The Lombardy Region is promoting a project to be proposed for financing on the Daphne III European program by the 22nd of April 2009, deadline for applying. This means that the partnership should be finalised by the middle of march at the latest, in order to have the time to write the project and to gather the documentation.
The project, an action-research lasting 24 months and starting in the second half of the 2009, aims to gain knowledge and raise the quality of day services specifically targeted to minors victims of violence.
It answers the general and specific objectives of the Daphne III call.
The general objective of the Daphne III Programme is to contribute to the protection of children, young people and women against all forms of violence and to attain a high level of health protection, well being and social cohesion. The programme shall contribute, especially where it concerns children, young people and women, to the development of the Community policies and more specifically to those related to public health, human rights and gender equality, as well as actions aimed at protection of children’s rights, and the fight against trafficking of human beings and sexual exploitation.
The programme’s specific objective is to contribute to the prevention of and the fight against all forms of violence occurring in the public or the private domain against children, young people and women, by taking preventive measures and by providing support and protection for victims and groups at risk.
This specific objective will be achieved by means of the following actions:
(a) assisting and encouraging NGOs and other organisations active in this field;
(b) developing and implementing awareness-raising actions;
(c) disseminating the results obtained under the two Daphne programmes;
(d) identifying and enhancing actions contributing to positive treatment of people at risk of violence;
(e) setting up and supporting multidisciplinary networks;
(f) ensuring the expansion of evidence-based information and the knowledge base, the exchange, identification and dissemination of information and good practice, including through research, training, study visits and staff exchange;
(g) designing and testing awareness-raising and educational materials;
(h) studying phenomena related to violence and its impact;
(i) developing and implementing support programmes for victims and people at risk and intervention programmes for perpetrators.
The project “Acquiring knowledge and raising the quality of services targeted to minors victims of violence”, which will involve a transnational partnership, besides an Italian team of public bodies, a no-profit association active in the field, a research agency for the methodological aspects, has the general objective of expanding the knowledge-base on the available services of each geographical area, exchange experiences and good practices, creating a set of self-assessment indicators on the quality of the services, with a European scope.
Each partner will then be able to specify its own second level objectives which, for the Lombardy Region for example consist in the testing of the set of indicators and in the selection of criteria for the accreditation of the regional services targeted to minors victims of violence.
In practise, the project activities able to reach such objectives, most of which are to be implemented in all partner countries at the same time, are the following:
1. Contextualisation of the phenomenon of violence against children and of the services targeted to them in all areas of the partnership through a collection, updating and analysis of the scientific literature and the data available from institutional and other sources;
2. Comparison of the legislation and policies of the partner countries (and comparison with European laws and guidelines) in order to check strengths and weaknesses of the legal frameworks and find useful information for the elaboration of the quality indicators.
3. Mapping of the day services for minors victims of violence available in the geographical areas of the partnership, managed both by public and no-profit/voluntary organisations. The mapping will include deeper information about the organisation, the users, the personnel, the activities of the services mapped. The mapping will take the form of an information gathering from institutions active in the field and directly from services. In this phase in each partner country there will be interviews to referees and social workers of the services aimed at getting deeper understanding of their working conditions and start to think about good practices selection.
4. Identification of the criteria for the selection of good practices and selection of the experiences on each partner territory in order to exchange them, compare them, and gain useful hints for the implementation of the set of European indicators.
5. Creation of the set of European indicators common to partner countries for the self-assessment of the day services addressed to minors victims of violence.
6. Testing of the set of indicators, only where is of interest to the specific partner. Possible adjustment of the indicators on the base of the testing.
7. Actions of diffusion and mainstreaming: this very important phase of the project foresees the implementation of a broad range of diversified actions, according to the interest of the single partner (workshops, training, conferences, etc.).
Outputs:
1. An analytical report of the phenomenon of violence against minors and services available on each partner country with comparisons to the European level;
2. Analysis of the legal framework of each national context involved in the partnership with comparisons to the European level;
3. Mapping of the specific day services available in the partnership areas;
4. Analytical forms on the good practices selected in each partner country;
5. Set of indicators for the self-assessment of the quality of the services;
6. Synthetic report on the test of the indicators;
7. Final research report on all phases of the project;
8. Diversified mainstreaming actions in each partner cou
