Responding to Reports of Gender Based Violence
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At Culture Shift we believe that the journey towards improving your reporting processes is ongoing, and it doesn’t end with adopting a new reporting system. There are many barriers to reporting that require ongoing work to build the trust needed in your reporting routes within your organisation to increase reports of Gender-based Violence.
What is Gender-based Violence (GBV)?
The European Commission defines Gender-based Violence as violence directed against a person because of that person’s gender or violence that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately.
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, Gender-based Violence is a phenomenon deeply rooted in gender inequality and continues to be one of the most notable human rights violations within all societies.
Introduction
In recent years, the conversation surrounding the known prevalence of GBV on university campuses and within workplaces has been growing.
Campaigns such as #MeToo and Everyone’s Invited UK offer platforms for survivors of Gender-based Violence to share their experiences, it is becoming impossible to ignore.
These campaigns demonstrate the need for space to speak up and share experiences of GBV, in an empowering way. This means providing people with a way to report anonymously, and ensuring the reporter feels supported and guided throughout the reporting process. Our real-time reporting platform, Report and Support does this.
Although you might not see or hear of GBV regularly, data proves that some form of GBV will exist within every organisation.
The Worker Protection Amendment to the Equality Act 2010, has placed a new duty on organisations to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. Employers must not just work retrospectively, but preventatively. Organisations must comply with the legislation by October 2024. One way you can respond to this increased duty is to have a robust reporting process, which members of your organisation trust.
Increasing trust in processes to increase awareness of Gender-based Violence
Through having a robust process for your people to report their experiences of Gender-based Violence. There is little value in having a process in place if members of your community do not trust it.
Having an anonymous reporting route is a great first step to help members of your organisation to trust your process. It means that they can report with confidence that their name will not be attached to the report, so they are more likely to share their experiences with you.
Receiving increased reports of GBV will give you a better picture and understanding of the current prevalence of GBV within your organisation, enabling you to embed targeted, preventative measures to address GBV.
For named reporters, it is important that you have staff within your organisation who respond in a way that makes the reporter feel safe, supported, and empowered. If somebody has a positive experience with a responder, they are more likely to trust your reporting process and to report again.
About our training
We spoke with our partner base to understand their experiences of responding to reports, and in response to your requests have developed a Responder Training Programme.
Whether you are in a dedicated role, a volunteer role, or only occasionally review reports this interactive training provides participants with the know-how to respond to reports in a way that builds trust in your platform and organisational response.
The training covers topics such as:
- What are bullying, harassment, and culture-damaging behaviours?
- The kinds of reports you might receive on Report and Support
- The range of people that report on Report and Support
- Key considerations to take into account when you receive a report
- Having a trauma-informed conversation with a reporter
- The range of possible resolutions to reports
The training programme will provide opportunities for participants to apply their learning to scenario reports and will encourage participants to consider their organisation’s internal processes and consider their responsibility and the limitations of their role throughout.
Additionally, we have a follow-on session that you can book, which covers Responding to Reports of Gender-based Violence specifically. This includes:
- What is Gender-based violence?
- Responding to reports of Gender-based violence and facilitating appropriate resolutions
- Responding to anonymous reports of Gender-based violence
What we're reading
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How the National Theatre Lowered the Barrier to Speaking Up
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Feeling inspired?
Take the first step toward preventative misconduct management with a demo of our Report + Support™ platform. We can show you how to breakdown reporting barriers with anonymous 2-way messaging, and how to act before things escalate with name-matching and pattern-spotting across our analytics dashboard.
