Bringing Together Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence Sectors: Implications for Research, Policy, & Practice

About the Conference

Registration is now closed. Email vawconference2019@uwindsor.ca for information on available space.

The University of Windsor sits on the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, comprised of the Ojibwa, the Odawa, and the Potawatomie.

Violence against women is an endemic social problem affecting roughly one in three women (or 35%) worldwide. The two most common forms of violence against women are sexual assault and intimate partner violence (IPV). Despite the significant and widespread impact of violence against women, efforts to address the issue are under-funded. Moreover, sexual assault and IPV are often treated as distinct fields, with community agencies for each type of violence operating separately, funding coming from different sources, and researchers often investigating each type of violence in isolation. This conference aims to facilitate knowledge mobilization and discourse among researchers, providers, and policy makers in the fields of sexual assault and IPV while offering participants the opportunity to share knowledge and build their capacity to intervene effectively and to improve the outcomes of women survivors.

Bringing Together Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence Sectors: Implications for Research, Policy, & Practice, is a collaborative initiative aimed at bridging the gap between two interrelated, but often distinct, fields relevant to the study of violence against women. We aim to cultivate dialogue between sexual assault and intimate partner violence researchers to unify the fields, integrate our current understanding of these two forms of violence, and encourage future interdisciplinary research. Through open dialogue, we aim to identify ways to improve service provision for survivors of gender-based violence by identifying current limitations in policy and practice that maintain the “siloed” approach to sexual assault and IPV services and explore ways to bridge policy gaps. In the process, we seek to highlight issues of intersectionality that add additional complexity to the sexual assault and IPV fields to enhance a multicultural and inclusive approach to research, policy, and practice. Finally, we seek to provide a training experience for students and new researchers in the field of violence against women and to inspire the next generation of scholars and practitioners to continue the conversation.

The Bringing Together Sexual Assault and Intimate Partner Violence Sectors: Implications for Research, Policy, & Practice conference welcomes submissions from researchers, scholars, activists, practitioners, students, and community members to inform, ignite, and inspire enriched public and scholarly discourses on these issues. We welcome submissions from all theoretical, philosophical, methodological, and disciplinary positions and practice orientations within the broad fields of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and violence against women.

This event is supported with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. To facilitate widespread public exchange and dialogue, this conference has a registration fee of only $30.00 CDN for nonstudents and is free to students. Advanced registration is required. Registration includes admission to all conference sessions, including the student poster prize session, and breakfast, lunch, and snacks (with vegan options available) for all conference dates.

This event was supported in part through the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada Connection Grant Program.