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Contains background information about definition and forms of gender-based violence and a glossary of key terms used in the training. It includes links and resources related to GBV.
Service providers new to the anti-violence field, start here to learn more about gender-based violence (GBV). For those who are already familiar, please proceed to Module 2.
RISA is an acronym for Risk Identification and Safety Assessment. This tool was developed for front-line service providers working with survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) or those at risk of violence. Use it to help guide professional judgement of risk and to produce personalized safety and action plans for use with clients.
The RISA tool was created and designed by the Barbra Schlifer Clinic, as part of the Clinic’s five-year National Risk Assessment Project. RISA was informed by an extensive literature review, consultation with service providers and survivors of violence, and with input from GBV experts, including project partners.
The Barbra Schlifer Clinic’s five-year National Risk Assessment Project was launched in 2019 in collaboration with our project partners and with funding from Women and Gender Equality (WAGE).
The project builds a blueprint for risk identification and safety frameworks that is founded on a trauma-informed approach and the consideration of intersecting identity factors for Indigenous women, Black women, racialized women, immigrant and refugee women, women with precarious immigration status, women with disabilities, 2SLGBTQIA+ people, and gender-diverse survivors who are disproportionately impacted by GBV.
More information about the Risk Assessment Project
Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic is a specialized clinic for women and gender-diverse people experiencing violence, established in the memory of Barbra Schlifer. The Clinic is a multi-disciplinary front-line service provider that assists more than 10,000 women a year to build lives free from violence through counselling, legal representation, and language interpretation.
More information about the Barbra Schlifer Clinic
Colonialism: the attempted or actual imposition of policies, laws, mores, economies, cultures or systems and institutions put in place by settler governments to support and continue the occupation of Indigenous territories, the subjugation of Indigenous Nations, and the resulting internalized and externalized thought patterns that support this occupation and subjugation.
Racism: systemic subordination, oppression, and exploitation of specific groups of people based on perceived physical and/or cultural characteristics. Racism is rooted in beliefs that assume the biological or cultural superiority of one racial group over others, resulting in power and privilege for the dominant group and unequal treatment and limited opportunities for oppressed groups.
Coercive Control: an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten. This is meant to make a person dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence and regulating their everyday behavior.
Technology-facilitated violence: a modern form of gender-based violence that utilizes digital technologies to cause harm. It can include hacking, surveillance/tracking, impersonating, harassment/spamming, recruitment, and malicious distribution.
Economic Coercion: when an individual uses money, assets or property to control or exploit another individual.
Forcible confinement: depriving an individual of the liberty to move from one point to another by unlawfully confining, imprisoning or forcibly seizing that person.
Spiritual abuse: using a person's religious or spiritual beliefs to manipulate, dominate or control them. It may also include preventing someone from engaging in spiritual or religious practices or ridiculing their beliefs.
Xenophobia: Fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers, their cultures, and/or their customs.
Classism: negative beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, and/or systems of practices that devalue, exploit, or exclude people viewed as being from a lower social standing or class.
The RISA Framework outlines the key factors and circumstances that are essential to consider when assessing risk and safety with survivors of GBV.
Unlike a one-size-fits-all approach, the RISA Framework acknowledges that a holistic account of an individual’s unique experiences must be centered during service provision and support services. This includes considering the combination of a client’s unique identity factors and experiences of violence, as well as their experiences of structural and institutional harms.
an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten. This is meant to make a person dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence and regulating their everyday behavior.
an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten. This is meant to make a person dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence and regulating their everyday behavior.
negative beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, and/or systems of practices that devalue, exploit, or exclude people viewed as being from a lower social standing or class.
when an individual uses money, assets or property to control or exploit another individual.
the killing of women and girls because of their sex and gender. This term explicitly highlights the ways that women and girls are targeted due to gender oppression and marginalization.
depriving an individual of the liberty to move from one point to another by unlawfully confining, imprisoning or forcibly seizing that person.
any type of harm that is perpetrated against a person or group of people because of their factual or perceived sex, gender, sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It describes violence rooted in exploiting unequal power relationships between genders.
a pattern of behaviour by one partner designed to coerce, control, and dominate the other partner. Such behaviour includes physical, psychological, sexual, emotional, financial, verbal, online, and social abuse and intimidation.
systemic subordination, oppression, and exploitation of specific groups of people based on perceived physical and/or cultural characteristics. Racism is rooted in beliefs that assume the biological or cultural superiority of one racial group over others, resulting in power and privilege for the dominant group and unequal treatment and limited opportunities for oppressed groups.
using a person’s religious or spiritual beliefs to manipulate, dominate or control them. It may also include preventing someone from engaging in spiritual or religious practices or ridiculing their beliefs.
a modern form of gender-based violence that utilizes digital technologies to cause harm. It can include hacking, surveillance/tracking, impersonating, harassment/spamming, recruitment, and malicious distribution.
Fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers, their cultures, and/or their customs.
These resources are for you to use on your own or with a client. They can be used to help ground you before or after meeting with clients, or during your session with clients you may want to integrate a grounding exercise where appropriate.
Kelley Bonner, LCSW, MA, is a burnout expert and wellness advocate. Her company, Burn Bright, helps high-achieving professionals prevent burnout through mindfulness and self-care. Kelley works with individuals, groups, and organizations to provide tools to reduce stress, enhance wellness, and strengthen workplace culture.
Burnout. We’re all experiencing it and we’re all desperate for a way through it. In this episode, I talk to Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski about what causes burnout, what it does to our bodies, and how we can move through the emotional exhaustion. This has been a game changer for me and for my family!
by Audre Lorde (1988) with Sonia Sanchez Foreword (2017)
Winner of the 1988 Before Columbus Foundation National Book Award, this path-breaking collection of essays is a clarion call to build communities that nurture our spirit. Lorde announces the need for a radical politics of intersectionality while struggling to maintain her own faith as she wages a battle against liver cancer. From reflections on her struggle with the disease to thoughts on lesbian sexuality and African-American identity in a straight white man’s world, Lorde’s voice remains enduringly relevant in today’s political landscape.
by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski (2019)
This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men—and provides a simple, science-based plan to help women minimize stress, manage emotions, and live a more joyful life.
by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2018)
Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of colour are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a toolkit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind. Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.
This Issue-based Newsletter examines collective wellbeing in gender-based violence work through a three-pronged approach that seeks to advocate for changes at the structural level, prevent vicarious trauma, and foster vicarious resilience among anti-violence workers. It provides an overview of vicarious trauma and vicarious resilience, highlights the role of organizations in preventing vicarious trauma, and offers strategies for what organizations can do to foster vicarious resilience and promote the well-being of anti-violence workers.
by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky with Connie Burk (2009)
A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll taken on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, or numb or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other living things, and the planet itself.
In Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way. Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices, drawn from modern psychology and a range of spiritual traditions, that enable us to look carefully at our reactions and motivations and discover new sources of energy and renewal. She includes interviews with successful trauma stewards from different walks of life and even uses New Yorker cartoons to illustrate her points.
