Shaping the project outcomes on a working seminar in Ljubliana

Last week the full team of CEINAV researchers worked together for four days to deepen the project findings and prepare the final steps. 

During the winter the projects teams in the four countries met with practitioners, stakeholders and women and  young people who had told us about their intervention experiences. These meetings served to present and discuss preliminary results, as well as reflecting on the art from creative workshops with survivors of violence. Now the researchers are developing a synthesis across countries for each form of violence. We call them “triangulation papers” because they bring together the perspectives of professionals, the experiences of survivors, and our background knowledge about intervention systems like three corners of a triangle.

In Ljublana we have taken important steps towards producing outcomes that we hope will be useful and accessible to practitioners and stakeholders in the intervention field. These include: (1) a paper proposing some ethical foundations for effective and helpful intervention practice, (2) a video with voices of professionals and of survivors illustrating different perceptions of key ethical issues, and (3) an anthology of stories based on the messages that survivors who have travelled through a history of intervention could offer to intervention actors. In addition, videos are being finalised from the four countries showing, in very different ways, how art work by survivors might communicate important aspects of their intervention experience. Separate papers will undertake a synthesis of the theoretical work in CEINAV.

Alongside planning for the closing events in each of the four countries, the 4-day seminar also yielded a plan for an edited book to which the both the lead researchers and the early career researchers will contribute papers; a prospectus is being developed within the next few weeks. It will be a site for explaining more fully the methodology, the theoretical framework, and some interesting findings. 

left to right back: Thomas Meysen, Rita Lopez, Maria José Magalhães,
Liz Kelly, Vlasta Jalušič, Carol Hagemann-White, Janna Beckmann,
left to right front: Veronika Bajt, Lana Zdravković, Bianca Grafe,
Raquel Felgueiras, Angélica Lima Cruz

  

The space of four days in Ljubljana opened up time for every participant to comment on a preliminary version of the video, and on the draft paper of ethical foundations. In depth debates during the meeting concerned how ethical guidance for practice might be connected with ethical theories. Comparing overall “intervention cultures” was also a topic of lively debate, where the contentions around the notion of culture and the complexity of intervention systems and practices circulated to further develop our understanding. There is work still to be done on a conceptual framework for our findings, with the challenge of integrating intersectionality and postcolonial theories with insights from the theories of subalternity and coloniality, This path will help us articulate and clarify the connections between structural violence and interpersonal violence. 

Surrounded by beautiful sights and wonderful sunshine, CEINAV researchers gathered new energy to take back to our respective countries and to work on the final steps of the project. 

Workshop with Associate Partners - October 9th, 2015

On October 9th, 2015 we met with Associate Partners and discussed the project’s results so far. We talked about the comparative papers that have been written recently and the creative workshops that were developed in the four countries. We also brainstormed about the project’s final seminar, namely the organization of the talks. We also designated a provisional date for the event. Finally, we formalized the collaboration with the Association for Family Planning (APF), which has a specialized division that provides services to victims of human trafficking.

Rita Lopez

From left to right: Clara Sottomayor (Senior Researcher), Angélica Lima Cruz (Senior Researcher), Raquel Felgueiras (Artist-Researcher), Rita Lopez (Researcher), Ilda Afonso (Associate Partner - UMAR), Leonor Valente Monteiro (Associate Partner - APC), Fernanda Pinto (Associate Partner - APF), Rita Moreira (Associate Partner - APF), Maria José Magalhães (Principal Investigator)

"Creative Dialogue" in Berlin ein Erfolg EN/DE

For english version of this entry see below

"Creative Dialogue" in Berlin ein Erfolg

Am 16. September haben das DIJuF aus Heidelberg und die Universität Osnabrück, als deutsche Partner im EU-Projekt „Cultural Encounters in Intervention Against Violence“ (CEINAV), zu einem kreativen Workshop eingeladen, um die Möglichkeiten zu beleuchten, die Kunst zur besseren Verständigung über Erfahrungen von Betroffenen mit der Intervention leisten kann. Er fand in Räumen der „WeiberWirtschaft eG“ in Berlin statt; für die Frauenhauskoordinierung nahm Heike Herold teil.

Nachdem im ersten Projektjahr die Perspektive der Fachkräfte im Mittelpunkt stand (vgl. „working papers“ hier im Projektblog) haben die beiden deutschen Teams in diesem Jahr insgesamt 27

Mit "Fusspartituren" haben die Betroffenen ihren
Weg durch die Intervention gezeigt

Interviews mit Frauen und mit Jugendlichen durchgeführt, die Interventionserfahrungen nach häuslicher Gewalt, Frauenhandel, oder Inobhutnahme aufgrund von Gewalt oder Vernachlässigung in der Kindheit erlebt hatten. Dabei wurden besonders InterviewpartnerInnen gesucht, die einen Minderheiten- oder Migrationshintergrund haben. 

Im Sommer wurden die InterviewpartnerInnen eingeladen, an einem Kunstworkshop teilzunehmen, in dem sie mit Unterstützung einer professionellen Künstlerin selber ihre Interventionserfahrungen mit den Mitteln der Kunst darstellen konnten. Die Künstlerin, Ninette Rothmüller, bot den TeilnehmerInnen Material und Möglichkeiten an, mit unterschiedlichen Medien kreativ zu werden, und es wurde dann auch eine Vielfalt von Kunstformen verwendet: Malen, Zeichnen, Wortbilder und Gedichte, ein Quilt, eine Audiodatei, ein Guckkasten. Diese Kunst sowie drei eigene Werke der Künstlerin zum Thema waren bei dem Berlinworkshop nun ausgestellt, und auch die meisten der Kunstschaffenden waren anwesend

Es war eine bunte und zugleich ausgeglichene Mischung: Teilgenommen haben vier Gruppen:

Interventionsgeschichte in einem Quilt und eine lebhafte Diskussion

sechs Frauen (darunter eine Jugendliche), die in Kunstworkshops Bilder über ihre Erfahrungen geschaffen haben; sieben Fachkräfte aus der Interventionspraxis (zu häuslicher Gewalt, Frauenhandel, oder Schutz von misshandelten oder vernachlässigten Kindern), sechs Vertreterinnen der Praxisnetzwerke, die seit 2013 das Projekt beratend begleiten (KOK, bff und IGfH), und fünf Teammitglieder der beiden Forschungspartner. Es entstanden lebhafte und sehr spannende Gespräche. Eine externe Moderatorin sorgte u.a. dafür, dass in der Gruppenarbeit die verschiedenen Perspektiven präsent waren. Die Künstlerin, die die Workshops geleitet hat, konnte in Berlin nicht persönlich dabei sein, nahm aber per Video und Skype teil.

In der Schlussrunde haben die Künstlerinnen den Wert dieser Erfahrung für sie selbst betont. Mit der Die Vieldeutigkeit der Kunst und der Reflexion über sie erweitern den Horizont und ermöglicht, im

Nachdenken vor einem Kunstwerk
von Ninette

Gespräch sehr verschiedene Wege zu gehen. Gespräche ohne einen solchen Anknüpfungspunkt entwickeln sich oft eher „linear“. Somit eröffnen sich nicht nur den Künstler/innen Freiräume, auch Professionellen, bieten sich Räume für das Vorwärtstasten und die Reflexion. Fachkraft und Künstlerin begegnen sich auf Augenhöhe, es kann sich sogar eine Umkehrung der sonst in der Beratung vorhandenen Hierarchie ergeben, denn hier war die Künstlerin die Expertin, die befragt werden musste, um zu verstehen. Das habe eine ganz andere Qualität als bei den verbreiteten Methoden der Kunsttherapie und sei damit nicht zu vergleichen. Diese Erfahrung wollten mehrere Fachkräfte mitnehmen in die Praxis; es blieb aber offen, wie das umgesetzt werden kann. Zusätzlich wurde von den Fachkräften hervorgehoben, dass Kunst, die Interventionserfahrungen darstellt, ein Mittel sein könnte, denjenigen Gehör zu verschaffen, die in öffentlichen Debatten um ‚gute Praxis’ oft nicht wahrgenommen werden. Und auch im Rahmen von Fortbildungsveranstaltungen für Fachkräfte könnte Kunst ein Mittel sein, die Reflexion über eigene Interventionspraktiken zu vertiefen. Kunst wird, so mehrere Fachkräfte, eine emotionale Tiefe schneller erreicht als in Beratungsgesprächen, und kann in einfachen Worten erklärt werden. Unausgesprochenes kann sprechbar werden. 

"War die Zeit für die Gruppenarbeit genug, zu wenig, zu viel?"

 "Creative Dialogue" in Berlin  a success

The two German partners in CEINAV jointly organised an all-day „Creative Dialogue“ workshop with associate partners (national umbrella organisations of NGOs and practitioners), women and young people who had created art works reflecting on their intervention experiences, and professionals who had participated in the 2014 workshops. It took place on September 16 in Berlin. On the day before, the two research teams from Heidelberg and Osnabrück met with representatives of the associate partners to discuss interim results of the project. The creative dialogue was focused entirely on the art work exhibited, and sought to explore the possibilities of using art to further better understanding between professionals and the recipients of intervention. 

The workshop drew on the research activities of CEINAV. During 2015 the two research teams

Participants portrayed pathways through intervention
through "foot prints"

carried out a total of 27 interviews with women and young people who had experienced intervention due to domestic violence, trafficking for sexual exploitation, or removal from the family due to abuse or neglect. Particular efforts were made to find interview partners with a migration or minority background. 

The women and young people were then invited to participate in art workshops led by an artist-researcher, Ninette Rothmüller. The artist prepared the workshops, bringing a variety of art materials and offering the participants a range of options for the kind of art work they would like to undertake, and a variety of different “products” were made: paintings, drawings, word pictures, poetry, a quilt, an audiotape, and a peep-box. Outside these workshops the artist, who is herself a sculptor, also created three art works of her own reflecting on themes that emerged from how interviewees described their intervention experience. All of the art work was on exhibit in rooms where the creative dialogue was held, and almost all of the artists took part in the workshop.

The „creative dialogue“ workshop was made up of four equal-size groups: six women who had been creative in the art workshops (five women who had

Intervention experience in a quilt and a lively discussion

survived domestic violence and one adolescent with child protection experience), seven professionals with experience in intervention in one or more of the forms of violence that CEINAV is studying, six representatives of the associate partners who have contributed the perspective of practitioners to CEINAV since 2013, and five researchers from the two partners. An external facilitator from Heidelberg moderated the workshop through the day, ensuring that discussion groups had a mix of these different perspectives. The artist-researcher who had led the art workshops was unable to be in Berlin but was present by video, giving an introduction to how the art workshops had been run, as well as explanatory notes to her own art work, and participated in a Skype discussion with all participants.

In the closing reflective discussion, the artists who had exhibited their work emphasized the value of this experience for themselves. The intervention professionals found that through art work emotional

Pondering Ninettes artwork

depths could be reached more quickly than in advisory talks, and that with the art, these feelings could be expressed in simple words. Unspoken aspects can thus find their way into speech. (This has added value for women with a migration background, who may not be fluent in German.) The ambiguities inherent in art and the process of reflecting on these widen the horizon and make it possible to take a variety of different directions in conversation. Conversations that do not have such a reference point often tend to develop in a more “linear” way. Thus, a space of freedom of action is opened up, not only for the ones who created the art, but also for the professionals, enabling both to “feel their way” forward taking a reflective approach. Professional and artist meet as equals, and this can even reverse the hierarchy in their intervention relationship, in which the counsellor is the expert and the person seeking help asks questions. Here, the ones who created art were the experts, and the professionals sought help and advice in order to understand. This changes their relationship, and is, they said, an altogether different process from the established methods of art therapy.

Some professionals explicitly said they would like to carry this experience over into their practical work, but it remained an open question how this can be done. In addition, it was said that art representing the experience of the recipients of intervention could be a means of making marginalized voices heard, and it could be used to advantage in further training with professionals to encourage them to reflect on their own intervention practice.

"Was the time for the group work enough, too little, too long?"

 

CEINAV symposium at the European Conference on Domestic Violence in Belfast (6-9 September 2015)

On September 8th 2015, representatives of the four CEINAV teams presented a symposium at the European Conference on Domestic Violence, held at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland from 6-9th September 2015. A symposium was prepared by Vlasta Jalušič and colleagues from all research teams with the title Cultural patterns in interventions against violence. The symposium took place on the third day of the conference with almost full conference room of participants. Liz Kelly gave the introdution to the CEINAV framework and methods.

The aim of the symposium  was to address the cultural patterns in interventions against domestic violence. It  focused particularly on  professional's intervention strategies against  violence directed towards women and children. On the basis of empirical data, collected in the  project until now, the papers explored the cultural premises (similarities and differences) on which intervention patterns in four   countries (Germany, Portugal, Slovenia and the UK) are built on domestic violence and child abuse and how these intersect. We explored questions such as for example: How is violence understood? Is there a cultural framing of it? What is the threshold for intervention, when is it acceptable to act without the consent of the woman/parents?  How is culture understood? Which are the cultural minorities that need or are given a special attention and why? Is intervention framed differently for women and children who are positioned as cultural/ethnic minorities?

Prof. Liz Kelly opened the symposium with an overview of the entire CEINAV project, including its goals and methodology. She then presented the professionals’ discourses in the UK: “From private to public, need to risk, women to children: the changing professional discourse on domestic violence in the UK.” Prof. Rita Lopez then gave a presentation on the analysis conducted in Portugal entitled: “Cultural barriers to the protection of women and children against domestic violence: professionals’ discourses in Portugal.” Following, Bianca Grafe presented the German team’s data: “Framing intervention and handling difficult decisions in professional responses to domestic violence in Germany.” Finally, Prof. Vlasta Jalusic gave an account of the Slovenian Professionals’ discourses and closed with a few conclusions that emerged from the cross-country analysis of the professionals’ discourses.

Vlasta Jalušič & Rita Lopez

 

From left to right: Prof. Liz Kelly (PI - UK), Prof. Vlasta Jalusic (PI - Slovenia), Prof. Maria José Magalhães (PI - Portugal), Raquel Felgueiras (artist-researcher - Portugal), Rita Lopez (researcher – Portugal) and Bianca Grafe (researcher – Germany).

Networking on trafficking for sexual exploitation

Trafficking of human beings is a difficult field of intervention and very recent in Portugal (RCM nº 81/2007), where most of the known victims are for labour exploitation, therefore research struggles with many obstacles. In order to develop the CEINAV work the Portuguese team has a new associate partner: APF (Portuguese Family Planning Association - http://www.apf.pt/apf.php?lg=pt ; http://www.apf.pt/apf.php?lg=uk ). This NGO is specialized in intervention in the field of trafficking of human beings and runs a shelter for women victims. Besides this NGO, CEINAV also keeps networking with CIG (Portuguese Commission For Citizenship and Gender Equality) where Manuel Albano acts as the National Rapporteur for trafficking.    

To deepen some issues around trafficking for sexual exploitation, CEINAV met in Porto with CIG and APF, in the 8th of April, and discussed the following topics: assisted return, difficulties in the assignment of the victim status, access to health care by illegal immigrants and the difficulties in finding volunteers to be interviewed by the CEINAV project.     

This meeting is part of a networking process which is highly relevant to an epistemological position linking research and practice in the field of human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Fire up creativity - Artist meeting in London

On 30th and 31th March 2015 CEINAV brought together all their 4 artist researchers in London Metropolitan University: Iona Roisin from the UK team, Lana Zdravković from the Slovenian team, Ninette Rothmüller from the German team and Raquel Felgueiras from the Portuguese team. We exchanged our experiences and views about working with marginalized, deprived and discriminated people in the context of violence as well as debated about methodology we will use on the art workshops with the survivors of violence. In each country we will moderate the creative process which will be based on the stories created out of the interviews with the survivors but those will just inform the artists; the art workshops will not be built around the stories as some kind of script.

In each country one or two art workshops will be implemented for all three forms of violence. Whilst there has to be a set of basic parameters for the workshops some of the more specific questions cannot be the same across the four country contexts, as they are dependent on the particulars of who and how many agree to take part in the workshops, where they are located geographically and how each artist develops the workshop concept.  There are, therefore, layers of flexibility and variability in the creative process which we should consider an asset, part of what the project is in fact about – the processes and creative outcomes will not be the same, they are cultural encounters!

The process needs to produce something – a creative outcome – from what participants want to communicate about intervention that will be accessible to various audiences. 

All artists will work within their fields of experience having in mind that including creative art in the research project is a certain experiment, both for artists and researchers. But since we have high ethical standards and respect the decisions and wishes of the people we will work with we hope it will be fruitful for all of us. 

Lana Zdravkovic

Research cooperation and synergy

At an advisory board meeting of the project “Disclosure and prevention of sexual violence against male children and youth (AuP)”, Carol Hagemann-White & Barbara Kavemann discussed interviewing intervention professionals and victims of violence in a full-day meeting in Berlin on February 27, 2015; three other projects also participated. Finding interview partners emerged as a challenging, but above all time-consuming process, and it is particularly difficult to reach young  persons (under 30) to describe their experiences of intervention.

Project leader visits FPCEUP, University of Porto (UP)

From January 21^st to 24^th 2015, Prof. Carol Hagemann-White, CEINAV's project leader, visited the Porto CEINAV team in FPCEUP, University of Porto (UP). During this visit, Prof. Hagemann-White met with UP officials and with the Porto CEINAV team to work on the domestic violence comparative paper. Hence, with the DV working papers from Germany, Portugal, the UK, and Slovenia in hand, we discussed the different legislations and policies that exist across the four countries. We also talked about some of the main frames and dilemmas that emerged in the workshops. Prof. Hagemann-White's much appreciated visit ended with a Pastoral Symphony concert in “Casa da Música” where we took this photo.

Porto Seminar Video

While we had the 5 day working Seminar in Porto we videorecorded some of our discussions. We would like to share some highlights and interesting thoughts with you to give you a little insight into our work:

Working Seminar in Porto - A major milestone

CEINAV Porto 5 Days Seminar, 28th Sept—4th Oct 2014

From September 28 to October 4, researchers of the Project CEINAV met in FPCEUP, University of Porto, to share preliminary findings of the 1st stream of the research.

Based on a total of 24 workshops with professionals, the five partners wrote working papers on the intervention patterns and approaches to the different forms of violence in each country. These papers will be revised after the discussions in Porto and then made public online.

With an intense and productive work, the team reviewed similarities and specificities among the four countries concerning intervention in domestic violence, child physical abuse and neglect, and trafficking of human beings for sexual exploitation. The debates focused sequences of intervention in different countries, the interpretative frames of the legal and professional practices, and cultural premises that configure the relationship between professionals and survivors in each country.

Public Presentation of CEINAV - October 1, 2014

Within the Porto Research Meeting, a Public Presentation of CEINAV was held in FPCEUP, with - Prof. Maria José Magalhães, national coordinator of CEINAV, researcher in FPCEUP

- Prof. Doutora Liz Kelly, coordinator of research team in UK, researcher in London Metropolitan University

- Prof.  António Magalhães, vice-president of Scientific Board of FPCEUP

- Prof. Fátima Machado, vice-rectoress of University of Porto

- Prof. Emeritus Carol Hagemann-White, Project Leader CEINAV, and researcher in Department of Educational and Cultural Studies, University of Osnabruck, Germany

- Prof. Vlasta Jalusic, coordinator of the Slovenian team and researcher in Peace Institut de Ljubliana Eslovénia

- Thomas Meysen, coordinator of the research team of Heidelberg, researcher in German Institute for Youth and Human Sciences

from left to right in the picture:

Meeting with Associate Partners, October 1 and 2, 2014

The 5 Days Seminar included a Meeting with the Associate partners, held on the 1st and 2nd of October, with representatives from Black Association of Women Step Out Ltd. (BAWSO), Cardiff, Wales; IMKAAN, London, England; Association for Non Violent Communication, Ljubljana; Society KLJUC – Centre for fight against trafficking in human beings, Ljubljana; Association against sexual abuse, Ljubljana Slovenia; IGFH - Internationale Gesellschaft für erzieherische Hilfen (Federation of Educative Communities), Germany; Federation of Women’s Counselling Centres and Hotlines (bff), Germany; Associação Projeto Criar – Association against child abuse, from Porto, Portugal, and UMAR-Association of Women, Alternative and Answer, from Portugal.

In the meeting, researchers and representatives of the APs debated the preliminary results of the first stream of the research, especially with regard to ethical issues that could be explored further, and their implications for next streams, in the pathway to understand the cultural premises in intervention.

Future directions of fruitful cooperation were built having in mind the artistic process that will go parallel with the next streams of the CEINAV research.