In the past months, project IMPACT entered a robust implementation phase, with numerous activities coordinated by country teams in three participating Member States – Estonia, Malta and Portugal and supported by the VSE Brussels-based team.
The goal of IMPACT is to improve the national victim support frameworks and, to achieve this, strong multi-agent cooperation is required. This is why stakeholder engagement has been our priority. We conducted the first sessions of the National Supervisory Boards on the following dates: 25 February in Portugal, 17 March in Malta, and 8 April in Estonia.
These meetings have allowed us to identify key national stakeholders who will be consulted regularly to provide review and feedback to ongoing IMPACT activities and contribute to the discussions from a country-specific perspective the sector they represent.
Ensuring the participation of experts from healthcare, justice and law enforcement, social security, academia and civil society is a milestone that will greatly benefit the ongoing research phase of the project. With the majority of national-level desk research already completed by the IMPACT country teams, we now look forward to continue validating and verifying the results. This will be done through the organisation of focus groups, working groups and in-depth interviews with individual experts.
National Supervisory Board Meeting in Malta
To ensure the best quality and promotion of IMPACT outputs, colleagues in Estonia have conducted field visits to hospitals, represented IMPACT during a national GREVIO roundtable and led a webinar with local authorities.
In Malta, colleagues planned focus groups with governmental and civil society representatives, expecting participation of over 40 experts during two sessions on 25 and 27 March.
Colleagues in Portugal have been consulting with private and public sector specialists who work on data collection and statistics, as part of the preparations to run the country’s first-in-years victimisation survey.
To stay up to date with IMPACT progress, follow our series of social media posts #IMPACTonVictimRights and the dedicated IMPACT webpage.
National Supervisory Board Meeting in Portugal
Gerttu Aavik, IMPACT’s Project Manager in Estonia, at the country’s GREVIO roundtable
