Addressing Family Violence in South Asian Community
A two day training was held for the front line service providers at York Regional Police Headquarters in Richmond Hill on July 23-24 to discuss the New Service Delivery Framework in Addressing Family Violence in the South Asian community through Culturally Appropriate Interventions. Over 40 participants from various public service departments and organizations attended.
This training was organized by Human Endeavour and Punjabi Community Health Centre (PCHC). These two organizations are working in partnership for the betterment of the community by keeping the unique needs of its culture intact. PCHC has done extensive work for resolving family issues and domestic violence in Punjabi community and provides counseling and parenting classes. The training delivered by Baldev Mutta the Executive Director of the PCHC addressed the complexities of family violence within the South Asian communities. The curriculum was developed by Service Coalition in the South Asian Community Project by a network of 15 agencies serving the South Asian community in the GTA.
The curriculum consisted of ten modules that cover the South Asian settlement phase, legal definitions and resources on settlement, emotional & mental health, inter generational and intra-generational conflicts, parenting challenges, family violence, women's legal rights in Canada, Social services in South Asian context, Holistic Interventions for men & women with focus on women�s safety within the sanctity of family, and resources for South Asian families to restore wholeness.
The feedback received from the participants was that the training was excellent and informative. The majority of the participants felt that now the challenge will be to implement the culturally appropriate interventions at their respective organizations.
Noor Din, Executive Director of Human Endeavour describes the curriculum & training as a major step to create awareness about the structure of the South Asian families and keeping the individual, family and societal needs and values in mind during the crisis situations. A lot can be learned from the wisdom of South Asian Society in implementing suitable solutions that will not only benefit the South Asian but other communities including the main stream society.
About Baldev Mutta: He is a well known scholar and have been involved in community development and social work for the last 30 years. His work encompasses substance abuse, family violence, problem gambling, mediation, and health promotion projects. He has been a guest speaker at local, national and international level on topics such as community development in ethnic communities, delivering health promotion in diverse communities, anti-oppression organizational changes, working with abusive men in the community, working with abused women in the community, and working with problem gamblers.
