The Fostering Violence Prevention and Well-Being for Black Women, Families, and Communities project has made a lot of progress over the last year, despite some initial delays. The project has four phases and is expected to be completed by March 2026. While we are still in the early stages of this project, here is a brief overview of our progress so far:
- Phase I (April 2022 - March 2023): Complete
- Phase II (April 2023 - March 2024): Ongoing
- Phase III (April 2024 - March 2025): Upcoming
- Phase IV (April 2025 - March 2026): Upcoming
This blog post summarizes the project’s accomplishments to date.
Phase I Accomplishments
Phase I involved conducting focus groups (FGs) with Black individuals in Calgary and Toronto who have knowledge of and/or experience with domestic violence (DV) in Black communities. Another focus of this phase was to develop the Community Guidance Group (CGG), which will help inform the direction of the project into 2026. This phase has since been successfully completed in May of 2023. Here are the accomplishments from this phase:
- 3 FGs with 6-8 participants in Calgary were conducted
- 3 FGs with 6-8 participants in Toronto were conducted
- The audio recordings from the FGs were transcribed by the Research Assistants
- 16 participants from the focus groups have volunteered to be a part of the CGG:
- 8 individuals from Calgary
- 8 individuals from Toronto
Although this project is spear-headed by Dr. Patrina Duhaney, there are other co-investigators on this project as well as collaboration with community members and external partners. These individuals make up the Research Team. The research team met with research partners on April 29, 2022 and January 2023 to discuss project direction provide updates and determine next steps to advance the project.
The Research Team was expanded during this phase. Each member works on various parts of this project. Here are the team members that joined the team during this phase:
- Dr. Odette Murara (Research Team Lead)
- Kate Beamer (Research Associate)
- Naomi Phung (Research Assistant)
- Mimo Hammoud (Research Assistant)
- Andrea Silva Santisteban Fort (Research Assistant)
- Jenalyn Ormita (Research Assistant)
Phase II Accomplishments
The project is now in Phase II, which involves conducting individual interviews with Black individuals with knowledge on how to address and prevent DV in Black communities. In doing so, we hope to build more knowledge on DV prevention and interventions and how we can further engage Black men in this project. Although Phase II is still ongoing, here is a list of the accomplishments to date:
- Conducted interviews with individuals who have knowledge of DV prevention and intervention strategies
- Facilitated four meetings with members of the Community Guidance Group
- Creation of project’s website by web designer Stephen Paul-Michael in collaborations with members of the research team
- Developed and shared DV resources with Black communties and community organizations
- Published blog posts with project updates
- Analyzed data from interviews which will be submitted to peer reviewed journals for publication then shared on our website.
Stay tuned to our website and blog for news, updates, and more!
