Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future

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