Mapping Victims’ Rights: A Transformative Tool for Improved Access and Support
by Nela Kalpic

The Victim Rights Mapping Exercise is an innovative, collaborative tool that visually and systematically outlines the path victims take to access their rights and services within the justice system. Developed as the first exercise of its kind in partnership with the Wisconsin Department of Justice, this mapping framework identifies gaps, highlights potential barriers, and enables victim support professionals to streamline processes, ensuring that victims’ rights are meaningfully upheld from the moment of reporting through sentencing and beyond. The goal is to inspire participants to adapt this mapping model within their own jurisdictions, creating actionable pathways for effective victim support.

This session will:

• Engage participants in hands-on mapping exercises that demonstrate the framework, showing how it identifies gaps in victims’ rights access, enforcement, and overall implementation, while also highlighting critical access points across systems.
• Showcase practical examples and case studies from U.S.-based implementations with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections and the National Guard, illustrating how mapping can reveal essential intervention opportunities, particularly for victims of sexual violence, domestic violence, and other vulnerable populations.
• Foster discussion on customizing the mapping exercise to suit European jurisdictions and diverse victim support frameworks, encouraging cross-border collaboration and integration.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Develop a basic victim rights mapping framework tailored to their organization’s specific legal and procedural requirements.
2. Identify and analyse potential barriers to victim support within their system, using mapping to visualize the victim journey and streamline access to services.
3. Collaborate with diverse stakeholders, integrating feedback from justice officials, victim advocates, and social service providers to create an adaptable, inclusive mapping model.
4. Implement trauma-informed practices within the mapping exercise to address the unique needs of vulnerable groups such as children, elderly victims, and victims of gender-based violence.

Becoming Trauma Informed – a Necessary Education
by Kate MacGowan

This session draws on innovative, multi-disciplinary, and international approaches to understanding and implementing trauma-informed care. By focusing on practical strategies and real-world examples, participants will learn how to integrate trauma awareness into their work to better support victims and their unique experiences.

Through a blend of presentations, real-life case studies, and interactive discussions, this workshop will cover essential trauma-informed concepts and empower you to:

• Understand what trauma really is by exploring different types and the four core aspects of trauma.
• Clarify what trauma is not, distinguishing it from mental health diagnoses, physical symptoms, and psychological conditions.
• Apply the “Four Rs” of trauma-informed care: Realize, Recognize, Respond, and Resist Re-Traumatization.
• Advance toward trauma-informed practice, progressing through key stages: Trauma Sensitive, Trauma Aware, Trauma Informed, and Trauma Responsive.

Turning Legislation into Action: implementing the Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence
by Slachtofferhulp

This workshop explores the implementation of the EU Directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence, the first comprehensive legal framework of its kind. The Directive calls for improved rights, protection, and support for victims of crime, emphasising cooperation, coordination, and digitalisation across Member States.

In the Netherlands, while diverse support services exist, fragmentation remains a challenge. How can the system be streamlined to ensure victims receive timely, appropriate assistance? How do we balance centralisation with maintaining specialised expertise?

Additionally, the Directive’s inclusion of psychological violence raises critical questions: Should psychological harm be criminalised as a standalone offense? What standards of proof are necessary, and how can victims help collect evidence?

Digitalisation offers new avenues for victim support, but challenges remain: Are digital services accessible to vulnerable victims, and can digital communication effectively support risk assessments?

This interactive workshop, led by Nicole van Gelder, PhD, and Eva Fechner, will address these questions and explore models for effective coordination, digital solutions, and legal approaches aligned with the Directive’s goals.

Suffering for justice: Sexual violence victim-survivors’ experiences of going to court and cross-examination (2024)
by Victim Support England & Wales

Background: Within recent years, sexual violence has become a central point across UK society and beyond. Media responses often highlight the perceived lack of importance and action taken by those in positions in power to prevent, respond to and prosecute the violence and abuse victim-survivors are subjected to.
There are many reasons which impact a victim-survivors decision to choose not to report to the police. For those who do, the criminal justice experience is often described as retraumatising. A postcode lottery is evident when it comes to victim-survivors receiving vital rights they are entitled to, leading to victim-survivors often paying too high a price for justice.

Our recent report, Suffering for justice focuses on the three main stages of sexual violence victim-survivors’ experiences of going through the court process – before, during and after giving evidence. The report also makes a number of recommendations for changes in policy and practice, with an importance of highlighting that many existing obligations are not currently being met.

Purpose: This workshop will share an overview of the report, findings and recommendations, whilst using the three main sections of the report to encourage participants to reflect on victim-survivors experiences across different jurisdictions. The workshop aims to be an engaging space to identify common threads which weave through victim-survivors experiences and share different ways of working with systems which should support victim-survivors seeking justice.

Activity: Using key findings from Suffering for justice, the facilitators will use innovative ways of prompting discussions, share best practice initiatives and develop connections across Victim Support areas. Ending the workshop by looking to the future, the group will be asked what the ideal change would be to make legalisation work for victim-survivors going through the court process.

Addressing Victim Blaming: A Barrier to Effective Victim Support

by Victim Support New-Zealand

Why do some victims receive sympathy, while others receive scorn and blame? What impact does victim blaming have on victims and what can be done to prevent this universal form of revictimisation?

Drawing on Victim Support New Zealand’s recent research and public awareness campaign, this session highlights how victim blaming prevents victims – especially those from vulnerable populations like ethnic minorities, LGBTQIA+ communities, and disabled people – from reporting crime and seeking support. Participants will leave with actionable strategies to address victim blaming at each stage of the victim’s journey – from legislation and the criminal justice system to societal attitudes and internal practices – ultimately strengthening their ability to provide effective, inclusive support.

Victim blaming: A barrier to turning legislation into effective victim support

Despite legislative protections in New Zealand, victim blaming remains rife, preventing many victims from accessing justice and assistance. We will examine the pivotal role victim support agencies can play in breaking down these barriers by educating the public, influencing policy, and scrutinising their own practices to avoid reinforcing blame.

Interactive exercises: Turning knowledge into action

This session includes two interactive exercises designed to engage participants and ensure practical application:

1.Barriers to engagement: Understanding victim blaming as a barrier to justice and support

Participants will work in small groups to identify what vicitm blaming looks like in their own countries or regions and map out the ways victim blaming creates barriers to accessing support services. Our research shows the unqiue impact of victim blaming on vulnerable groups such as Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand), LGBTQIA+ communities and disabled people. Participants will be invited to reflect on how victim blaming manifests in their own countries, particularly for marginalised populations, and explore steps to address these barriers to support at personal, organisational, justice system, and societal levels.

2. The four-tier commitment to end victim blaming

In this reflective exercise, participants will create personalised action plans at four levels: personal, organisational, justice system, and societal. These plans will guide participants in implementing changes within their organisations to combat victim blaming and foster victim-centric, trauma-informed practices.

The takeaway: Empowerment through action

This hands-on workshop empowers participants to take action against victim blaming, equipping them with practical insights and tools to break down barriers to victim support.

Hora de SER® Program: Raising Awareness and Educating for Relationships

by Portuguese Association for Victim Support (APAV)

Hora de SER® (Raising Awareness and Educating for Relationships) is a prevention programme focused on interpersonal violence aimed for ages between 3- 6 (pre-schooler’s version) and 6-10 years old (primary school version). The programme can be applied both in scholar and communitarian contexts and it was developed by APAV with the intention to work on issues such as gender (dis)equality and social roles, to promote respect for others and to teach positive conflict resolution strategies.

The programme is based on a non-formal learning methodology that privileges the participation, cooperation and experience of children, respecting their point of view and valuing sharing in the group. It is structured in six modules, five of which are aimed at implementing prevention activities exclusively with children. It also contains a module focused on carrying out joint activities between the family and the child(ren), to increase the programme’s effectiveness and reinforce learning throughout implementation.

The programme consists of six modules:

• Module 0: Group Value – Establishes acceptable behaviours and creates a safe, inclusive environment for children to express themselves.
• Module 1: Equality and Diversity – Promotes gender equality, diversity, and challenges stereotypes.
• Module 2: Relationships – Teaches social skills, emotional expression, assertiveness, and conflict resolution.
• Module 3: Effects of Violence – Builds empathy by recognising the impact of violence and promotes non-tolerance of all violence.
• Module 4: Safety – Provides safety strategies and encourages seeking help from trusted adults.
• Module 5: The Role of Family in Prevention – Involves families to reinforce learning and promote shared activities.

The workshop´s goal is to introduce participants to the program materials and provide hands-on experience with Hora de SER® Program activities. Participants will engage in selected activities such as: To Be Boy or Girl; Statues; The ID of the trustworthy adult(s); Who is Who?

This workshop offers a practical opportunity to try activities from each of the children’s modules, covering themes like gender equality, understanding people involved in violent situations, the role of witnesses, choosing trusted adults, and an introduction to the justice system.

Quantifying the Benefits of Victim Support Services

by BeneVict Project Consortium

Join us for a data-driven workshop where participants will explore the key findings from the research conducted through the BeneVict project aimed at quantifying the benefits of victim support services. This workshop will focus on exploring the results of the cost-benefit analysis conducted across three EU Member States (SE, NL, PT), highlighting the value of these services, exploring both the economic and social benefits. This workshop is ideal for victim support professionals, as well as individuals working in social services, healthcare services, criminal justice, public policy, and anyone interested in the topic.