This year’s #SVRIForum22 was the biggest and most diverse forum yet. Since coming back I have been reflecting on how it was a wonderful opportunity to connect with old and new friends and colleagues in a beautiful location (and leave the babies back home!). I also learned a lot. Here are a few things I took away (and using this as an opportunity to give you a bit of a tour of the Prevention Collaborative‘s Knowledge Hub):

A strong focus on practice and programming: The Forum featured many practice focused sessions, including an excellent session on adaptation, among others. It also highlighted quite a few parenting and family strengthening programmes – an area of focus for us at the Collaborative and a promising strategy for the prevention of both VAW and VAC. A highlight for me was seeing my long-term colleagues Kate Doyle (she/her/hers) and Emmanuel Karamage presenting our 6 year Bandebereho results at a plenary session. Also, emerging from the Covid-19 experience, it is really exciting to see some promising findings from digital/online interventions – we will be following closely and eager to learn more.

What are the gaps? There was very little presented at the conference around addressing harmful alcohol use and poor mental health as prevention strategies. Stay tuned for some new Prevention Collaborative resources on this in the coming months.

Striving to do better: Another important thread throughout the conference was the focus on decolonising research and funding, valuing practice-based knowledge, and engaging with social movements. Inspiring presentations, intense and political discussions and pushback, but overall striving to do better.

Bringing it all together: Finally, we were excited to see that the Prevention Triad, presented by Lori Heise, the Collaborative’s Technical Director, resonated with practitioners, researchers, and donors. For us, it brings together the key elements of effective prevention programming: a robust programme model, a fit to context and population, and quality implementation. Indeed, the SVRI forum was a space to learn about each of the aspects of the triad.

What did you learn at the Forum? What would you like to learn more about? Share with us!

This blog was originally published on LinkedIn.

Written by Ruti Levtov, Senior Associate at The Prevention Collaborative