Technology & Domestic Abuse Practitioners Network

Date: Thursday 28th March, 13:30 – 15:00

Location: Microsoft Teams

Free training for anyone working in Nottingham City or County – chargeable (£10) outside these areas.

Do you work with survivors or perpetrators of domestic abuse? Do you need to know about technology and domestic abuse in your line of work?

Technology is evolving so fast that it is hard to keep up to date. Technology is driving new forms of domestic abuse with the countless ways it can facilitate a perpetrator’s coercive and controlling behaviours. This is a practice and tech-focused network event that will help you to build skills for supporting survivors or working with perpetrators of domestic abuse.

This session will be led by our guest speaker, Dr. Lisa Sugiura, on ‘Understanding Technology-Facilitated Domestic Abuse’:

In this talk, based on Home Office funded research, the increasing ways that digital technologies are being used by domestic abuse perpetrators to monitor, threaten, and humiliate their victims, will be discussed. Technology-facilitated domestic abuse (TFDA) is progressively employed within controlling and coercive relationships and involves a wide range of abusive behaviours and tools including: the use of spyware to access and accounts and monitor victim’s movements, the creation of fake accounts to harass or impersonate victims, the use of covert devices and the Internet of Things to stalk victims, and image-based sexual abuse to degrade victims. How children are increasingly being used and harmed within these contexts will also be considered, along with person’s often overlooked or hidden. Policy and practice recommendations to support victim-survivors will also be presented.

Dr Lisa Sugiura is Associate Professor in Cybercrime and Gender at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Portsmouth. Lisa’s research focuses on online gender-based violence and technology-facilitated sexual violence. Her research projects, which include funding from the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Home Office, involve the language of cybersexism, victims of computer misuse, the role of technology in domestic abuse, and extremist and misogynistic behaviours in manosphere and incel communities. She is the author and co-editor of the books: Respectable deviance and purchasing medicine online: opportunities and risks for consumers Palgrave Macmillan, The incel rebellion: the rise of the manosphere and the virtual war against women Emerald publishing, and the Palgrave Handbook of Gendered Violence and Technology.

In the second part of the session, Equation will introduce a new resource we are currently developing for practitioners which includes a tech safety plan template. We aim to run through this resource and welcome any feedback from delegates.

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Please be aware that this session will contain reference to types of domestic abuse. It is recommended that the session is attended in a quiet and confidential space. If you are impacted by the content of the session, you will be provided with points of contact as part of your follow-on resources, and reference will be made to support options in the session.

Information on support is also available on Equation’s Website: Get Help | Equation

Cancellation

Please note failure to attend the course without prior cancellation may result in a charge for your place. If you do wish to cancel, you can do so through your Eventbrite confirmation or by getting in touch with our team at training@equation.org.uk.