The document discusses research on shelters for victims of domestic violence from the 1980s to 2000s. It focuses on women's perceptions of living in shelters. It identifies five key dimensions studied: the shelter as an institution, women's motivations and expectations, feelings of change and future prospects, interpersonal relationships among women and staff, and the importance of empowerment. Themes include safety, privacy, isolation, participation in shelter management, and lack of control. Empowerment is defined as people gaining control over their lives. The study aims to better understand women's experiences in shelters and how shelters can provide an empowering environment.

1. Shelters for victims of domestic
violence: just for living or for
empowerment?
Daniel Cotrim

2. 2Goals
understand in more depth the experience of women residing in a shelter
investigate what perceptions they have about various dimensions related to the
fact that they are residing in a shelter
The importance of empowerment in their individual a collective lives

3. 3THEMES ADDRESSED BY STUDIES
AND RESEARCH ON SHELTERS
Decade Studies and Investigations
80
- Assess the effectiveness of the intervention of shelters
- Reflect on the importance of shelters for support for abused women
90
- Research on the services provided by shelters
- Perception of the services provided by the women living in shelters
- Regular evaluation of shelters to support financing
- Perception of shelters as safety-enhancing spaces by listening to women residing there
- Evaluation of shelters as a social response and the type of funding that they should be
assigned
- Understand the process of women in decision-making that living in shelters decided to
return with the aggressor
- Perception Profile of shelters users
- Studies on characteristics and psychological changes of battered women due to stay in
shelter
- Of resident satisfaction evaluation in shelter
-Studies On the lives of women who came out of shelters
2000
- Reflections on the existence of regulations and the confidentiality of shelters
- Of resident satisfaction evaluation in shelter
- Studies on the experience of residing in a shelter

4. 4
FIVE DIMENSIONS
the shelter as an institution
the motivations and expectations to be accepted and the first
days of reception
feelings of change and prospects for the future
establishment and quality of interpersonal
relationships among women and between them and the
technical staff
importance of organizational empowerment for women
accepted

5. 5KEY THEMES AND SUBTOPICS
Generalissues Principal themes subtopics
Institution The perception of women's shelter as an
institution
Quality of living space
control
Safety
Absence privacy
level Staff The woman and her personal experiences
at the shelter
Absence expectations
initial isolation
Difficulties in the decision-
making process
Freedom
Independence
Interpersonal
relations
The perceptions of women in relation to
interpersonal relationships with other women
welcomed and the staff of the shelter
Equality
distrust
support
Organizational
involvement
Active and voluntary participation in
management and evaluation activities at
the shelter
Passivity
disinterest

6. 6
What is for you
EMPOWERMENT?

7. 7
 “Empowerment means that people,
especially poorer people, are enabled to
take more control over their lives”
(Chambers 1993)
 “Empowerment … refers to the expansion
in people’s ability to make strategic life
choices in a context where this ability was
previously denied to them” (Kabeer 2001)

8. 8
Empowerment can be used has a tool of
control
Empowering and other therapeutic interventions
Struggle for power and control

9. 9
The least appreciated aspects are the lack of
privacy and the inflexibility of some rules
The low participation of women accepted in
management contexts and evaluation of shelters
lack of motivation of the same

10. 10
Perception of the importance of the direct
participation of women
accepted in the shelter structure
Reinvent the Intervention Model at the
Shelters:
Ideas
Practices

11. 11
Involves cognition, behavioral skills or competence &
motivation, commitment to values etc.
Develops through the interaction of personality factors
and social experiences
Critical Awareness
Participatory Competence
Sustaining Participation and Empowerment
Empowering Individual Settings

12. 12
Empowering Community Settings
Group-Based, Strengths-Based Belief System
Opportunity Role Structures
Peer Social Support Systems
Shared, Inspiring Leadership
Overall goal is to strengthen the internal sense of
community within the setting

13. 13
Provocation
Sense of
Community
Empowering
Setting
Citizen
Participation
Psychological
Empowerment
ENVIRONMENT

14. Thank you
danielcotrim@apav.pt
cotrim.daniel@gmail.com