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CROSSING PROTECT

Building a cross-sectoral training approach for the operators of Restorative Justice and Victims Support systems dealing with crimes against women.

CROSSING PROTECT project aims to enhance new skills and capabilities of partners within the Restorative Justice and the Victim Support systems (RJ/VS), fostering cross-border collaboration and inter-sectoral cooperation. It strives to drive transformation and change by implementing a tailored and innovative peer-to-peer capacity building programme to create new working synergies between the two systems. Through facilitating positive interaction and systemic cooperation between RJ/VS, the project endeavours to increase the quality in the work and practices of the partners, while enhanced effectiveness in their operations.

Crossing Protect builds on the results of two previous Erasmus+ projects involving (partly) the same partners: KINTSUGI and PROTECT. What makes it stands out is the participation of victim support associations dedicated to gender-based violence and human trafficking. These will contribute to the design of restorative justice (RJ) and victim support (VS) services and training programmes tailored to the specific needs of female victims of violence, while also proposing operational guidelines for a future cross-system (RJ-VS) referral approach.

Funding programme

EU funded – Erasmus+

December 2023 – November 2026

Partners

  • Welcome A.p.s. (Italy) Coordinator
  • European Forum for Restorative Justice (Belgium),
  • Victim Support Europe (Belgium),
  • WAAGE (Germany),
  • The Hague University (Netherlands),
  • Assocaizione Spondé (Italy),
  • Rete Dafne (Italy),
  • D.R.O.G.A. (Poland),
  • Klaipeda (Lithuania),
  • APAV (Portugal),
  • ISCSP – University of Lisboa (Portugal)

Associated partners:

  • Mediante (Belgium),
  • SUANA (Germany),
  • Il Posto Occupato (Italy),
  • Fem (Portugal)

Objectives of the project

The general project’s objective is the promotion and the respect of the victims’ rights for a very specific and marginalised target group (namely women victims of crimes) through the effective assessment of needs and the building of a referral approach for the implementation of restorative practices paths. In doing so, the project intends also to contribute to the specific priority of ‘Improving the competences of educators and other adult learning and guidance staff’ by developing skills responding to very specific training needs (those of the RJ/VS operators dealing with crime against women) and by participating in a cross-sectorial training paths tailored on the learners background and circumstances. More in details, CROSSING PROTECT seeks at reaching the following specific objectives:

    1. To build new skills for the partners organisations of the RJ/VS systems to work transnationally and across their sectors by addressing their main common needs and the cross-cutting priorities;
    2. To drive transformation and change in the partners organisations by implementing a tailored and innovative peer-to-peer capacity building programme to increase RJ/VS trainers/operators’ capacities, to capitalise experiences and to create new working synergies between the two systems;
    3. To increase the quality in the work, activities and practices of the partners organisations by opening up to new approaches not naturally included within one sector, thus establishing a positive interaction and a systemic cooperation between the RJ/VS systems.

Activities under the project

1. Building the peer learning community:

• Mapping the skills needs and the systems (on-line questioner) with focus on women and on how the two systems (RJ/VS) approach the crimes against them;
• Sharing the common training methodology and drafting the joint training programme for RJ/VS operators working with crimes against women.

2. Implementing cross-sectoral training:

• 4 Online Training Hotspots to address hot topics of the RJ-VS cooperation: 3h training (1h live lesson with an expert + 2h of stories and voices exchange with project partners and external invited stakeholders to see how the RJ/VS systems work with women victims of crimes);
• 2 Joint training events: (in Poland and in Lithuania) 16h mixing practical workshops and field visit to provide the pilot group with direct experience of how the RJ/VS system approach crimes against women in the country.
• 3 Working/study groups: running in parallel (online) after the launch of Training Hotspots and Events to prepare content contributions, papers, feedback and suggestions for the elaboration of the training outcomes.

3. Capitalising the training outcomes:

• Creating guidelines for common training modules for RJ/VS training activities,
• Developing training toolkit to deliver high-quality victim’s services (ready-to-use training material for future trainings);
• Proposing a roadmap for a cross-system (RJ/VS) working approach – setting the specific path for common working to establish positive interaction and systemic cooperation between the RJ/VS systems.

Outcomes

  • The establishment of a transnational, cross-sectoral, peer-learning community of practitioners belonging to partner organisations from the RJ and VS systems, focusing on the specific target group of women victims of violence and crime.
  • The systemic and cross-sectorial map to identify the main skills and competences required by RJ/VS operators working with specific target groups. Identifying the missing skills and/or defining the competencies will enable a train-the-trainers programme to be designed that is tailored to the learners’ specific backgrounds.
  • The implementation of a joint, cross-sectoral capacity-building programme for RJ/VS trainers and operators, making effective use of innovative peer-to-peer learning solutions and digital technologies to enhance participants’ skills and competencies.

Here’s a list of documents that will be produced at the end of the project:

  • Swot map of RJ/VS systems exploring potential benefits and risks of the cross-working approach when RJ/VS systems deal with crimes, specifically VAW.
  • Report assessing the main skills and competences requested by RJ/VS operators in order provide high-quality services to the women victims of crimes.
  • Training toolkit setting the common starting point for the level of knowledge of methodologies and terminologies to be shared by the participants during the training programme.
  • Working group reports: training programme that can be adapted for future training activities, a toolkit to operationalise the Individual Needs Assessment in the context of introducing restorative justice to victims, and the Referral guidelines.
Project Website

News article: Overview of the working group ‘Proposing a roadmap for a cross-system working approach between Victim Support and Restorative Justice services’

DISCLAIMER: The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Victim Support Europe and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union.

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