Abstract

Interdisciplinary research documents the continued global incidence of violence and abuse. Besides its damaging impact on the health and mental health of individuals and families across cultures, the negative consequences of violence extend to communities and the socioeconomic status of whole nations. Yet, survey data reveal that the pivotal role of health and social service professionals in preventing violence and treating victim/survivors has not been actualised systematically primarily because most health sciences faculty do not feel adequately prepared to teach on this topic. While considerable progress on this urgent issue is evident in the health arena over the past two decades, addressing violence issues in formal curricula (theory and supervised clinical practice) to prepare future health and social service professionals for competent practice often hinges on the interest of a particular faculty member in contrast to faculty-wide adoption of this content as an essential element of the curriculum, resulting for some receiving only a single lecture on the topic. Such essentials include the public health prevention facet focusing on vulnerable population groups, and the knowledge, attitudes and skills required by clinical practitioners across disciplines to deliver crisis intervention and treatment on the front lines with victim/survivors, their families and perpetrators. An international consortium of universities in Africa, Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA, aims to alleviate this curricular deficit, building on the research perspective of education as intervention. Traditional and online teaching methods are adapted to varying socio-cultural contexts.