Education and Raising Awareness in Schools to Prevent and Encounter Gender-Based Violence

A significant number of children and adolescents encounter violence and abuse, and are subjected to physical, emotional and sexual gender-based violence as victim, witness or bystander. Yet different forms of violence among children and youth have been invisible in public policy, legislation and the education system. Although teachers and other professionals at school are in a key position in awareness raising and behavioural change as well as in the recognition of and early intervention in violence, abuse and harassment among their students, previous research suggests that they often lack the knowledge and skills to address the problems of gendered power and violence. This lack is largely due to limited training to address forms of violence and abuse. Hence, the scale and impact of different forms of gendered violence against and among children and adolescents requires multi-level response in which awareness raising and preventive interventions target whole populations and form a broad and substantial base for behavioural change.

Education and Raising Awareness in Schools to Prevent and Encounter Gender-Based Violence. Developing and implementing a training programme for teachers and other professionals, ERASE GBV - project investigates institutional and affective practices of encountering GBV in schools. The project focuses on 1) institutional habits and procedures, 2) experiences, emotions, and conceptions in encountering GBV, 3) awareness on forms of GBV, and 4) challenges and possibilities for violence prevention and intervention in the framework of multi-professional co-operation.

The project answers these needs for the training of teachers, teacher students and other school professionals by (1) producing a model for developing a web-based training programme, increasing awareness and building the capability to prevent and encounter forms of gender-based violence at school; and (2) training teachers, teacher students and other professionals at school to recognize and encounter children and youth exposed to gender-based violence, abuse and harassment by providing support and guidance to further services, and reporting abuse and violence to authorities.

This project is funded by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme of the European Union (2014-2020) under grant agreement No 856816