As part of the calendar of events taking place across Scotland to mark 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, the Scottish Government and COSLA cochaired a national summit on 8th December 2022 to identify actions that can be taken locally and nationally to help tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) and gender inequality in Scotland. The Improvement Service also worked in partnership with a range of stakeholders to coordinate a series of Spotlight Events between 25 November and 10 December 2022.
National Summit: Tackling Ongoing and Emerging Challenges through Collective Leadership and Collaborative Action
The national summit aimed to build on the learning from previous 16 Days events, including the Collective Leadership Conference in 2020 and the Collective Action Summit in 2021, while recognising that stakeholders across Scotland are currently operating in a policy and delivery landscape. The summit aimed to share and amply learning on the impacts of COVID-19, the cost of living crisis, a challenging recruitment and retention environment and an increasingly digital world providing new spaces for abuse to take place.
The event was co-chaired by Christina McKelvie (Minister for Equalities and Older People) and Cllr Maureen Chalmers (COSLA Spokesperson for Community Wellbeing), and attendees included a range of leaders from across public sector and third sector organisations working locally and nationally in Scotland. We were delighted to have inputs from representatives from a range of organisations and strategic partnerships across Scotland.
Access the full learning report and playlist of speaker videos below.
Learning Report - VAWG National Summit 2022
National Summit - Speaker Video Playlist
Spotlight Events
The National Violence Against Women Network identified a series of thematic priority areas for the Spotlight Events which took place across 16 Days, highlighted as the key issues currently affecting the lives of women, children and young people experiencing violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Scotland. The events were held in partnership with key organisations for each topic, and were attended by a wide range of third sector and public sector stakeholders from local authority areas across Scotland.
The Spotlight topics were:
- Responding to the mental health and wellbeing needs of victims/ survivors of VAWG
- Promoting the rights and wellbeing of children experiencing domestic abuse
- Creating domestic abuse-informed systems, services and workforces
- Responding to the needs of women engaged in selling or exchanging sex
- Strengthening links between community safety and VAWG
Access the full learning report for the spotlight series, and the playlist of speakers videos for each event below.