from women's shelters, hotlines, victim's services, domestic violence intervention systems and police statistics. A standardized postal survey of victim's service institutions (women's shelters/refuges, hotlines, counselling systems, services for crime victims and victims of elder abuse, adult protection sys-tems) will be used to collect data on institutional knowledge of the phenomenon and handling of cases but also as a screening instrument to detect organisations with case knowledge. On this basis, in every country 30 professionals with case knowl-edge will be interviewed. The survey and the interviews will be used as a starting point to get into contact with 10 victims of IPV as interview partners in every country. In the semi-structured interviews with staff and victims, characteristics of victims and perpetrators, risk and protective factors, causes of abuse and dynamics and context of violent acts will be explored in detail. A special focus will be put on help seeking behaviour, barriers for help seeking and gaps in existing support systems.
In each country, partners will build or use existing national expert networks consisting of representatives of national organisations on violence against women, seniors' or-ganisations, elder abuse organisations, law enforcement agencies, legislation, and policy makers. These experts will facilitate the access to data for secondary data analysis (see above) and will identify current responses to IPV against elderly women and detect gaps in legislation and support systems and discuss the national need for future action on the topic.
At an international workshop, experts from EU-countries who do not participate in the project will add expertise as regards current and future action on this issue in their countries and will contribute to developing recommendations for prospective national and EU-activities. The partners in this project are nationally and internationally re-nowned scientists and very experienced in research on domestic violence, elder abuse and/or gerontology. All are interested in bringing together expertise from gerontological, criminological and domestic violence background and making it use-able for the development of practice. All partners are closely linked to national and international networks of researchers and practitioners and take part in the develop-ment of policies. Associate partners are Prof. Zvi Eisikovits and Tova Band Winter-stein from University of Haifa, who will enrich the research process and the discus-sion on future activities with his expertise on qualitative research on domestic vio-lence against elderly women and on effective intervention systems.
The results of the project will be published at the end of 2010 in six national reports (in English and the respective languages of the project partners) and in a compre-hensive overall report (in English).
As a first step, every country will perform a secondary data analysis and thereby compile nationally available data from women's shelters, hotlines, victim's services, domestic violence intervention systems and police statistics. A standardized postal survey of victim's service institutions (women's shelters/refuges, hotlines, counselling systems, services for crime victims and victims of elder abuse, adult protection sys-tems) will be used to collect data on institutional knowledge of the phenomenon and handling of cases but also as a screening instrument to detect organisations with case knowledge. On this basis, in every country 30 professionals with case knowl-edge will be interviewed. The survey and the interviews will be used as a starting point to get into contact with 10 victims of IPV as interview partners in every country. In the semi-structured interviews with staff and victims, characteristics of victims and perpetrators, risk and protective factors, causes of abuse and dynamics and context of violent acts will be explored in detail. A special focus will be put on help seeking behaviour, barriers for help seeking and gaps in existing support systems.
In each country, partners will build or use existing national expert networks consisting of representatives of national organisations on violence against women, seniors' or-ganisations, elder abuse organisations, law enforcement agencies, legislation, and policy makers. These experts will facilitate the access to data for secondary data analysis (see above) and will identify current responses to IPV against elderly women and detect gaps in legislation and support systems and discuss the national need for future action on the topic.
At an international workshop, experts from EU-countries who do not participate in the project will add expertise as regards current and future action on this issue in their countries and will contribute to developing recommendations for prospective national and EU-activities. The partners in this project are nationally and internationally re-nowned scientists and very experienced in research on domestic violence, elder abuse and/or gerontology. All are interested in bringing together expertise from gerontological, criminological and domestic violence background and making it use-able for the development of practice. All partners are closely linked to national and international networks of researchers and practitioners and take part in the develop-ment of policies. Associate partners are Prof. Zvi Eisikovits and Tova Band Winter-stein from University of Haifa, who will enrich the research process and the discus-sion on future activities with his expertise on qualitative research on domestic vio-lence against elderly women and on effective intervention systems.
The results of the project will be published at the end of 2010 in six national reports (in English and the respective languages of the project partners) and in a compre-hensive overall report (in English).
IPVoW homepage is online
The homepage of our projce IPVow is now online. From January 2011 on you find here reports of all partners in their languages and in English translations as well as a summarizing report in English.
Link
If you would like further information, please contact Barbara Nägele