DURATION
approx. 60 minutes
FORMAT
Interactive + text-based
The goals of this module
Questioning and recognising professional behaviour + analysis of case studies
Reflecting on the main challenges encountered in helping migrants to access their rights
What is it about?
In this module, you learn more about the Violentometer, evaluating challenging situations in professional environments. Further you are invited to analyse certain case studies to think of possible solution to avoid misunderstandings and problems.
What is the Violentometer?
Let’s not forget that any relationship of assistance or support is asymmetrical, and therefore conducive to situations of abuse of power. When there is unequal access to information and resources, subordination, authority and admiration, free and informed consent is difficult. Violence exists in all environments, in all structures, on all types of victims and by all types of aggressors. In the Violentometer, different ways and levels of relationships are analysed towards their balance, healthiness, and violence (any kind of violence), to ensure that the relationship between the social worker (professional) and the migrant are professional, respectful, balanced and stable.
The volunteer/helper:
- helps anyone who comes forward, without discrimination
- provides active listening, and the person being helped can share his or her problems
- directs the person to various reliable and identified resources to help them meet their needs.
The person being helped accepts help from any volunteer. He or she asks for help from those available, and then may express varying degrees of comfort with certain caregivers.
The volunteer and the person being helped share their contacts – voluntarily and at ease with the approach – and contact each other at mutually-agreed times. If the person being helped contacts the carer outside these times, it is only in exceptional cases and for emergencies (arrest/accident) requiring a rapid response.
The volunteer and/or the person being helped:
- contact each other to discuss personal matters, outside the scope of assistance
- invite each other to personal events (birthdays, private parties, etc.)
- invite each other into private rooms/housing for follow-up and/or socializing.
When the relationship goes beyond support and help, it’s important to name things so that both people feel at ease, and that neither forces the other into a closer relationship. The relationship may mean different things to one person than to another; it is necessary and important to talk about this, and not to make the help given or received conditional on a relationship of friendly closeness.
The volunteer or the person being helped uses the urgency of the situation or the precariousness of living conditions as a means of exerting pressure and making the other person feel guilty, so that they go beyond the scope of their action and/or the established relationship.
The volunteer and/or the person being helped:
- is particularly insistent on emotions and/or security needs
- is tactile and the other is uncomfortable with it
- imposes a form of help with which the other is not comfortable (accommodation, money…)
- force the contact or meeting outside the framework (place, time) agreed at the outset.
The person being helped refuses to meet or talk to other people who can help; the volunteer refuses to put the person being helped in touch with other people who can help.
The volunteer or the person being helped:
- does not accept or respect the refusals, limits, frameworks and reticence expressed by the other, whatever the degree of intimacy of the relationship (exclusively helping, or the stronger friendship/emotional relationship that sometimes emerges from helping)
- uses insistence – even harassment – to obtain a certain behavior or attitude from the other person.
The volunteer threatens to stop the support if the person being cared for does not do what the volunteer asks, the person being cared for threatens to harm themselves – or even commit suicide – or to make a decision they know to be detrimental to their procedures if the volunteer does not give in to one of their requests.
The volunteer or the person being helped uses verbal, psychological or physical violence against him/herself or the other party, with or without the use of a weapon.
The volunteer abuses his or her position of power to extort something from the person being helped (emotional or sexual relationship, free service, etc.).
The person being helped abuses the dynamic of dependence implemented by the helper to coerce the volunteer into providing something (sexual service, financial or material assistance, etc.).
Case Studies – Let’s start finding solutions!
Module 10: Challenges addressing migration
