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"Domestic Violence"
Recently there has been a hashtag that has gone viral called #ididnotreport. The hashtag is being used by sexual assault survivors to tweet that they did not report a sexual assault they survived. We stand with these survivors and commend their courage. In order to honour their bravery we have created an infographic which traces the life of this deeply moving hashtag.
Sincerely, the Guardly team
infographic created with visual.ly
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Guardly Shares the Key to a Successful Project
Ceremonies took place in Ottawa yesterday to commemorate the anniversary of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre, where 14 young women were killed in Montreal in December 1989. These ceremonies come on the tailwinds of the Penn State sexual violence scandal, where a football coach had been assaulting young boys for decades.
Twenty-two years later, and sexual violence against students is still a continuous threat. However, there is still hope for a future free from violence on campuses. In fact, as you read this there are several groups forming on campuses across Canada to think up innovative ways to put an end to this problem that continues to plague us.
On November 25th, the Federal Minister for Status of Women, Rona Ambrose, announced a call for proposals for projects to address violence against women on post-secondary campuses. The federal government will accept project submissions until January 27, 2012 and can provide funding of up to $200,000; the Call for Proposal recommends projects to be led by Student Unions and On-Campus Women’s Centres and promotes the development of partnerships between campus security, corporations and other organizations that may help to decrease violence against women.
“I think one of the things that concerns me the most is complacency in large institutions. We saw that with something very recent with Penn State University,” Ms. Ambrose said in an interview last week. “That’s why I’m targeting the students here, not targeting the institutions.”
Guardly has been working to build a relationship with the Status of Women to better understand what a comprehensive proposal should look like. The website explicitly states that “campus awareness and prevention campaigns should not be the only or primary focus of the proposed initiative.” From our working knowledge, we recommend closely adhering to the Key Activities listed on the website. Further, we urge you to consider including Guardly’s Safe Campus solution as a component of your overall proposal and consider partnering efforts to empower women on campus to foster a safer campus environment. Guardly offers a unique value proposition to women walking alone on campus and can help make your project stand out amongst others submitted for consideration. For any group looking to learn more about how we can fit into the proposal you are putting together, please reach out to me to setup a brief call; my contact details are at the end of this post.
Key Activities
The following Key Activities (bolded items) have been extracted from the Status of Women call for proposal:
a. Engage and establish working partnerships with women and men on campus; and as applicable, with campus community stakeholders.
There is no excuse for allowing women to be targeted on campus because of their gender. Our goal is to work with universities to help create a new model to end violence against women on campus. The Guardly Safe Campus Program is perfect for helping students leverage existing resources dedicated to safety on campus. We hope to compliment your existing prevention and awareness programs, helping to drive student buy-in and overall engagement. Our mobile applications allow students to be both proactive and reactive about their personal safety. For example, users are encouraged to create groups of responders that they can alert in times of an emergency. As a responder, you are asked to accept an invitation to join someone’s safety group. Each new responder added to the Guardly network associated with your campus helps to build overall awareness of your campaign fighting violence against women. Guardly Safe Campus assists you in building a campus community that looks out for one another. This effectively changes the social dynamics of how students look out for their own personal safety and for the well being of their campus community.
Guardly promotes the participation of men, women, faculty, staff and others in your campus community to commit to looking out for one another.
b. Plan project and adapt to local campus needs:
- conduct a gender-based analysis with respect to gender-based violence and the specific needs of young women;
- work with young women to identify their priorities, viewpoints and potential strategies for addressing gender-based violence;
- work with stakeholders to collectively identify gaps, priorities, opportunities, valuable resources and supports and potential strategies;
- collaborate with stakeholders to ensure tangible results for young women and a coordinated campus community response to gender-based violence;
- identify existing institutional mechanisms and supports as well as gaps (e.g., policies, programs, services, models, strategies, frameworks, planning and decision-making processes, etc.); and
- identify promising practices to address the issue of violence against women on campus.
Over 70% of students have smartphones on campus, and this number increases at a fast clip.[1] Despite the prevalence of mobile phones on campus, almost 81% of on-campus sexual assaults are not reported to the police.[2] We are helping to address the 81% of women who have not called for help. We’ll work directly with your Student Unions and Women’s Centres to administer surveys to help identify any communication gaps that are preventing those threatened on campus from accessing the services that are currently available to them. We can assist your project team members in working directly and/or virtually with students to educate them about the support lines that are available to them on campus and can demonstrate how to use Guardly to leverage these resources when in need. To further drive awareness, Guardly has developed a Campus Ambassador Program, supplying a select group of students on each campus with the materials necessary to educate and train students throughout the year.
c. Implement measures (policies, mechanisms, models and/or strategies) to address the identified issue(s). For example,
- Working directly with stakeholders, conducting and implementing campus safety audits on identified issues. These should identify and propose solutions to the broader safety issues facing young women on campus.
- Develop and implement a campus community plan to help deliver on strategies/approaches to address gender-based violence on campus.
- work with women, planning partners and community members to ensure effective implementation of the plan; and
- focus on a priority component of the plan (e.g., supports for university/college governance bodies and structures for ensuring gender-based factors are considered in decision-making, planning and management).
- Where campus community plans already exist, review to strengthen (e.g., by using gender-based analysis), update, implement a priority component, etc. Work with women, planning partners and community members to ensure effective implementation of the plan.
The Guardly Safe Campus Program has components that automatically track incidents and simplify reporting. This information can be reviewed to demonstrate the different emergency-related trends that women experience on your campus. However, what we are most eagerly looking to prove in working with partners across Canada, is that a Guardly Safe Campus actually has far fewer violent acts committed per annum than it did before such a system was in place. We can work directly with Campus Security, IT, and Communications departments at your university to identify high-risk areas on your campus where the majority of Guardly calls are made and help to facilitate awareness with your project team to ensure women are made aware of these areas.
We can work alongside your team to help with implementation. For campus plans that already exist, we hope that Guardly will present an opportunity to strengthen the reach and overall engagement of your message across campus.
Partnership Opportunities:
Adam Levine
Business Development, Guardly Corp.
Mobile (647) 501-4266
[2] U.S. Department of Justice “Final Report: Understanding Crime Victimization Among College Students: Implications for Crime Prevention.
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Guardly is hosting a special blogging series to pay tribute to the 2011 Domestic Violence Awareness Month. We are calling upon recognized leaders in the fight against domestic violence and relationship abuse. Please take a few moments to read what these leaders are doing in the Anti-Domestic Violence community:
Becky’s Fund launches 2011 National College Tour
Authored by: Becky Lee, Executive Director at Becky’s Fund.
A Leap of Faith in the Right Direction
Authored by: Gabby Santos, Program Coordinator for Underserved Communities for the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic & Sexual Violence (OCADSV)
Are you working hard on a number of anti-domestic violence initiatives?
We’d love to hear about it and help tell the world. Please reach out and share your story. You can reach out in the comments below or message us on Twitter.
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Guest post is authored by Becky Lee, Executive Director of Becky’s Fund, a national non-profit dedicated to the prevention and education of domestic violence. Ms. Lee has been working on issues concerning domestic violence survivors over the last 10 years as an advocate, a policy associate and an attorney. She is also passionate about creating awareness of the specific needs of battered immigrant women, such as language access and cultural competency.
As Domestic Violence Awareness Month, October is a very important time for Becky’s Fund, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit dedicated to domestic violence prevention. With one in four women experiencing domestic violence at some point in their lifetime, domestic and dating violence issues need to be openly discussed. Unfortunately, these are problems that are all too often swept under the rug and ignored. Our mission at Becky’s Fund is to foster awareness of domestic violence, encourage advocacy among peers, promote activism through outreach initiatives, and create support programs for survivors.
In response to studies indicating that women from the ages of 20-24 are at the greatest risk of abuse, Becky’s Fund has launched our 2011 national college tour. The tour incorporates educational workshops and trainings with a pledge campaign to publicly stand up against domestic violence. Participants learn how to recognize the signs of an abusive relationship – whether that abuse be physical, emotional, sexual, or all of the above – and what they can do to help end the cycle of violence. These students are then encouraged to educate civic organizations like community groups and churches within the surrounding area. Stops on the tour have included Georgetown University, American University, George Washington University and the University of Florida.
This is also an especially exciting time for Becky’s Fund and other anti-domestic violence organizations because the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is currently up for reauthorization. Since it was drafted by then-Senator Biden in 1994, VAWA has helped provide resources and support to victims of domestic violence and their children. VAWA provides funding for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, transitional housing, and legal assistance. It also awards grant money to help educate and better prepare law enforcement, advocates, and shelters.
This year Vice President Biden has collaborated with Secretary of Health and Human Services, Katherine Sebelius, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to issue a challenge to developers to create innovative applications that provide young adults with easier access to domestic and dating violence resources. To meet this challenge, Becky’s Fund will work with Guardly to support its revolutionary mobile phone application. This unprecedented free social and mobile platform combines technology and digital media to raise awareness and provide a direct communication network for those currently facing domestic violence. The goal is to help empower victims and community members with the means and knowledge to address and prevent further abusive situations.
Congress has reauthorized VAWA twice, each time acquiring more funding and becoming more successful. However, there is still much more that needs to be done. Becky’s Fund encourages everyone to speak out against domestic violence and to aid survivors of abuse wherever and whenever possible. Furthermore, if you find yourself in an abusive relationship, please do not be afraid to seek help from your local resources and support groups. Remember, only by working together can we end the cycle of violence.
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October is domestic violence awareness month in the United States. It is a month that affects at least 25% of women who have faced or will face domestic violence and/or intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
At Guardly, we’ve worked closely with a number of organizations including Becky’s Fund and Witness Justice to ensure that we have and will continue to build the best mobile application for personal emergency response. I’d like to thank a number of others that we’re received advice from, including Cynthia Fraser from the National Network to End Domestic Violence, Jennifer Yeardon from DOVE and Rob Powell from the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
Calling Other Voices to be Heard
To take a stand against domestic violence, this month Guardly will be hosting a special Domestic Violence Awareness Blog Series that calls upon leaders in the fight against domestic violence. We’d like to hear stories, case studies and awareness campaigns that you’ve launched in the past, are working on now or plan to launch in the near future. How many people have you helped?
If you are passionate about ending domestic violence and would like to have your voice heard on our blog, please leave us a comment, reach out (and retweet us) on twitter or contact us. We’d love to publish your story and give you a chance to reach a large audience with your message.
Resources
If you’ve been battling domestic violence and are seeking resources, Guardly recently posted a list of domestic violence and sexual assault resources across the United States. For the US National Domestic Violence Hotline, dial 1.800.779.SAFE (7233) or 1.800.787.3224 (TTY).
For other organizations or individuals looking to engage with DVAM, the Domestic Violence Awareness Project has released a 2011 “DVAM Campaign in a Box” that includes a collection of sample materials that can be used for educational webinars and other tools to enhance your prevention and awareness efforts.
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Guardly works with many non-profit organizations that seek to increase the awareness of domestic violence. Washington D.C. based Becky’s Fund is a Guardly partner that understand the potential of technology to aid in the fight against violence and abuse. The Fund’s founder Becky Lee, recently blogged for The Huffington Post on “The Role of Mobile Apps in the Fight Against Intimate Partner Violence.” It’s an excellent piece and we’ve reprinted it in its entirety.
Becky Lee
As new technologies transform and revolutionize how we process and retrieve information, experts in the field of intimate partner violence (IPV) explore the use of technology as a means for improving survivor protection and for the advancement of IPV education. Becky’s Fund is a national non-profit organization, based in D.C., seeking to increase public awareness about IPV. Because one out of every four women will experience violence from an intimate partner in her lifetime, Becky’s Fund understands the importance of developing safe and effective methods for using various forms of technology in the fight against IPV. For instance, new smartphone apps like Guardly use the latest technologies and offer premium safety to users. Although technologies certainly come with dangers and limitations, they can also be used to empower survivors of IPV and to educate students vulnerable to dating violence about this prevalent and critical issue.
Dating violence on college campuses continues to reach staggering levels. One in three college students admits to either experiencing or perpetrating dating violence in their relationship, and at least one fifth of undergraduates in the United States report being physically abused by their partner. This statistic does not include incidences of psychological abuse between college dating partners which, according to several studies, accounts for the majority of IPV cases involving young people. Most post-secondary institutions fail to address dating violence and for those that do, research done on the effectiveness of college IPV prevention programs found that existing approaches have a limited impact on youth.
Information about IPV must be made available to young people in forms they can easily access. With books becoming antiquated relics of the past, many of today’s youth rely on their smartphones and new forms of media such as infographics, twitter streams and blogs to acquire new sources of information to meet their everyday needs. For this reason, we need to use technological resources to educate young people about IPV, especially as dating violence continues to be a big problem among college students.
It’s rare for today’s youth not to have access to an iPhone, Android or Blackberry device. Becky’s Fund, along with several other organizations, sees the benefits of making use of expanding technologies to reach young people today. The Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence has already developed a phone app meant to educate teens about healthy relationships, and organizations like SAFE Ireland, a group protecting women and children in the UK, have developed apps offering information for survivors and for their support networks.
Becky’s Fund understands and recognizes the dangers associated with using technology when trying to leave an abuser. There have been a number of privacy concerns raised about certain online websites and applications. For example, cookies and images from certain websites will remain on computers for extended periods of time, which can make traces of your internet browsing history available to hackers. Mobile phones can be used by abusers to harass their partners and can allow them to easily monitor the location of a partner. While there can be potential dangers associated with technology, there are also a number of benefits. Making use of these tools is vital in order to reach large audiences, particularly technology-savvy college students and other young people in desperate need of IPV education and resources. Still, it is important to know how to make use of these quickly expanding technologies in safe ways. For this reason, organizations like the Safety Net Project of the National Network to End Domestic Violence offer a number of technology safety tips for survivors and for organizations providing IPV related services. It is vital to remember that IPV smart phone apps are not life-saving tools, but rather educational resources for individuals facing dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations.
Guardly is a mobile app for smartphones that can help students and others faced with dating violence, abusive relationships or a simple desire to feel safe when walking alone at night. Guardly empowers its users by providing one-touch access to their safety network. Simply launching Guardly on a smartphone will instantly identify a user’s location and alert family, friends, campus security (at schools that have joined its Safe Campus Program) and 9-1-1 that they are having an emergency. Beyond simple notifications, Guardly instantly connects users to their contacts through conference call, instant messaging and real-time location tracking. Built-in security features include the ability to snap and share pictures of an assailant and sounding a loud whistle. Privacy is extremely important to Guardly and its mobile app will only track location data during an emergency incident. Because of the widespread reach of dating violence at post-secondary institutions, students should have tools at their disposal to easily access security services on their campus. Guardly’s service is available on iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone devices (coming soon to Android) and provides students with the necessary tools to more adequately protect themselves.
In a study conducted in collaboration with the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence (WSCADV), researchers identified technological resources as possibly vital additions to domestic violence services and recommended further research in this area. Researchers evaluated the WSCADV’s “Technology Safety Project” with favorable results, and suggested that when accompanied with education about technology safety, technology services for IPV can be both safe and valuable.
Today’s youth depend on technology for information. Reaching them requires using tools like smartphones and social media sites. However, because of the dangers associated with using certain technologies, students and other users, need to understand how to use these resources safely. Becky’s Fund understands the importance of having easily accessible resources for all and hopes that with the safe use of these new technologies, we can prevent future incidents of intimate partner violence from occurring.
Authored by Becky Lee, Executive Director of Becky’s Fund and Valerie Martin, Research and Development Intern for Becky’s Fund.
Follow her on twitter at www.twitter.com/enddv and on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/BeckysFund#!/BeckysFund
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The adolescent years can often be a precarious period for today’s youth. Confronted with a volatile mixture of coping with raging hormones and dealing with peer pressure, teenagers can often find themselves in situations where one small misstep could lead to unnecessary violence. Though various pre-emptive educational programs are offered in schools, government information suggests that additional preventive measures are necessary to combat the dangers young people face today.
A Statistics Canada report on youth victims of police-reported violent crimes revealed that, among all age groups, youths aged 15 to 17 reported the highest rate of violence. Though this should be enough cause for concern among parents, what is even more alarming is that, according to a General Social Survey study, police are less likely to be notified of crimes against teenagers than those against any other age group.
Teens may have several reasons for being hesitant to contact the police: They may feel as if the police will be annoyed by their call. Sometimes teens may be in doubt as to whether what they’ve experienced qualifies as a crime, and are worried that when the police do arrive, he/she will be mocked or even punished for calling. Or finally, teens may be concerned that the culprit will find out about their call to the police.
Guardly, a mobile personal safety app, can help teens in cases like these. By allowing teens to connect in real-time with their personal safety network of family and friends, potentially dangerous circumstances can often be entirely avoided. And if teens are unsure about contacting the police, their safety network can collaborate instantly through Guardly’s emergency response site and provide crucial advice.
Visit the Guardly website to find out more. The Guardly app is available on iPhone through the Apple App Store, and is coming soon to Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 platforms. Stay safe!
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I came across a particularly informative yet startling infographic about domestic violence today on Drrawnsley.com. It concisely outlines some very important statistics about domestic violence against women and hospital rates and also sheds some light on tell tale abuse victim behavior.
The info:
- 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year
- Each year domestic violence results in 100,000 days of hospitalization including 40,000 visits to the emergency room
- Only approximately one quarter of all physical assaults perpetuated against females by intimate partners are reported to the police
- On average, women experience 35 incidents of domestic violence before seeking treatment
- A women in the US is beaten by an intimate or former partner every 5 seconds
- People who are being physically abused may: (1) seem afraid or anxious to please their partner (2) check in often with their partner to report where they are and what they’re doing (3) receive frequent, harassing phone calls from their partner (4) have frequent injuries with the excuse of “accidents” (5) frequently miss work, school or social occasions without explanation (6) dress in clothing designed to hide bruises or scars
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It may come as a surprise that elderly abuse cases have seen a huge rise as the Boomer generation has aged passed 65 year old. In 2005, there were 160 violent incidents for every 100,000 seniors, almost 14 times lower than the rate recorded for persons aged 15 to 24 (2,317 per 100,000) according to Statistics Canada. Below, you’ll find The National Center For Elder Abuse 7 areas of abuse as well as a video titled “An Age for Justice: Confronting Elder Abuse in America”.
7 Areas of Abuse:
- Physical abuse – Any act of violence that causes pain, injury, impairment, or disease, including striking, pushing, force-feeding, and improper use of physical restraints or medication.
- Emotional or psychological abuse – Conduct that causes mental anguish including threats, verbal or nonverbal insults, isolation, and humiliation. Some legal definitions require identification of at least 10 episodes of this type of behavior within a single year to constitute abuse.
- Financial or material exploitation – Misuse of an elderly person’s money or assets for personal gain. Acts such as stealing (money, social security checks, possessions) or coercion (changing a will, assuming power of attorney) constitute financial abuse.
- Neglect – Failure of a caretaker to provide for the patient’s basic needs. As in the previous examples of abuse, neglect can be physical, emotional, or financial. Physical neglect is failure to provide eyeglasses or dentures, preventive health care, safety precautions, or hygiene. Emotional neglect includes failure to provide social stimulation (leaving an older person alone for extended periods). Financial neglect involves failure to use the resources available to restore or maintain the well-being of the aging adult.
- Sexual abuse – Nonconsensual intimate contact or exposure or any similar activity when the patient is incapable of giving consent. Family members, friends, institutional employees, and fellow patients can commit sexual abuse
- Self-neglect – Behavior in which seniors compromise their own health and safety, as when an aging adult refuses needed help with various daily activities. When the patient is deemed competent, many ethical questions arise regarding the patient’s right of autonomy and the physician’s oath of beneficence.
- Abandonment – The desertion of an elderly person by an individual who has assumed responsibility for providing care for an elder, or by a person with physical custody of an elder.
How Guardly Can Help: The victim may feel be too scared of their attacker or too helpless to alert family right away if they are being abused. Guardly can be activated discreetly at the click of a button, informing help quietly and safely. The victim can quickly conference with any combination of friends/family/authority and escribe the problem, share photographs of their injuries or even of the abuser to help rectify the issue and report their problem. Guardly’s use of different contact groups ensures that the victim will communicate with the right people at the right time if an incident were to occur. With Guardly, senior’s should feel more confident and empowered when reporting abuse and will quickly receive the safety and security they so greatly deserve.
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