Conclusion

Congratulations! You have completed Prevention Essentials Refresher—the latest on what, why, & how (self-paced). Make sure to review the learning objectives and key takeaways and complete the course evaluation below.

Course evaluation

Learning objectives check

In this course, you were able to:

• Identify common types, consequences, and patterns of VAW, with a focus on IPV.
• Distinguish between VAW prevention and response interventions.
• Describe how to apply VAW prevention principles.
• Explain the links between gender inequality and VAW.
• Identify risk factors, protective factors, and situational triggers of IPV using the socio-ecological model.
• Identify how prevention strategies can address specific risk factors, protective factors, and/or situational triggers at different levels.

Key takeaways

Session 2: Violence against women

• Women may experience different forms of violence across their lifetime, and more than one type (physical, sexual, emotional, economic) can occur at the same time.
• VAW undermines women’s rights and has severe physical, emotional, social, and economic consequences for women, their children, families, communities, and societies. These consequences can be long term and cumulative.
• Globally, women are more likely to be physically and/or sexually violated by their partners than by any other person.
• IPV and child maltreatment in the home have multiple links, including shared risk factors, common social norms, common and compounding consequences, co-occurrence, an overlap in adolescence, and intergenerational effects.
• Levels of IPV vary from country to country, region to region, and community to community.

Session 3: Prevention

• Response services to address the needs of survivors are critical, but we cannot reduce high levels of violence by supporting one survivor at a time. To have an impact, we need to prevent violence before it starts, and reduce the frequency and severity of further episodes where it has previously occurred.
• Universal prevention programmes are directed at an entire population, community, or group whereas selective prevention programmes are directed at specific groups or individuals considered to be at higher risk of violence.
• To ensure that prevention programming upholds women’s rights and is safe and effective, it must be designed and implemented in line with key feminist principles: (1) accountable to women and girls, (2) based in gender-power analysis, (3) inclusive and intersectional, (4) prioritising the safety of women and girls, (5) starting with ourselves.

Session 4: Causes

• No single factor is either necessary or sufficient to cause VAW, and there is no single path to perpetration. Instead, VAW has multiple, inter-related causes.
• These causes include underlying gender inequalities and unequal power relations, risk factors that increase the likelihood of violence occurring, and situational triggers that can precipitate an incident of violence at a specific moment. Understanding these causes, as well as protective factors, can help us better prevent violence.
• The socio-ecological model is a useful tool to identify the most salient factors contributing to VAW. When using this model, it is important to consider: the specific type of violence you’re addressing, the specific setting where you are trying to prevent violence, the age and circumstances of the individual, and whether you are focusing on perpetration or victimisation.
•  Violence as an outcome is possible (what we call probabilistic) not definitive. Two people can have very similar factors at play, but experience different outcomes, especially if they live in different contexts, or have had different life histories.

Session 5: Prevention strategies

• Violence against women is preventable. There is strong evidence from different types of interventions across the world that levels of VAW can be reduced in programmatic timeframes of 3-5 years.
• Prevention programmes are most effective when they use multiple strategies and activities to address the specific factors that contribute to violence. This does not mean that every programme has to do everything; rather that different programmes must work together to comprehensively address the causes of violence.