Review
CJ Rowe
I straddle two worlds as an academic and a practitioner, and an effective resource like Making Sense of a Global Pandemic: Relationship Violence & Working Together Towards a Violence Free Society is what I look for to bridge the range of work that I do. This book helps demystify the complexities inherent in understanding, responding and preventing relationship violence. This collaborative multi-authored and edited text provides a balance between academic research and providing hands on tools to support service providers in their work. The authors provide readers with balanced perspectives while recognizing the inherently complex personal and social issue that relationship violence plays in our communities and society. Drawing on a critical literature review, [they] have created an accessible resource for any reader, at any point along their learning journey—for those beginning to explore these issues to those who are deeply entrenched in working to end relationship violence.
I appreciate the thought behind the book’s structure; all of the chapters speak to one another, and yet each chapter can also be used as stand-alone resource. Each chapter has also been conceptualized with different readers in mind. There is a mix of hands on tools for survivors and those supporting individuals impacted by relationship violence, explorations of policy and investigations of the interconnected nature of theory and practice, and learning opportunities from those working within unique and diverse networks of service providers. I could see using this book as a tool in the classroom, as a pre-reading for a workshop and as an easy to access tool to support staff and service providers in linking them with promising practices from across the country.
In addition to the above, I see this book as a celebration of all the work that the NEVR group have been involved with and have been spearheading since their inception. This book provides us with many road maps, one of which includes how to bring a meaningful organization and community together to engage in important, timely and relevant work—building connections, developing learning opportunities, co-creating toolkits and resources, supporting events and initiatives that promote a society free of relationship violence. This is dynamic work that moves and changes over time. I’m excited to see where this living and breathing book can move and change given current and future conversations within the anti-violence movement.
Director, SFU’s Sexual Violence Support & Prevention Office
