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5
Violence Prevention
Among Multiple Sectors
As the field of violence prevention has evolved over the past few de-
cades, the lack of coordination between related fields and a hesitation to
engage in multisectoral response has posed a major obstacle to the field’s
success. Traditionally, various sectors have approached violence and its
prevention from their own theoretical bases, without integration or col-
laboration, which has often resulted in duplicative work or unsustainable
planning. Many workshop speakers felt strongly that collaboration and an
integrated response are necessary for successful, long-term prevention pro-
grams. David Butler-Jones of the Public Health Agency of Canada described
Canada’s approach to public health as “the organized efforts of society to
improve health and well being and to reduce inequalities” and said that
the efforts include multiple sectors outside of health in order to offer a
comprehensive approach. He stressed the important of this perspective in
preventing missed opportunities both within and outside the health sector.
He also said this perspective is useful in identifying the various roles that
different agencies, sectors, and individuals can play.
A number of speakers observed that violence prevention, while di-
vided into silos, is often its own silo as well. Integrating violence preven-
tion interventions into broader programs aimed at improving health and
well-being would lead to greater success. Dr. Butler-Jones emphasized
the need to address violence as part of addressing health inequities: Two
things that can mean the difference between average health and excellent
health are a sense of self-determination and a sense of connectivity, and
interventions for violence prevention and for health should promote both
of these factors.
42
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43
VIOLENCE PREVENTION AMONG MULTIPLE SECTORS
Mary Ellsberg cited a World Bank review that found that multisectoral
response is a key to successful intervention. “Strategies must improve co-
ordination between sector-specific approaches, civil-society initiatives, and
government institutions,” she said. “They must also take into account the
need for change at all levels of society, from national laws, policies, and in-
stitutions to community-level norms and support networks and household
and individual attitudes and behaviors.” James Lang from Partners for
Prevention listed three key components of any comprehensive strategy: an
evidence base, building the capacity of local partners, and communications
for social change.
Although the public health approach underscores the importance of
collaborating across disciplines (particularly as prevention efforts move
upstream), some speakers felt that further effort is needed to include such
sectors as education, criminal justice, and international aid. For example,
Claudia García-Moreno called for the provision of safe spaces in schools,
laws that create equitable societal structure, and public education directed
at changing norms. Kiersten Stewart said that an important objective of the
International Violence Against Women Act is to coordinate violence pre-
vention, gender equality, and international aid efforts that all seek similar
goals. Ms. Stewart also mentioned the need to include the private sector not
only as a partner in funding and programming, but also as an investor in
the public good. Mary Ellsberg spoke of the evidence basis behind success-
ful programs and said that the more successful programs have integrated
efforts, such as home visitations for teaching parental skills. Several speak-
ers commented that violence prevention and gender equality efforts need
to be coordinated because addressing gender equality alone will not affect
the prevalence of violence.
Another key element in ensuring the success of multisectoral responses
will be to build on a foundation of evidence. Claudia García-Moreno sug-
gested that prevention should move from small-scale programs to national
and multi-country interventions, but the evidence base concerning such a
translation is still weak. She also said that although awareness of the issue is
growing, allocation of resources is still lagging for both research and evalu-
ation. Dr. Ellsberg noted that political and social will are essential as well.
Ms. Widyono urged participants to remember that research in this area
drives advocacy and policy and that the interventions that work best are
ones based in evidence to show it. She also suggested that increasing the
evidence base would result in greater buy-in from implementing partners—
and that the buy-in would be even greater if the partners are included in
the research and data gathering. In such cases, as demonstrated by Partners
for Prevention, community partners are able to assist in the designing of
interventions. By developing mutually beneficial best practices, researchers,
implementers, and advocates all feel equally invested in the efforts.
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44 PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Despite the will to increase coordination of efforts, however, various
barriers persist. Forum member Evelyn Tomaswieski said that identifying
relevant partners can be difficult, while forum member Arturo Cervantes
questioned whether investing in various sectors would work without a
mechanism for integration, which would includes buy-in from all partners.
Gail Wyatt said that in addition to using comprehensive approaches, in-
terventions must be built on comprehensive theories of complex traumas
and multiple types of exposures because sequelae and even interventions
can be different. Cheryl Thomas emphasized the need for agreement from
the entire group not only on the cost-effectiveness of prevention and in-
tervention, but also on the foundational theory of the violence and its risk
and protective factors. A few speakers said that mechanisms for delegat-
ing responsibility among partners are key but that they can be difficult to
implement. James Lang emphasized the lack of ideal integrated models for
social change.
Speakers also expressed frustration with the existence of silos in re-
search and in funding for research. One audience member said that there
is a need for increased data sharing and stated that some partners are not
always willing to share proprietary or confidential information. Several
speakers said that funding for a coordinated and integrated response is rare
and that researchers are often limited in these approaches by their funding
sources. Dr. Wyatt suggested that researchers should demand integrated
funding and design their interventions to facilitate collaborative funding.
Models for coordinated and sustainable programs do exist, and several
presentations provided examples. One factor in a successful program is the
integration of the intervention into pre-existing programs or activities. Judy
Langford stressed this observation in her discussion of the Strengthening
Families model, which promotes healthy behaviors in pre-existing settings,
such as daycare. Such integration makes a model more sustainable and eas-
ier to implement for those on the ground. The Fourth R program followed
a similar approach, integrating the intervention into physical education or
health classes, thereby allowing students to practice what they were learn-
ing, much as they would in other classes. Agnes Tiwari’s intervention used
obstetricians and midwives in an integral way, which increased penetration
into the community because most of the women were already using prenatal
care. International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGE) took an
integrated approach by using a one-hour participatory group session into
which was integrated messaging about gender equality, violence, and HIV;
the messaging not only focused on the intersection among the three factors
but also discussed how addressing all three together leads to measurable
change. Hortensia Amaro and Roger Fallot went a step further to discuss
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VIOLENCE PREVENTION AMONG MULTIPLE SECTORS
how integrating thinking about trauma into such existing programs would
bolster them even further, particularly by providing training to service pro-
viders on trauma sensitivity.
The trauma-informed context also requires coordination. It is, by its
nature, a model of integration as it views health care needs through the
trauma lens. Roger Fallot discussed how this approach incorporates ev-
erything known about trauma and trauma response into existing systems
of care. Such contexts facilitate healing by providing a more hospitable
environment, a major result of which is reduced re-victimization.
Brigid McCaw described Kaiser Permanente’s existing model of integra-
tion into a system of care, which makes it easy to implement system-wide
models of change and to coordinate disparate sectors into one program. In
particular, chronic care management offers a variety of lessons in this area.
Another example is the Boston Consortium Model, an integrated interven-
tion that addressed both trauma and substance abuse; when researchers
tested whether this approach was more successful than substance abuse
programs by themselves, they found that this was the case.
Partners for Prevention was able to overcome initial problems caused
by a lack of coordination by addressing internal silos. Because United Na-
tions efforts are not always coordinated, Partners for Prevention began by
bringing together sectors within that agency. In doing so, the program was
able to address external issues of lack of coordination because government
ministries were already partnered with various UN agencies that were
working together. In the same way, the InterCambios Alliance had similar
success by bringing together the organizations working on the issues and
coordinating with government agencies. Ms. Widyono stated that innova-
tive work was happening but not being shared, and InterCambios helped
develop the collaboration needed for technical capacity building. Both
speakers stressed the need for flexibility and trust in ensuring that all part-
ners’ needs are being met.
Ms. Thomas mentioned an early model in this field. “I mentioned the
Duluth Model of Coordinated Community Response,” she said. “Every-
body, I think, is just in agreement how critical it is that this multisectoral
approach occurs where people understand. A judge can’t sit up at the
bench and issue an order for protection by himself and expect this work
to keep a woman safe and hold an offender accountable. People have to
be communicating in the system. The police have to know that it exists
and how to enforce it. Shelters have to know that it exists. And if people
are communicating about that we know now that that is where laws work
when there is this coordinated community response, this holistic model, this
multisectoral approach.”
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46 PREVENTING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN
KEY MESSAGES
A holistic, integrated response requires participation from all essential
stakeholders, because the ultimate aim is not only the reduction of violence
but also the promotion of well-being. Overcoming barriers to successful
comprehensive approaches include cooperation amongst partners, a foun-
dation of evidence, and community and political will. It will also require
addressing the stovepiping of funding and research, not only between sec-
tors, but also within the health field, and violence prevention itself.
