Dear VPF Friends, 

Welcome to the Violence Prevention Forum newsletter. On a weekly basis we will be sharing job, funding and training opportunities, details for webinars relevant to violence and its prevention, and links to new research and guidelines. We hope you find this a useful resource.

You are invited to the ISS and INSPIRE webinar: Why should male caregivers attend parenting programmes?

Parenting programmes can reduce violence against children by helping parents and caregivers provide attentive and non-violent care. Fathers and male caregivers can play a positive role in children’s lives, but in many African countries, few men attend parenting programmes.

These programmes are one of the seven evidence-based strategies that the INSPIRE package encourages countries to adopt to end violence against children. Parenting programme implementers and evaluators from South Africa and Uganda will share their experiences of engaging men and what impact this has had.

Click here to download the event flyer to send through your networks

The Centre for Systems Studies Annual Mike Jackson Lecture

You are invited to the Centre for Systems Studies Annual Mike Jackson Lecture on Systems Thinking. The lecture will be held both online and in person on the 23^rd of March 2023. Special guest speaker, Professor Dave Snowden,  will be delivering an address titled “Making Sense of the World in Order to Act in it”.

Asivikelane Western Cape Brief 1: Knysna communities pave the way for female-friendly sanitation

On International Women’s Day, Asivikelane spotlights the safety of women and girls in informal settlements; and how female-friendly services can help to protect them. An inspiring narration of communities taking action to make their community safer.

The stories of Asivikelane Community Facilitators Siphosethu Mamayo and Martina Tietties, who carried out an initiative to have separate toilets provided for males and females across three informal settlements in Knysna are shared in this brief. Under their guidance, residents decided on the placement of the new toilets, selecting more visible locations. Because of these changes, women say they feel safer and healthier. 

Policy Brief: Scaling violence prevention in South Africa

While efforts to prevent violence hinge on work done by non-governmental organisations in communities, there is a gap in understanding what form this takes how many people are reached; and how interventions are designed, delivered, monitored and evaluated. This policy brief shows that interventions can prevent and reduce violence in South Africa. There are however challenges to delivering these programmes at scale. These include limited capacity for implementation, adapting for context, and balancing the need for programmes to be evidence-based while also being responsive to communities’ needs. South Africa’s policymakers and researchers need to find solutions to these challenges.

World Health Organisation Applications for MENTOR-VIP now open

MENTOR-VIP is a global injury and violence prevention mentoring programme. It has been developed through the efforts of WHO and a network of global injury prevention experts. MENTOR-VIP is designed to match mentees wishing to develop certain skills with mentors who have agreed to devote their time and effort to assist mentees develop those skills. Once a mentorship is awarded the mentee and mentor jointly plan the activities that will be undertaken during the mentorship. Mentoring is expected to take place primarily through electronic and telephonic forms of communication and interaction. Mentorships are for a 12 month period and begin in September of each year. Applications close on the 7^th of May 2023.

Call for Papers in the International Journal for Environmental Research and Public Health

The International Journal for Environmental Research and Public Health is calling for papers in the Special Issue "Violence Against Women and Girls: Psychosocial and Economic Approaches to Prevention, Support and Care in Low- and Middle-Income Contexts".  This special issue welcomes quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies investigating VAWG interventions, including those that adopt psychosocial approaches or economic mechanisms to reduce VAWG and support survivors at scale. Deadline for manuscript submission is the 30^th of September 2023.