About VIOLET: Law & Abused Women

About VIOLET

VIOLET: Law and Abused Women Web site is a plain language, woman-friendly, safe space on the Internet providing passive and interactive services to meet the legal information needs of abused women and their service providers in Alberta. It is an example of a project that developed from the collaboration of women in the communities, the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters, Alberta's shelters and the Legal Resource Centre. These collaborators are both interested in testing and providing Web-based learning opportunities for women involved with family violence. This site developed in 1997 by the Legal Resource Centre has evolved and will continue to evolve as we listen and incorporate users' comments and suggestions. Disclaimer

VIOLET (Women, Violence and the Net)

Goals

to demystify the Internet for women by using it as a practical tool for social justice,
to develop on-line general legal information and education relevant to the needs of abused women, and
to develop on-line communities of people who are involved in women and family violence issues. These communities could take the form of abused women supporting each other; community workers supporting the abused women; or community workers and other professionals supporting each other.

Objectives

The purpose of VIOLET is to develop a Web-based learning service to support abused women and their service providers, especially those women who are isolated psychologically or geographically. This service is to include the provision of :

learning opportunities in the area of relevant legal information,
on-line community for support and sharing of experience and information, and
on going updates of legal information and community services.

The advisory committee consists of women leaders in the communities, the Executive Director of the Alberta Women's Shelters, lawyers, and the project leader from the Faculty of Extension. These women saw an opportunity to use the Internet for learning in an informal setting. The committee believes that a Web site is a safe place for abused women and their service providers to learn legal information as well as to empower themselves while developing cognitive skills using the Internet. To facilitate the development of the project, the committee divided the project into four phases:

Phase 1 (1997/1998) - develop and test a pilot Web site at one (or more) women's shelters.
Phase 2 (1998/1999) - expand the content of the site to address the needs of grass roots workers and conduct research into the learning needs of abused women and the grass root workers.
Phase 3 (1999/2000) - continue to develop the site to include an interactive information and public discussion services on new legislation.
Phase 4 (2000/2001)- review the service, reassess its structural and resource needs and develop strategies for maintenance and on-going development of the site.

Before the idea of VIOLET crystallized, the committee members had identified enabling the women to work with Internet technology as a secondary purpose of the project. The group felt that women need to learn the technology in order to function in an increasingly knowledge-based economy and society. The fact that VIOLET is about law and family violence gives these women a reason to learn how to use the Web. This will further expose them to other information on-line and bring them to a comfort level with the technology. With these objectives in mind, the project team-consisting of a core of four members and other legal and technical members as well as community group advisors-distilled and incorporated theories of adult education, Web based learning and instruction, and women's ways of knowing into a welcoming Web site environment. The project takes the university to the community and provides a collaborative service of informal learning.

To date, funding has been derived from four major sources:

Status of Women Canada,
Office of Learning Technologies
Alberta Law Foundation through its operating grant to the Legal Resource Centre
Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta.

Status of Women Canada provided financial assistance for Phase 1 (1997/1998) enabling the project to conduct a literature review, a needs analysis, a survey of the shelters' readiness for Internet, and to build the pilot Web site. The survey revealed that although the shelters have computers, these computers are not generally located in a public area. The VIOLET project team worked with the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters to secure funding from the Muttart Foundation to provide each of the 30 shelters in Alberta with a computer station dedicated to Internet use. Each of these computers has been placed in a publicly accessible area in a shelter. VIOLET was able, therefore, to test and gather feedback about the pilot Web site from a broad base. Phase 2 (1998/1999) received funding from Status of Women Canada to revise the pilot Web site based on the findings of Phase 1, and to train the shelters in accessing the site. As the project developed during Phase 1, the project team found that there is dearth of information on how women use the Internet to learn in an informal setting. So they developed a research proposal, Learning on the Net: VIOLET to systematically gather data about the design and implementation issues in developing a Web site for women in crisis and for their service providers. This research proposal was funded by the Office of Learning Technologies (OLT). This funding enables the project to conduct applied research in the shelters and community agencies providing family violence services. The resulting qualitative data will contribute to the understanding of how these women use the Internet to gather information and enhance their learning. The findings will be incorporated into the Web site and can contribute to the knowledge of designing Web-based learning approaches.

On-going Development

As the Web site is being tested, data being gathered and changes being made to the site, other needs are being identified by the communities.

VIOLET for Immigrant Women
One common need identified by the communities during the research is the need to have information for the immigrant women. Although the legal information on this Web site is applicable to immigrant women, the project team members who had experience working with immigrant women felt that it is necessary to determine the readiness of the immigrant women group before conceptualizing the project. A consultation was conducted with key members of different community cultural groups who are involved with family violence, they indeed identify the need for a site addressing the specific needs of immigrant women as a pressing reality. Immigrant women have different information needs that may be influenced by cultural and religious values and conditions. Simple translation of the current VIOLET site does not address the issues of immigrant women. The VIOLET project will expand, pending additional funding, to work with immigrant women groups to explore their needs and design a Web site that addresses their particular situations. A proposal to develop a VIOLET Web site for immigrant women was then prepared and submitted to funders. In March, 1999, the VIOLET for Immigrant Women project has been funded by the Alberta Law Foundation.
Expansion of the existing VIOLET Web site. Two new components will be added:
- An area where on-line community can be developed through collaborative sharing of stories by the abused women.
- Interactive information services where women can ask a question and have it answered by volunteer experts.
The VIOLET Forum
A proposal was submitted to Status of Women Canada to establish a conference/discussion area for on-going dialogue on-line to discuss issues such as the (Alberta) Protection Against Family Violence Act. If approved, VIOLET will collaborate with the communities to identify issues, train the women, create, manage and facilitate the Forum.

March 1999