Sopu (former Bahar project) – to prevent honour-related violence

Organiser

Loisto setlementti ry (NGO), Sopu work / Unit for Working against Honour Related Violence

Summary

We are creating safe spaces and new social relations for the youth who have faced honour-related violence. We offer professional and peer support (one-to-one and/or group support) for the youth in our target group to gain more trust to others, better self-esteem and mental health

Bahar-project was a three-year project implemented by Loisto setlementti ry (NGO) as part of the work against honour related violence. At the time, Loisto setlementti’s Sopu-work unit was doing preventive and crisis work to tackle honour-related conflicts and violence. 

In Sopu we then saw that there was a need for long-term support services for young people who were rejected or decided to detach from their families due to honour related issues.

The project was a success and after the project period it received permanent funding, that allowed us to integrate it into Sopu-work from the beginning of 2022. Thus Sopu work now has preventive work, Crisis work and Long term support. Clients of Long term support are called “Bahar clients”.

Target group

The target group is youth from 15 to 29 years who have experienced honour-related conflict or violence and can no longer live with their families (temporarily or permanently).

We have also many participants that represent gender and sexual minorities, and they form our special target group among the youth who have experienced honour-related violence. Our participants can represent any gender and we welcome youth from all language and ethnic backgrounds. We welcome also undocumented youth who live in the country

Professional interpreters are always utilized if we do not have the required language skills in our own project team. All our services are free of charge. We offer our services mainly in the Capital Region of Finland (Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa) but we can also give consultation to professionals working with the target group nationwide.

We consult and work closely with authorities in the immigrant services, communal social services, police, health care services, shelters, reception centres, child protection, schools and NGOs in the Capital Region of Finland and the region Uusimaa. They can send us participants in need of our services, and we can also direct our clients to their services. Anyone in need of our services can also directly contact us via email or phone. Our groups are mainly closed groups because of safety reasons. Also, for this reason, our office location is not shared openly online.

Description of activity and expected results and effects

We are creating safe spaces and new social relations for the youth who have faced honour-related violence. We offer professional and peer support (one-to-one and/or group support) for the youth in our target group to gain more trust to others, better self-esteem and mental health.

We are also supporting greater independence in everyday life and creating a stronger sense of belonging within the youth in our target group.

With every participant, we make a specialised service plan, in which we list the goals specifically set for each participant. These goals are set and formulated in cooperation with the participant. We have follow-up interviews and questionnaires for the assessment of reaching the goals.

Some of the specific results have been: better housing/studying/job situation, gaining residence permit, better mental health, less alcohol abuse and risk behaviour, stronger self-esteem and independence, gaining more trust to speak about traumatic events, crime reports made, more trust to authorities.

Means of getting the results: mapping the situation holistically; contacting and consulting relevant authorities or NGO’s, regular support conversations and psychoeducation.

Expected results:

1. Individual support (counselling and guidance) in crisis situations, networking e.g. with the police, shelters, health care and social work. Clients get help and support for starting their independent life.
2. Group support and peer support (stabilizing groups, open activity/hobby groups in safe environment, workshops). Clients will join to new communities, find new social relations and peer support. Activities help clients to reflect on their life, identity, sexual orientation, dreams and future plans. As most of the clients are forced (by the family or by the circumstances) to detach themselves from their family or community, by our activities they will get new significant social relations.

Thanks for great support, it certainly made me feel home.
– Anynomous feeback

Theory and knowledge

Crisis services are often limited when it comes to long-term support, although many people need a lot of time for strengthening their self-esteem, going through trauma, working on safety issues and healthy boundaries, and, importantly, reflecting on one’s own family relations, thinking on who they are and what kind of future they want to have.

In long term support our target group is youth who no longer have contact with their family and/or community because of honour-related conflict or violence. In some cases, it might be that the young person is rejected by the family because of violating the social norms and values of the family, or that the young person themself has decided to live apart from the family, typically because they no longer can be accepted in the family or they feel pressured to behave according to the family norms and values.

We have been active in developing and inventing a new service model that is based on the best practices of the work that we already do in our unit, recognized the need to approach honour-related conflicts and violence form multiple theoretical and practical perspectives. We adopt the principles of cultural and gender sensitivity. This for example means that we respect every person’s and family’s right for being experts in their own lives, and in defining what words like ‘culture’ or ‘honour’ mean to them. We recognise the diversity in gender and sexual identities and expressions.

We also address the systemic family theory view, in which to understand an individual it is important to understand the internal hierarchies, working models and structures of their childhood families. In addition to the cultural and gender sensitivity approach, systemic practise, trauma-informed approach, antiracist and postcolonial studies as well intersectional feminism form the value base for the work we do.

Competences

The strength of our unit lies in intensive teamwork, and diversity of the workers also in the professional field. There is no special training program, but we have documented the specific qualifications needed in the work that we do. These qualifications have been created inside the team based on the experience we have already gathered in the project during the first two years of implementation.

The documented qualifications are related to cultural and gender sensitivity skills and attitudes, knowledge of trauma-related symptoms and trauma-related psychoeducation, knowledge of the concept and phenomena related to honour-related conflicts and violence, good knowledge of the social, health care and immigrant services in Finland, experience in giving both individual and group-based support for youth, good communication and teamwork skills, experience in project work and development, fluent written and spoken language skills at least in Finnish and English. We recruit and train each new worker accordingly to meet these criteria.

Economy

Sopu-work is funded by Funding Centre for Social Welfare and Health Organisations (STEA). Funding covers salaries, facilities and materials.  For our funding, we need to provide yearly follow-up reports. Sopu-work has permanent funding but in practice we need to apply for funding yearly.

Assessments of providers and views of participants

We have regularly gathered feedback (oral and written) from our professional networks and from our participants. We documented these regularly to STEA, the fundraising instrument where the funding of the project comes. The feedback thus far has been very positive.

Our facilities and venues are decorated as homelike, we provide safe space and clients feel welcome, which has huge impact on their mental wellbeing.

I would like to say that these meetings really help me to think about my future and become a better person.
– Anynomous feedback

Evaluation, studies and monitoring

We internally assess how we are reaching our program goals and report about our impact yearly to our funder STEA. To assess our activities and their impact, we collect different types of data of our client work, such as amount of client meetings. Our clients can participate in assessing their own situation and changes in their well-being by regularly answering a short questionnaire with a set of researched questions. We can use this data as a tool in the client work but also to assess the impact of our work.

We also collect anonymous feedback from our clients and our professional networks yearly.

The participants evaluate meeting their goals regularly, approximately once in six months. This is done by our own evaluation tool (questionnaire) and by the interviews. Every participant leaving the project (individual support or group) is also given a feedback form to fill in their views and evaluations of our services. It is very hard to prove socio-economic outcomes reliably in the work like ours. It would require a lot more effort that we are able to put through.

Learnings and dissemination

At the moment we have a process of modelling going on. When it is ready, we will have good tips to share.

We produced a manual, how to support persons affected by Honour Related Violence. Manual was outcome of Erasmus+ funded project Pro Youth, Sopu-work was one of the project partners.

https://soputila.fi/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Pro-Youth-manual-English-version.pdf

Read more and contact information 

www.soputila.fi

Sopu@loistosetlementti.fi

www.loistosetlementti.fi

We need to document and report the assessment of meeting our goals on a yearly basis to STEA, where our funding comes. This is not shared on their webpage, but the reports can be shared to external parties if there is need for that.

This text was published 29.11.2024