Professional training needs of practitioners for the victims of sexual violence

Background:

There is a social and public health concern about the increasing incidence of sexual violence recently in Korea. Although it is essential to train practitioners to effectively help victim’s treatment and recovery. the training program has not been well developed yet in Korea. As a part of a larger study, this study aims at investigating practitioners’ professional training needs with qualitative research.

Method:

Among the entire 205 centers for the victims of sexual assault (public 34, private 171) in 17 regional areas of Korea, 2 centers each were randomly selected from all 17 areas. 8 centers agreed to participate in the focus group interview. 19 practitioners from 8 centers (public 4, private 4) from 5 regions participated in the 5 sessions of focus group interview. Using grounded theory, themes and categories were derived from interview data. 

Results:

Practitioners’ professional training needs were classified into the following 6 themes: (1) More population-specific information considering the characteristics of children, adolescent, disabled, sexual minorities, etc. (63%), (2) Training of multidisciplinary approach including knowledge of other disciplines, team communication, etc. (63%), (3) Case-focused traning such as case conference and supervision (58%). (4) advanced and up-to-date knowledge and skills (32%), (5) counselling and psychotherapy skills (25%), and (6) official licensing and mandatory continuing education (13%). 

Conclusions:

The findings suggest that the contents and structures of professional training programs of the practitioners for the victims of sexual violence need to be established considering what is actually being needed in practice.