WONCA Special Interest Group: Family Violence

Co-Chairs:

Dr Raquel Gómez Bravo (Spain/Luxembourg)

Dr Raquel Gómez Bravo is a family physician from Spain, a member of the International Section of SemFYC (Spanish Scientific Society of Family and Community Medicine) and co-chair of the WONCA Special Interest Group on Family Violence (SIGFV). She was very active in the executive of the Vasco da Gama Movement for young doctors as well as EURIPA. Read more about Raquel.

Dr Sajaratulnisah Othman (Malaysia)

Dr. Sajaratulnisah Othman is a Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Malaya with special interests in family violence, health behaviour, and well-being. She chairs the Violence Intervention Committee of the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) and co-chairs the World Organisation of Family Doctors (WONCA) Special Interest Group on Family Violence. She was once the head of the Department of Research, Development, and Innovation and the Department of Primary Care Medicine at UMMC. She was the overall coordinator for the primary care services at UMMC and chaired the UMMC medical inquiry service. She teaches primary care medicine, family violence, communication, and self-care to individuals and organisations.

She was the principal investigator for one of the five Prevent Elder Abuse Initiative (PEACE) subprograms under the University of Malaya Grand Challenge Programme. The UNICEF has appointed her to head a group of experts to explore and report on children’s rights in Sabah. The World Health Organisation commissioned her to provide a desk review in assessing the One-Stop-Crisis-Centre (OSCC) services in Malaysia. She provides expert input on the policy and guidelines of OSCC in Malaysia. She is one of the fellow researchers at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Developmental Studies (UAC) looking into the impact of poverty on health and wellbeing.

As an active advocator against family violence, she is part of the expert panel for preparing a specific legal intervention to safeguard older people in Malaysia and the clinical intervention programme for domestic violence and elder abuse in the Malaysian health system. Apart from providing primary care services, as a certified practitioner in clinical hypnotherapy, CBT and EMDR, she manages victims of family violence in her clinic.

email co-chairs

Secretary:

Dr Jennifer Neil (Australia)

Associate Professor Jennifer Neil is a family doctor, educator and researcher who is the education lead for general practice at Monash University, Australia. She has been an educator in family violence for many years, has developed family violence curricular materials both locally and nationally and has co-authored 3 chapters in the Australian Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) guidelines on abuse and violence. She is deputy chair of the RACGP specific interest group on abuse and violence. She is currently completing a PhD looking at the lived experience of general practitioners who are survivors of family violence. Clinically, she works with many survivors of family violence in her family medicine practice.

Past Convenors:

Dr Hagit Dascal-Weichhendler (Israel)

Hagit Dascal-Weichhendler is a board certified family physician, working full time as a clinician with a mixed population in Northern Israel. She is the chairperson of the Committee on Family Violence (FV) in Clalit Health Services, Haifa and West Galillee District, which serves over 740,000 patients from multiple cultural backgrounds. It provides training, educational materials counselling and support to staff on FV cases. She developed and teaches a mandatory semester course on FV in the Haifa Department of Family Medicine, as well as an elective semester course for Medical Students. Hagit has written guidelines on family violence for the Israeli Association of Family Medicine. She has participated in the development of a national simulation based educational program on FV. Her research interests are educational interventions on FV for health care staff, and FV health consequences. She's a member of the Ministry of Health Committee on FV. There she puts an emphasis on the importance of connecting between health providers in the field and policy makers. As a member of the FV SIG she seeks to improve international cooperation in this important area.

Asst Prof Nena Kopčavar Guček (Slovenia)

Nena is a full time family practitioner in the Community Health Care Center of Ljubljana in Slovenia. She is also a faculty member of the Department of Family Medicine, University of Ljubljana, currently as Assistant Professor. For years she has been involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, as a teacher and as a mentor and has been a member of research groups at herclinic and at the department. Since 2005, she has been one of the supervising doctors with the Medical Chamber of Slovenia. Family violence and workplace violence in the healthcare environment occupy a lot of her time and interest. Since 2017, she has chaired the interdisciplinary committee for preventing violence at the Medical Chamber of Slovenia. Find out more about Nena.

Kelsey Hegarty (Australia)

Leo Pas (Belgium)

Steering Committee Members

Nina Menteiro (Portugal)
Carmen Fernandez Alonso (Spain)
Joyce Kenkre (Wales)
Jinan Usta (Lebanon)
Omneya Ezzat Elsherif (Egypt)
Elena Klusova - Networks Liason (Spain)

Aims

The Special Interest Group on Family Violence's aims are to promote:

1. evidence-based primary care and prevention for those affected by family violence to enhance safety, health and quality of life of families
2. effective interdisciplinary care for those affected by family violence

Specific objectives to achieve the aims are
1. update and disseminate available evidence and resources on family violence in general practice/family medicine and primary care settings, whilst promoting, developing and sharing guidance and training on family violence for primary care professionals to enhance their attitudes, skills and knowledge about family violence.
2. encourage research and quality improvement on this topic for family medicine and primary health care.
3. promote involvement of National academies and colleges to develop policies and training on family violence and encourage individuals or organisations to raise awareness of family violence in the professional community.

You can keep up-to-date with our activities by subscribing to our newsletter, just send an email sigfv.news@gmail.com to let us know you’re interested or follow us on Twitter: SigFV_Wonca or Facebook: Sigfv Wonca

In May 2020 we produced a WONCA Webinar on Family Violence during COVID-19
View the news item



In 2018, we intend to participate in the following :
o VdGM Forum, Porto
o 15th World Rural Health Conference, New Delhi
o WONCA Europe Region conference, Krakow
o WONCA World conference, Seoul

In 2017, our recent activities included:
o VgGM Family Violence Group: April 21-22, Strasbourg
o WONCA Rural Health Conference: April 29-2 May, Cairns
o WONCA Europe Conference: June 28-01 July, Prague
o AfriWon Renaissance: August 16-17, South Africa
o WONCA Asia Pacific Regional Conference: November 1-4, Pattaya
o WONCA South Asia Regional Conference: November 25-26, Kathmandu
o Europrev Working Group Mental Health and Family Violence & European family Justice Centres Association – International Networks Meeting: December 1-2, Brussels

Relevant Resources list 2020

WONCA webinar on Family Violence presentation slides 2020

Call to Action to WONCA Member Organizations 2018

Family Violence statement 2014