APAV at the Victim Support Europe Conference

“The Age of Resilience” was the guiding theme of Victim Support Europe Conference 2022, this year held in Malta, on the 11th and 12nd of May. The event signalled the reunion of VSE’s members almost three years after the restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

The conference was dedicated to challenges and best practices sharing in victim support provision during the pandemic crisis, strategies adopted by victim support organisations across Europe to maintain their services available, particularly with resort to tools of support at a distance.

Carmen Rasquete, João Lázaro, Cristina Soeiro, Mafalda Valério and Cláudia Rocha formed APAV’s delegation to the event, where three presentations were made reflecting the Association’s rapid response to constraints caused by COVID-19, not only in making tools of victim support at a distance available, but also in assessing all difficulties faced by victim support workers and associated psychosocial risks. APAV’s Prevention of Psychosocial Risks Programme also had the floor, as well as how our integrated intervention model with children victims of crime and violence is anchored in building their resilience, both in primary prevention and in the aftermath of victimisation.