The Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver

Purpose

This 16-month project with The Elizabeth Fry Society of Greater Vancouver will produce and test a gender responsive training program for front line case workers working with vulnerable women going through challenging transitions following victimization or criminalization. This project will articulate a practice-oriented conceptual framework to help front-line workers recognize the effects of stigma, understand how stigma is perceived and internalized, and identify the strategies vulnerable women use to manage and cope with stigma. The overall goal is to increase women's self-control, self-efficacy, resiliency, autonomy, and agency while providing more opportunities to take control of their lives by reducing the social exclusion and stigma they encounter. This educational tool will be trauma and stigma informed while appreciating the need to be gender-responsive and culturally appropriate. This will be achieved by conducting background research and interviews with women, men and youth facing serious forms of social stigma and potential discrimination; development of a gender responsive training program and manual; testing and validation of the gender responsive training program and publication of the training program (both print and online version).