Abused No More: Safeguarding Youth and Empowering Professionals Widening Participation Dr Natalia Paszkiewicz The Programme is funded by Erasmus+ under UK01-KA Cardiff 3 December 2015

IARS is a leading, international think-tank with a charitable mission to give everyone a chance to forge a safer, fairer and more inclusive society. We achieve our charitable aims by producing evidence-based solutions to current social problems, sharing best practice and by supporting young people and the community to shape decision making. IARS is an international expert in criminal justice, restorative justice, human rights and inclusion, citizenship and user-led research. IARS was founded upon the principles of; user & civic participation; restorative justice & dialogue; and individual empowerment & responsibility The IARS International Institute has stayed true to its founding values and been striving to achieve its mission and vision officially for the past 10 years 2 About IARS

3 Theory of change

In line with our ethos as a charity that produces community-led solutions for a better society, we used PAR (Participatory Action Research) in our work with refugee and asylum-seeking women under Comic relief-funded Abused No More project, and supported a group of 12 women to carry out their own research into their peers’ experiences of health and legal services. The findings have been published in the IARS 2013 book Abused No More: Voices of Refugee and Asylum-seeking Women. On the basis of the findings, the same project designed an evidence-based training and awareness raising programme for professionals and service providers focusing on the impact of gender-related violence on refugee and asylum-seeking women. The Gender Sensitivity training has been accredited with CPD status and is delivered directly by the affected women. Women’s Advisory Board (WAB) - what is unique about our programmes is that refugee and asylum-seeking women are directly involved in design, delivery and evaluation of our projects. 4 User-led approach

1.Building trust 2.Time 3.Communicating empathy 4.Gender sensitivity 5.Travel, refreshments and childcare expenses 6.Barriers to engagement: destitution, language, limited literacy 7.Cultural competence 8.Reciprocity (e.g. support with asylum claims) 9.Flexibility 5 Widening participation - refugee and asylum-seeking women

6 IARS Hardship Fund for refugee and asylum-seeking women seeking-women

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