WONCA Special Interest Group: Prevention and Response to Abuse and Violence

Co-Chairs:

A/Prof Jennifer Neil (Australia)

A/Prof Jennifer Neil is an academic family doctor who has educated hundreds of health professionals in family violence across Australia. She is the Head of Curriculum at Monash University School of Medicine, the largest medical school in Australia including its Malaysian campus. She has instituted an innovative trauma-informed medical education approach across the medical school and has a research interest in that area. She has developed and delivered curriculum in family violence and trauma-informed care across Australia through organisations like Safer Families (The University of Melbourne) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP). She is the deputy chair of the RACGP specific interest group on family violence. She has co-authored three chapters in the RACGP guideline on abuse and violence. She is currently undertaking a PhD at The University of Melbourne on the experiences of GPs who are survivors of family violence and their experiences when working with families affected by family violence. In her clinical work she has interests in mental health, chronic disease management, women’s health and supporting survivors of family violence.

Dr Fadzilah Hanum Mohd Mydin (Malaysia)

Dr Fadzilah Hanum Mohd Mydin is an Associate Professor and Family Medicine Consultant at Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her expertise spans geriatrics in primary care, abuse of older people, lifestyle medicine, mental health, and health systems innovation. Her research focuses on critical yet often overlooked issues affecting older adults, including abuse of older people, advance care planning, social isolation, mental health, healthy ageing, health behaviours, and the use of technology in healthcare.

Her scholarly work on the abuse of older people brings together three main areas of focus: developing and delivering educational programmes for primary healthcare professionals, exploring the lived experiences of older adults affected by abuse, and creating evidence-based measurement instruments. As part of the Universiti Malaya Prevent Elder Abuse Initiatives (PEACE®) team, she has developed and implemented context sensitive training programmes and clinical guidelines to support healthcare practitioners in recognising and addressing abuse. Her doctoral research focused on designing and evaluating educational interventions that strengthen the capacity of primary healthcare providers to respond effectively to the abuse of older people.

Dr Fadzilah’s research contributions have been recognised internationally. Her paper on education in abuse of older people for primary care professionals received the 2025 Pierre Pluye International Award, while her systematic review on measurement instruments for abuse of older people, conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organization, has informed global approaches to safeguarding older adults. Her work on abuse of older people has also been honoured with a research award at the 2014 WONCA Asia Pacific Conference.

An active member of WONCA’s Special Interest Groups on Violence and Ageing, she contributes to advancing global and regional dialogues on healthy ageing and the protection of vulnerable older adults. As an academic, she supervises postgraduate students in the Master of Family Medicine and Master of Medical Science programmes at Universiti Malaya, mentoring future clinicians and researchers in family medicine and geriatric care. Beyond academia, she leads community-based initiatives such as Walk with A Doc Petaling Jaya, which promotes healthy ageing and intergenerational connection through lifestyle-based interventions.

Dr Fadzilah’s work strongly supports the core objectives of the WONCA Special Interest Group on Family Violence by advancing evidence-based resources, encouraging relevant research and quality improvement, and promoting engagement with national academies to influence policy and professional development. Her vision for the group is to strengthen the role of family doctors in identifying and responding to all forms of family violence, including the abuse of older people, through cross national collaboration, capacity building, and resource sharing. She remains deeply committed to ensuring that older adults, often marginalised in conversations about family violence, are meaningfully included in research, policy, and training efforts.

email co-chairs

Past Convenors:

Dr Hagit Dascal-Weichhendler (Israel)

Hagit Dascal-Weichhendler is a board certified family physician, working full time as a clinician with a mixed population in Northern Israel. She is the chairperson of the Committee on Family Violence (FV) in Clalit Health Services, Haifa and West Galillee District, which serves over 740,000 patients from multiple cultural backgrounds. It provides training, educational materials counselling and support to staff on FV cases. She developed and teaches a mandatory semester course on FV in the Haifa Department of Family Medicine, as well as an elective semester course for Medical Students. Hagit has written guidelines on family violence for the Israeli Association of Family Medicine. She has participated in the development of a national simulation based educational program on FV. Her research interests are educational interventions on FV for health care staff, and FV health consequences. She's a member of the Ministry of Health Committee on FV. There she puts an emphasis on the importance of connecting between health providers in the field and policy makers. As a member of the FV SIG she seeks to improve international cooperation in this important area.

Asst Prof Nena Kopčavar Guček (Slovenia)

Nena is a full time family practitioner in the Community Health Care Center of Ljubljana in Slovenia. She is also a faculty member of the Department of Family Medicine, University of Ljubljana, currently as Assistant Professor. For years she has been involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, as a teacher and as a mentor and has been a member of research groups at herclinic and at the department. Since 2005, she has been one of the supervising doctors with the Medical Chamber of Slovenia. Family violence and workplace violence in the healthcare environment occupy a lot of her time and interest. Since 2017, she has chaired the interdisciplinary committee for preventing violence at the Medical Chamber of Slovenia. Find out more about Nena.

Leo Pas (Belgium)

Steering Committee Members

Nina Menteiro (Portugal)
Carmen Fernandez Alonso (Spain)
Joyce Kenkre (Wales)
Jinan Usta (Lebanon)
Omneya Ezzat Elsherif (Egypt)
Elena Klusova - Networks Liason (Spain)

Vision

Our Interest group strives to enhance the safety, health, and quality of life of all victims and survivors of abuse and violence, as well as primary health care professionals who provide care for them. We aim to ensure that all health systems and primary health care settings are safe, compassionate, culturally sensitive, and evidence-based spaces that deliver comprehensive, high-quality care for survivors of violence. This can be achieved through integrated multisectoral networks, working with communities and collaboration to promote gender equity, human rights, and social wellbeing for all, including responsible care pathways for perpetrators.

Mission

Our mission is to contribute to reducing the prevalence and consequences of violence through prevention, early identification, comprehensive and quality care, and recovery of survivors/victims. We aim to ensure that all survivors/victims of family, gender-based, and sexual abuse and violence — including women, men and LGBTQ+ communities— are appropriately supported in primary healthcare settings worldwide. Provision through interdisciplinary work, evidence-based, and person-centred primary health care interventions, while also promoting the health and resilience of professionals who care for them

Objectives

• To identify, update, and disseminate available evidence and resources on forms of abuse and violence, especially family violence, sexual and gender-based violence, including violence against men and against LGBTQ+ individuals, that present to general practice/family medicine and primary health care settings. More specifically, we promote commitment to the detection of violence and the provision of trauma-informed, comprehensive, integrated, and intersectoral care for victims, survivors, their families, and perpetrators.
• To develop and share guidance and training programs that will enhance primary health care professionals' ability to respond effectively and with sensitivity to all survivors regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, or relationship context, taking in consideration worldwide guidance and perspective.
• To encourage research, innovations in practice, and quality improvement initiatives for family medicine and primary health care that address prevention, early identification, and effective management of Abuse and Violence across the lifespan. This should be pursued by improving knowledge, skills, and attitudes, generating and incorporating scientific evidence into practice, and providing healthcare professionals with the tools, support, and supervision needed to facilitate decision-making and to safeguard their own well-being.
• To include in professional guidance the adaptation of responses to individual strengths, degree of entrapment, and inequities that survivors —especially for women—in order to ensure an intersectional and gender sensitive perspective.
  (Keeps focus on women, while the rest includes inclusivity)
• To address violence from a gender perspective, acknowledging the different needs and concerns of abused women and men arising from their distinct socialization and lived experiences, while also recognising the unique risks and barriers faced by LGBTQ+ survivors and integrating this understanding into prevention, care, and recovery practices.
• To engage and collaborate with National academies, colleges, and professional organizations in the development of policies, curricula, and continuing professional training on family, gender-based, and sexual violence and other forms of abuse in primary health care. Also, to collaborate with institutions both within and outside the healthcare system in teaching, scientific consulting, prevention, and treatment of violence, whilst promoting awareness and advocacy for gender equality, human rights, and the reduction of all forms of violence.

Join the SIG

Members can join the group and access the membership portal, which includes resources and member discussions. You can register or update your membership here: https://membership.globalfamilydoctor.com/general/custom.asp?page=CMRegistration.

To receive updates, contact us at [email protected].

 

Webinars

Understanding and Preventing Elder Abuse and Neglect
June 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qFs2DeINfs

Chemical Submission & Drug Mediated Sexual Abuse in the 21st Century
April 2025
https://youtu.be/BTXoKkvjjvg

Webinar: Identification of Intimate Partner Violence in Primary Care
July 2024
https://youtu.be/qHH5YIuQVH0

Global Family Violence Initiative - Frontline Workers Testimonials
March 2024
https://youtu.be/iEIqugDDCvM

Relevant Resources list 2020

WONCA webinar on Family Violence presentation slides 2020

Call to Action to WONCA Member Organizations 2018

Family Violence statement 2014