Thursday 8th March (International Women’s Day) 2012
A seminar to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Scottish Women’s Aid
The WCM project held the public engagement workshop, Learning From The Past, Looking To the Future, co-hosted with Scottish Women’s Aid, in March 2012. This one-day event was attended by over 70 people drawn from a range of third sector organisations, social work practitioners and academics. Papers presented (available from the drop down menus under Project Media) contextualised the work of SWA (Scotland’s lead organisation working in the field of domestic abuse) in its historic, social and cultural setting. Past struggles for recognition of domestic abuse as a serious social problem were also highlighted, leading participants to consider how this history can aid us in the present and future.
Welcome & introduction – Rosemary Elliot, University of Glasgow
Session 1 – Domestic Abuse and the Law
Effecting change in the legal response to domestic abuse – Clare Connelly, University of Glasgow
The Family Home: a Private Refuge? – Jane Mair, University of Glasgow
Session 2 – Service Provision for Domestic Abuse Survivors
What Aid? Certainly Not “Women’s Aid”: Social Work and Abused Wives in Scotland, c1850-1950 – Annmarie Hughes, University of Glasgow
The Professionalisation of Activism – the impact of regulation on feminist organisations – Linda Rodgers, Scottish Women’s Aid
Session 3 – Children’s Experiences of Domestic Abuse
More like a football than a human being’: the plight of children between neglect and welfare in early 20th Century Scotland – Lynn Abrams, University of Glasgow
A balancing act: parents in trouble, children in need and the right to family life – Frankie McCarthy, University of Glasgow
Session 4 – Domestic Abuse – Women’s Voices
Hearing hidden voices: Scottish women’s experience of domestic abuse in late twentieth-century Scotland – Andrea Thompson, University of Glasgow
From “battered wives” to “coercive control”: 35 years of understanding domestic abuse in Scotland – Nel Whiting, Scottish Women’s Aid.