Domestic Violence and Black and Minority Ethnic Communities: evaluation report
Seminar: London: 29 May 08
Why BME Communities?
Feedback from our Home Truths conferences pointed the way towards tackling this subject. As with men and children, there are unique and specific issues that black and minority ethnic women and communities face. But how well do we acknowledge, understand and work with them? How well do we understand and consider the impact and influence, for example, of culture, religion and immigration? It seemed to me that these were big questions.
I think I put together a powerful line-up but, sadly, we failed in our standard aim to get into the 4 out of 5 rating bracket for the overall seminar from the day’s evaluations – which is a major disappointment. I think we should have looked to provide more practical knowledge and best practice examples (indeed both workshops that were practice-based scored an average 4.6 and 4.3 – easily the highest).
One delegate wrote across her evaluation in frustration at just hearing statistics: “No more stats – SOLUTIONS!!” It made me think. It also occurred to me that this could form part of a great sub-title for Home Truths 3 (our major national conference set for November 2008):
Home Truths 3
No stats – just solutions and success stories
This would emphasise the conference to be about everyday practice and what works. So, for me that is a great positive to take out of the less-than-overwhelmed responses. I shall also secretly award myself a fiver for each time a presenter or facilitator says “I know the conference title says ‘No stats’ but here’s one anyway…”
Back to our domestic violence and BME communities seminar – I also realised that in compiling the programme I simply overlooked racism as a specific subject. Funding also raised its ugly mug on a number of occasions – and while I’m not entirely convinced that there is a great deal to be said beyond how tricky it all is, perhaps someone needs to say it anyway; and suggest ways that specialist projects receive the funding they need and deserve.
But for me – the seminar made clear that while there is still a lot of work to be thought through and done, we have made enormous strides in the past 10 years.
What you said
Here are the average ratings by delegates who scored each section on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being “excellent” and 1 being “poor”). We always look to score at least 4.0 on these ratings.
Responses were received from 26 delegates
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1 How would you rate the seminar overall? |
3.8 |
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2 How would you rate the venue? |
3.2 |
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3 How would you rate the administration before the conference? |
4.3 |
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4 How would you rate how things were organised on the day? |
3.8 |
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5 How would you rate Commander Steve Allen’s session on DV and political correctness? |
3.6 |
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6 How would you rate Geetanjali Gangoli’s session on forced marriage? |
3.7 |
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7 How would you rate Alice Sampson and Alpa Parmar’s session on advocacy? |
3.3 |
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8 How would you rate Rahila Gupta’s session on Provoked? |
4.1 |
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9 How would you rate Jude Woods’ workshop on Appropriate Responses? |
3.7 |
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10 How would you rate Rahila Gupta’s workshop on Southall Black Sisters’ campaign: Abolish No Recourse to Public Funds |
3.6 |
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11 How would you rate BAWSO’s workshop on supporting women and children fleeing DV? |
4.6 |
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12 How would you rate SLAWO’s workshop on Men’s DV Project? |
4.3 |
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12How would you rate the lunch? |
3.9 |
Comments: the good stuff
“Overall – a good seminar”
“Very good event”
“Really great. Learnt a lot but want to know more”
“Rahila Gupta’s session on Provoked was very well presented – it gave a real picture.”
“SLAWO’s workshop was very good, very informative”
“Overall the programme was enlightened and issues discussed were relevant”
“The event was good in general”
“Very informative”
“Very good and interesting”
“Excellent content”
“Very informative”
“It was very interesting”
“Extremely interesting”
Comments: the not-so-good stuff
“Much of Steve Allen’s talk was away from the subject of domestic violence and didn’t really link domestic violence and political correctness until the end”
“Venue was poor. It was cold and noisy from other rooms”
“Poor acoustics, noisy and cold”
“Content excellent – let down by noisy venue”
We say: The noise was a distraction and efforts were made to minimise this on the day. But it remained a disturbance. The venue says that the noise is unusual and were at a loss to explain it – other than the group in the upstairs room was unusually loud and lively. We have been told this shouldn’t happen again.
“Use of language by some people was divisive: ‘white refuges’; ‘taking money from specialist services’. I didn’t feel this was a positive way of taking the issue forwards. Some BME victims don’t want BME services – it has to be a matter of choice. Also, just because a minority of DV victims are male – it doesn’t mean they should be forgotten; we need to acknowledge all victims, although the majority pf support will be given to women. This was a shame because I felt that this division let down the day and reduced the effectiveness.”
“Some speakers too lengthy with presentations”
“Not enough information on combating forced marriage”
“No ways to combat forced marriage offered”
Comments: the suggestions: content
The seminar style is too much lecture-based
Much of the input came across as academic and not practitioner based
Very good but would have liked to hear more grass root level – case studies
More interactive (physical) activity
Morning session gave numbers of statements but not working towards resolutions
More ground level work – not academic!
We say: Point taken – if we run an event on this subject again, we will make sure there is a stronger practice focus
More info on working with BME perpetrators
We say: We did have a workshop planned on this subject – but the facilitator pulled out a couple of weeks before the event.
Disappointed that the workshop ‘Where’s the Honour in domestic violence’ was cancelled – as this was particularly what made the decision for me to attend.
We say: Sadly, the facilitator booked to run this workshop pulled out late on – it being the same person booked to do the BME perpetrators workshop. An “eggs in one basket” lesson for us there.
Entertainment to break up the day
We say: Actually we often include some arts-based sessions – usually a drama. We did look into providing one for this seminar but it simply proved too expensive – but we will continue to search! This is also why we decided to include Rahila Gupta’s session on the book and film.
I think that Rahila Gupta should have been given more time to speak
We say: It is hard to judge these things – but on reflection, you are right.
You should include people who have survived domestic violence to speak about their experiences
We say: We agree