This blog is part of a new R2A series, Eye on 2022. Would you like to showcase your communications work, or recommend another comms team? Step right up…

As an organisation, our mission is to bridge the gap between research and practice, so our communications team is critical. The prevention of violence against women (VAW) and children (VAC) are emerging fields with a rapidly increasing evidence base. However, few practitioners have the time or expertise to survey and access the latest and most relevant research. To meet this urgent need – our core business – the evidence team (headed by Ruti Levtov) sorts, curates, and synthesises the latest findings from a wide range of interconnected studies and disciplines. Crucially, we do the sense-making and quality control so our audience knows what to spend their valuable time on. To facilitate this, we created an online Knowledge Hub –  a one-stop information shop for practitioners. We redesigned the website in September 2021 to make the Hub easier to navigate and search, and we produce a monthly email Digest to share resources that spark our interest, along with as our own offerings.

What drives our communications approach is our audience – broadly, anyone working in violence prevention. When we develop content – online courses, webinars, briefs, evidence reviews, animations and so on – we ask ourselves: ‘What’s the best way for our audience to engage with this information?’ So, understanding our audience is crucial to ensuring uptake. Now that the Prevention Collaborative is a few years old, we invite regular feedback from our community via online Focus Group Discussions and surveys. This gives us insights into what matters to them, along with the opportunity to make revisions and generate new ideas. We aim to be flexible and responsive as needs and challenges change over time. As such, we strive to make our content ‘work hard’ so no product or insight just serves one function.

Many practitioners are keen for support to build their knowledge and competence in this fast-evolving and multi-disciplinary arena. One way we meet this need is through the Learning Lab, an online platform for both facilitated and self-paced courses on what works in violence prevention. The learning team, headed by Rubina Singh, continually reflect on and refine courses to keep them up to date and to ensure the best possible user experience. To share two examples: applications are currently open for a free popular facilitated course, Prevention Essentials, that introduces the latest thinking on core concepts, models, and strategies in VAW prevention; application deadline is 5 April, 2022. And a new course – Working at the Intersections of Violence against Women and Children – will be launched soon. Sign up to our Digest and social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) for the announcement!

 

Everyone at the Collaborative produces content, so communications is grafted into everything we do. However, Ana Lucia Ñustes, Manon Simeon and I – the three core members of our communications team – work on design, social media, communication strategies, video, and animation, drawing on associates with specialist skills. What makes our organisation special is that we are truly international. Having people in different locations with varied skills and experience brings diverse thinking to our communications. To be effective, as we all know, context is vital!

Thanks again to R2A for inviting the Collaborative to share our story – we look forward to feedback and to learning from others.

This blog is part of a new R2A series, Eye on 2022. Would you like to showcase your communications work, or recommend another comms team? Step right up…