IMPROVE what is it and why is We Encourage part of it?
The European Commission has committed to protecting all EU citizens' fundamental rights and freedoms. Yet, domestic violence (DV) and violence in close relationships still persist as serious forms of violence and crime in Europe. The EU regards the Istanbul Convention as the benchmark for international standards in the prevention and fights against DV and gender-based violence against women. EU also contributes to fighting DV by funding projects like IMPROVE through its Horizon programs.
IMPROVE
The objective of IMPROVE is to increase reporting and detection
of domestic violence by assisting the victims in understanding their rights to services and justice. In addition, we support Police Authorities (PA), Civil Society Organisations (CSO), and other Front Line Respond (FLR) organisations to increase competencies and capabilities to exploit innovative solutions enabling and accelerating policy implementation.
IMPROVE employs a two-fold strategy that addresses both victim-survivors' needs and frontline responders’ priorities side-by-side in a coordinated manner. To overcome the factors undermining victims’ reporting and access to services and FLRs’ challenges to detect and intervene in domestic violence. In IMPROVE, We Encourage will further develop its AinoAid™ services, specifically, a conversational artificial intelligence AINO chat to empower victims. This automated multilingual conversational AI chat is robust and user-centred. It is flexibly tailored for high-and-low-risk groups
to provide information and guidance in real-time crisis situations. It will facilitate communication with suitable DV support services accessible at the neighbourhood level. It will be compatible with web and mobile applications, lowering the threshold for victims of DV to seek help.
Other tools IMPROVE partners will create are an innovative online training platform and materials for FLRs and progressive tools for policymakers and FLR managers. IMPROVE products, designed in the frame of the common European approach, are modular and scalable to local priorities. They are tested and validated against the needs of the victims and the priorities of PA, CSO, and other FLRs.
Ecosystem thinking is at the core of WE’s DNA
Multiple stakeholders are needed to solve the problem of domestic violence. People affected by violence, be it the victim, the perpetrator or the children, need various types of support during their journey of ending the violence and healing from trauma. Projects like IMPROVE offer an excellent way of bringing together various key players that play an essential part in resolving the problem.
In multicultural contexts, combining technology and human resources is a challenge. Most healthcare and aid organizations rely heavily on human resources to meet short-term urgent needs. Most public and private healthcare organizations do not offer specific services to victims of domestic violence. NGOs are in constant search for both funding and expertise and are mostly limited to specific service hours and through traditional service methods. There is a global shortage of resources in the public sector, and most teams are made up of people with local cultural backgrounds.
AinoAid™ builds technology-enabled, contextually aware services for truly global scalable services in collaboration with ecosystem partners from diverse backgrounds. Key principles are the services designed for, and with victims and professionals, the use of data to avoid human bias and assumptions, and co-creation principles where value creation and value capture are shared by all parties involved are the foundation principles.
IMPROVE Partners
1 (Coordinator) Deutsche Hochschule der Polizei
2 Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
3 Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
4 Ministere de L’Interieur France
5 Vienna Centre for Societal Security
6 Poliisiammattikorkeakoulu (POLAMK)
7 National Institute of Health and Welfare (THL)
8 We Encourage Oy Ltd
9 FORESEE Research Group
10 Universidad de la Iglesia des Deusto Entidad Religiosa
11 Local Police de Valencia
12 Askabide
13 S.I.G.N.A.L e.V.
14 YORDAS GmbH
15 European Research Services GmbH
Learn more about the IMPROVE project here.
IMPROVE is a continuum project for IMPRODOVA in which the consortium created a training platform for Improving Frontline Responses to High Impact Domestic Violence.
