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Purpose : People experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) often seek, or are referred to, specialized service providers such as shelter workers, counsellors in programs for children exposed to IPV, and facilitators for men's behaviour change programs. This paper discusses the process of collaborating with service providers and survivors across Canada to articulate the often-unrecognized knowledge and skills of IPV specialists. Methods: Work included a scoping review and analysis of 140 academic and practice papers, interviews with 62 expert service providers, eight Delphi-method surveys and over 70 hours of collaborative discussion with expert working groups of experienced service providers and survivors. Results: Areas of knowledge and skill were drafted based on the review of literature and analysis of interviews with experienced service providers, then rated in Delphi surveys, and discussed by expert working groups. Consensus was reached on the Flourishing Practice Model which identifies nine areas of capability shared across IPV specialists, as well as unique knowledge and skills used to support and collaborate with survivors, recognize and respond to infant, child and youth experiences of violence and intervene to end abusive behaviours. The "stem" recognizes the critical role of IPV specialist organizations and leaders in supporting service providers' capabilities. "Blank petals" are included to signify expertise that has not yet been documented and to recognize ongoing growth. Conclusions: The combination of methods and processes allowed for the integration of research and practice knowledge with survivor and service provider voices to gain deeper insight into the knowledge and skills of IPV specialists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing sexual and relationship violence (SRV) on campuses requires coordinated engagement from all members of the campus-community; however, many campuses do not yet have the infrastructure or institutional commitment to build an all-campus action plan. In such cases, campuses lack the metaphorical table around which collaboration happens. This paper presents tensions and lessons learned so far from a faculty-staff-student partnership to build a movement toward university-wide collaborative practice. Through iterative, collaborative reflection on our context, practice, and intermediate outcomes, we identified recommendations for improving praxis in campus-based, intersectional anti-SRV organizing. Our analysis explores how our individual positionalities both open up and limit our potential to move this work forward. We share our guiding values and frameworks, including intersectional feminist attention to power and oppression; centering survivors and students; strategic collaboration within systems; and integrating self-care and other supportive practices for building a sustainable movement. Our emergent strategy, illustrated through ten lessons/tensions and four case examples, focuses on finding close collaborators with shared SRV analysis; making the best use of resources and spaces we control; identifying meaningful “small wins;” and pursuing opportunities to connect to others through positive collaborations. Efforts to intentionally raise awareness and grow strategic institutional connections build momentum toward institutionally-supported campus-wide evaluation and reimagining of prevention and survivor-support efforts. While feminist collaborative social change is challenging, we celebrate and learn from our “two steps forward” to sustain us through the inevitable steps back. We write to stir a conversation where we help each other interpret and learn across our varied contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative and supportive partnerships among academicians and community agency members represent one method of working successfully toward ending violence against women. Members of academia and service agencies are uniquely poised to collaborate with one another to foster both domestic violence and sexual assault research agendas as well as direct service to survivors. This paper provides suggestions and methods of how to create positive, collaborative relationships between academicians and service providers in the field of domestic violence (DV) and sexual assault (SA). Specifically, we will discuss the reasons for collaboration, useful steps in developing a partnership, issues of trust and time investment, research methods, and giving back. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided funding (U01 CE002668) to evaluate bystander program efficacy to reduce gender-based violence on college campuses (Aim 1) and to create a mentoring network (Aim 2) for young campus-based researchers interested in violence intervention or prevention (VIP). While an evaluation of this mentoring program is ongoing, our purpose here was to document the strategies used to create, implement, and begin evaluation of this national multi-college mentoring network. As each public college was recruited into this evaluation named multi-college Bystander Efficacy Evaluation (mcBEE), each college was invited to nominate a researcher interested in receiving mentorship as a mcBEE fellow. Senior faculty with active VIP research careers were recruited as mentors. Mentorship occurred through annual meetings over time (2015–2019), weekly to bimonthly calls or video conferencing with 2–3 other fellows, and a mentor forming a group with 3–4 mentees, termed a hive. The initial focus of hive meetings was 1) creating and maintaining an active daily writing practice and 2) developing productivity plans, to include research, personal, and professional goals. Manuscript and grant writing feedback was provided throughout the network electronically or 'live' workshops. Annual surveys were implemented to investigate program efficacy. Our mcBEE team was able to successfully assemble a national network of VIP fellows and provide small group and individualized mentoring. Our ultimate goal was that of supporting our fellows' own trajectories in gender-based VIP research, teaching, administration, or service. Evaluation of our fellow and mentor cohort is ongoing (2015–2019). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]