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Learn to listen, start talking

When a woman seeks help from mental health services, it is important that the person caring for her has the appropriate training to receive and treat survivors.

Laurelle Siton, 33, is a social worker working in the Municipality of Abomey-Calavi, Benin. In February 2018, she began working with women survivors and, in December, she trained in psychological support for survivors of violence in a UN Women program. “Now, when a survivor cries, I tell her that I understand her pain and that her reaction is normal,” she says. “I tell her that tears can have restorative effects, and that she can cry as much as she wants. If she prefers, we can suspend the appointment and reschedule it for another date.”

In a recent project, Siton hosted and listened to nearly 360 survivors of violence from her region. She knows the importance of the advice she provides, because she herself was able to verify the results of her help in women: “to gain confidence, to feel listened to by other people and, above all, to know that she is a valuable person and that we know the importance of its history".

Pierrette, 39, is a survivor of violence. She is also from the Abomey-Calavi region (Benin). Pierrette was abused by her legal representative throughout her childhood. In a desperate attempt to escape her home de ella and her abuser de ella, she married Pierrette very young. But this relationship deteriorated quickly. Her husband subjected her to verbal and physical abuse. After several years, her husband abandoned her and her family, so Pierrette had to financially support her four sons and daughters. “I carried the entire weight of the family,” she says.

When Pierrette sought help in mental health treatment, Siton was there to listen and support her. “Mrs. Laurelle [Siton] was the one who listened to me and referred me to the psychologist who followed my case and provided her support,” Pierrette says.

Pierrette's emotional health improved thanks to individual counseling. "I feel better. “I'm not so worried anymore… The support relieved me a little.”

Service providers—like Ina Grădinaru, the deputy director of a center for women survivors of violence in Drochia, Moldova—are the first people to provide support to women who have experienced violence.

“I am the first person women talk to when they come to the Centre,” says Grădinaru. To fulfill this essential function, service providers must respond to a woman's emotional and mental needs without judgment and in a comfortable environment that respects the woman's autonomy.

In her 12 years of working with women, Grădinaru has learned that “the attitude you have and show when you meet a survivor for the first time is very important. Before anything else, a victim of domestic violence needs to be believed.”

Believing in survivors is essential to open lines of communication, so that those who listen to them do so with empathy and the ability to guide them to find their own solutions. For Grădinaru and many of the people who support mental health services around the world, this work is much more than that, it is a public service.