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 WHO Webinar: From Evidence to Action – Towards Scaling Up Parenting Interventions to Prevent Maltreatment and Enhance Parent-Child Relationships

This webinar will introduce recently published WHO guidelines on parenting interventions to prevent maltreatment and enhance parent-child child relationships; provide a state-of the science overview of the underlying evidence that informs the guideline recommendations; offer snapshots of selected national and local initiatives to scale up evidence-based parenting interventions and reflect on how best to further advance uptake. The webinar will be of interest to everyone working on advancing the uptake of evidence-based parenting interventions. This webinar will take place on the 14th of April.

Report: Taking stock of the INSPIRE framework – How South Africa is using the INSPIRE framework to prevent violence against children

The new report following our ‘INSPIRE in SA’ country-level engagement held at the end of last year is available now! On 23 November 2022, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), Save the Children South Africa, and UNICEF SA co-hosted a workshop to assess how South Africa is implementing the INSPIRE framework to prevent violence against children. This report outlines the developments in the VAC ecosystem in South Africa and showcases how organisations working to prevent violence against children use the INSPIRE framework. It concludes with recommendations for improving the use of the INSPIRE framework.

Asivikelane Western Cape Brief 1: Remember 30 April 2023 is International Day to #EndCorporalPunishment!

Between 24-30 April we will raise our voices to call for the end of corporal punishment, the most common and accepted form of violence against children. Governments have committed to ending all violence against children by 2030, but over one billion children worldwide continue to suffer violent punishment every year, often frequently, in multiple settings of their lives, leading to multiple forms of harm, including injury and even death. We know what works and we have seven years to #EndCorporalPunishment. Children must not wait any longer. We will share a social media and advocacy closer to the day.

What will you do to call for an end to corporal punishment this year?

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.