Exploring the gap: How can policy change prevent sexual and domestic violence in a community?

Healthy communities lead to healthy minds, but neither can be sustained without healthy, community-wide social norms. Prevention Institute has identified five key norms that limit community health by increasing the likelihood of sexual and domestic violence (SDV): a culture of violence, limited roles for women, narrow definitions of masculinity, an emphasis on power & control over others, and norms around secrecy. As approaches focused on changing these unhealthy norms gain momentum, practitioners and academics are seeking to better understand policy opportunities within a norms approach. Unfortunately, while policy change as tool is well established, evidence for the field of SDV remains sparse – especially in underserved communities. As a way to expand the evidence base, the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Prevention Institute hosted a series of 10 webinars in 2010 focusing on a norms approach to violence prevention with special attention to underserved populations. For each of the five norms, policy implications at the organizational, local and national level were examined by over 1,000 national thinkers, local leaders and community practitioners via online dialogs. The resulting strategies, lessons learned from implementation, and measureable indicators for success, revealed the complexity of working with underserved populations and also the promising strategies, collaborative models and potential benchmarks for policy based efforts. This session will discuss the online, participatory learning process, equip participants with a solid understanding of the norms approach and reflect the field's best thinking about policy change as a tool to prevent SDV and improve community health.