WeToo – Protecting mental health: Empowering frontline workers and SGBV victims and survivors
The WeToo project aims to enable frontline workers to better manage the stress generated by working with SGBV cases and establish trust relationships with SGBV victims and survivors.
Grant Agreement Number: 101005857
Funded by: REC Duration: 01/12/2020 – 30/11/2022
Challenge
Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) disproportionally affects women and girls, also in Europe, where 33% women have experienced physical and sexual violence since the age of 15, while many SGBV cases, mainly against migrant women and girls, are unreported.
Despite the Istanbul Convention and other legal and policy instruments, they are still not fully implemented by Institutions and services provided in Member States. In this framework, to successfully address the alarming phenomenon of SGBV, tailor-made initiatives are needed to meet the needs of public services, to enhance the skills of professionals working with survivors, as well as to improve victim-centred access to justice.
Αccording to the EU Gender Strategy, adequate interventions for SGBV victims should include supporting actions, particularly addressed to frontline workers (police, health, legal and social operators), who are the first line of contact with women and girls affected by violence and are asked to establish trust relations with SGBV victims and survivors.
Protecting the mental health and social wellbeing of professionals who deal with SGBV cases is fundamental in order to respond and tackle gender-based violence, support SGBV victims and survivors and interrupt violent relations/situations and their traumatising consequences.
Innovation
By enabling frontline workers to better cope with the stress generated and the highly stressful situations while working at the front line of SGBV cases, Wetoo contributes to the successful implementation of SGBV primary prevention and response programmes and supports women survivors and victims of SGBV in their trauma recovery.
Action
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Project Partners
