Caring for Survivors of Sexual Violence in Emergencies: Participant Manual

This workshop is designed to introduce participants to a new resource related to addressing gender-based violence in conflict and other emergency affected contexts.  The Caring for Survivors Training is designed to assist all professionals who come into direct contact with survivors to understand key concepts related to gender-based violence and apply basic engagement skills that promote the safety and well-being of survivors.

Objectives:

To introduce participants to basic concepts related to working with survivors, including gender, GBV, and multi-sectoral programming;

To review possible bio-psycho-social consequences of violence and survivors’ related needs;

To provide all participants, regardless of their professional responsibilities, with practical methods for communicating with survivors that increase survivor comfort and facilitate survivor coping skills.

To provide all participants a thorough understanding of the dynamics and the physical and psychosocial consequences of sexual violence in conflict-affected areas and other emergency settings. To provide all participants, regardless of their professional responsibilities, the tools to use survivor-centred skills when engaging with survivors, including with child-survivors.

To practise survivor-centred skills in context-specific roles.

To provide all participants with information on the different roles and responsibilities of all actors engaging with survivors of sexual violence.

To provide information about protection activities and justice mechanisms involving survivors of sexual violence.