Developing women’s agency in getting out of gender violence according to the women’s Agency Building Model. The experience of three anti-violence centres in Milan.

Journal title SICUREZZA E SCIENZE SOCIALI
Author/s Fiorenza Deriu
Publishing Year 2020 Issue 2019/3
Language Italian Pages 25 P. 85-109 File size 632 KB
DOI 10.3280/SISS2019-003007
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This paper, moving from the theoretical model of women’s empowerment FCRE1 (Deriu, 2016), based on the restoring of women’s capabilities, aimes at both analysing the strategies of intervention adopted by three Anti-violence Centres in Milan, and verifying its fitting in a more specific model on Women’s Agency Building. The model includes all those phases the women suffering from violence come thorough: the resilience corrosion (Wolff and de-Shalit, 2007; 2012), and the weakening of some key protection factors; the adaptive functioning (McCubbin and Patterson, 1982; 1983a; 1983b); the breaking-point; the empowerment process, and the development of fertile functionings (Wolff and de-Shalit, 2007; 2012); and, finally, the strengthening of residual resilience (Cyrulnik and Malaguti, 2005). The purpose of the study concerns the release of a tool that could be profitably used: a) in the training programmes of the social workers of the AVC (Anti- Violence Centres) in order to offer them a more comprehensive frame of the steps accompanying women in getting out from a violent relationship; b) in the team work, to assess the care service offered to women. At this aim a qualitative methodology has been adopted, and 7 semi-structured interviews have been conducted to the professionals responsible for the AVC engaged in the study. The main result of the study concerns the definition of a more precise Model of Women’s Agency Building.

Keywords: Women’s agency, violence; resilience; empowerment; capabilities corrosion.

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Fiorenza Deriu, I "sentieri dell’agency femminile" nei percorsi di uscita dalla violenza secondo il Women’s Agency Building Model. L’esperienza dei Centri Antiviolenza di Milano in "SICUREZZA E SCIENZE SOCIALI" 3/2019, pp 85-109, DOI: 10.3280/SISS2019-003007