Italian newspaper ‘Toscana Notizie’ promotes VSE Annual Conference 2022 ‘The Age of Resilience’

The experience of the Tuscan Codice Rosa, a project that ensures effective coordination between various institutions to provide appropriate support to victims of violence, was part of the panel sessions at Victim Support Europe’s 2022 Annual Conference ‘The Age of Resilience’ held in Malta on May 11-12.

Vittoria Doretti, the regional network coordinator of Codice Rosa and the director of the ‘Health Promotion and Health Ethics’ department of the Toscana Sud Est Local Health Authority, presented the achievements and challenges of the organisation in the context of building resilience.

The Codice Rosa project was born in 2009, at the Asl di Grosseto, and since then has become  the centerpiece of a strongly operational regional Network against violence against women, children and the elderly in terms of prevention, care and treatment. This innovative initiative has given birth to the new ‘CCM Ipazia’ project on the prevention of violence against women and minors, which started last February.

Doretti’s speech at the 2022 Conference, ‘A showcase of the coordinated response to emergencies, the example of Codice Rosa’, was held during the first panel session on May 12. The speech aimed to contribute to the expert discussion by showcasing a coordinated hospital emergency room response based on Codice Rosa’s experiences working with all victims of violence and discrimination.

“The Codice Rosa is a best practice that has been enshrined and consolidated in all Tuscan emergency rooms and systematised within a special regional network with excellent results,” commented Tuscan Regional President Eugenio Giani. “This is an original Tuscan project, which has set national standards. Dr. Doretti’s presence in Malta shows recognition of our ability to plan, innovate, work as a team, and share our best practices in the emergency sector to protect the persons in need of help, comfort, assistance, and care. A special thank you goes to Ms.Doretti, for her passion and determination, to her team, and to all the staff working in emergency rooms, anti-violence centres, law enforcement agencies, and public prosecutors’ offices to make ‘Codice Rosa’s work a success”.

“Tuscany’s contribution to the Victim Support Europe 2022 Conference makes us feel proud, because it is an acknowledgement of our ability to provide support through dedicated strategic projects,” explained the Tuscan Councillor for the Right to Health, Simone Bezzini. “Covid19 swept through our communities like a tsunami and marked them deeply, causing or amplifying constrained and stressful familial or societal situations. In these unprecedented times, it is even more important to offer urgent remedies in a personalised and effective manner, providing the best organisational solutions without losing the positive benefits of best practices – such as the Codice Rosa, a national and European level reference point. I would like to thank Vittoria Doretti, who developed the Codice Rosa and who has worked at creating synergies at various levels, her staff, and all the professionals of the healthcare companies and the Region for the competence and sensitivity with which they have always followed the project”.

“Codice Rosa is a source of pride for our company,” added Antonio D’Urso, General Manager of the South East Local Health Authority, “We are happy that it has set a trend in Tuscany first and then at the national level. The fact that Dr. Doretti has been invited to the 2022 VSE Annual Conference confirms that this path is the right one. I would like to emphasise that the path followed by Codice Rosa is founded on a collaborative spirit between the different actors”.

“My presentation at the event,” Doretti explains, “is devoted to illustrating the most important and decisive elements in supporting victims of crime in complex periods such as the pandemic. Undoubtedly, in our case, the difference was working in a public health context with a cohesive, dynamic, interdepartmental and inter-institutional team, able to work in deep synergy with other stakeholders and especially with the regions’ anti-violence centres, having a common vision to provide effective and efficient responses to victims of gender-based violence and hate crimes. On this occasion,” she concluded, “I’m presenting a preview of the remaking of the Codice Rosa video-documentary, which won several awards after its production in 2010 by the Asl 9 of Grosseto.  The video illustrates all stages of the project up till today. Memory is an experience to be kept and shared”.

For the organisers, this year’s conference was an opportunity to discuss the different paths that can be taken to achieve individual, social and structural recovery and resilience, sharing resilience strategies and approaches, to fight systemic threats. The 2022 VSE Annual Conference 2022 presented topics which included conflict, intolerance, and the role of the victim support community during Covid-19, victims and their victimisation, oppression, injustice and empowerment during a pandemic, victim rehabilitation etc.

Post-conference materials, including the video of Dr.Doretti’s presentation, can be found at https://2022.vse-conference.eu/.

Special thanks to www.toscana-notizie.it for covering the conference. The original article in Italian can be found here.