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Visit the On-line training site.

OCASI is pleased to announce the Family Violence against Immigrant & Refugee Women: Community Development Strategies on-line training project which examines family violence by utilizing community development strategies as an effective tools to preventing and addressing family violence; as well as, the need to enhance family violence prevention strategies to reach immigrant and refugee women, especially women without legal immigration status and women from racialized low-income communities.

Program Objectives:

• To build the capacity of organizations and individuals to prevent family violence in the immigrant communities they serve.

Training activities goals include:

• Enhancing the professional competency and skill level of immigrant service providers for prevention of violence against women.
• Providing service providers with resources to implement community development initiatives to prevent family violence.
• To enhance the coordination and linkages among immigrant service workers and other service and community workers in a specific geographic area or ethno-specific community resulting in an increased system wide capacity to identify and address violence.

Topics covered include:

Family Violence: Community Issue; Impacts; Social Risks; where does Toronto fit in? (Criminal Justice System; Children’s Aid Society; Central Family Intake; Shelters; Transitional Housing and support Programs; Interpreting Services; Domestic Violence Coordinating Committees; Education and Prevention Initiatives; Toronto Family Violence Community Resources).

Community Development:
Definitions; Approaches to Community Development; what does Community Development have to do with Family Violence? Community Development Continuum – Outreach and Education; Community Mobilizing; Community Organizing Amongst Those Most Affected; Community Organizing General; Community Accountability; Strategies for Moving Forward (Assessing Capacity to Engage in the Continuum; Naming the Moment: Phases and questions).

Who can participate?
The Training is intended for workers from community organizations that provide services to immigrants and refugees on a regular basis and that are in a unique capacity to reach vulnerable and/or isolated immigrant women and their communities, including policy makers in immigrant serving organizations and service providers that work with immigrants at grassroots level.

Certificate Awarded Upon Completion

To access the online-self directed training visit http://www.learnatwork.ca.

Download the Family Violence against Immigrant & Refugee Women: Community Development Strategies - Resource Manual - PDF format (450 KB, 70 pages).

These training sessions are sponsored by the City of Toronto, Community Safety Investment (CSI) Program.