TTPS, Blind Welfare Association strengthen GBV response

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has ex­pand­ed its na­tion­al re­sponse to gen­der-based vi­o­lence through a part­ner­ship with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion to sup­port vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­sons.

The ini­tia­tive formed part of the na­tion­al ob­ser­vance of the 16 Days of Ac­tivism Against Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence. The Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit joined the as­so­ci­a­tion on De­cem­ber 2 at its Cof­fee Street of­fice in San Fer­nan­do for a work­shop ti­tled Safe Hands, Strong Voic­es: Em­pow­er­ing Our Com­mu­ni­ty Against Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence.

As­sis­tant Head of So­cial Sup­port Kirk Pierre and mem­bers of the clin­i­cal team led the ses­sion, which in­volved thir­ty par­tic­i­pants from the as­so­ci­a­tion. The train­ing fo­cused on forms of abuse that af­fect non-sight­ed per­sons, in­clud­ing dig­i­tal ma­nip­u­la­tion, fi­nan­cial ex­ploita­tion and psy­cho­log­i­cal co­er­cion. Par­tic­i­pants al­so ex­am­ined be­hav­iour­al shifts that may sig­nal harm when phys­i­cal in­di­ca­tors are ab­sent.

Staff mem­bers, in­clud­ing mu­sic in­struc­tors, braille in­struc­tors, ad­min­is­tra­tive per­son­nel and wel­fare of­fi­cers, re­ceived guid­ance on prac­ti­cal re­spons­es to sus­pect­ed abuse. They en­gaged in ex­er­cis­es on ac­tive lis­ten­ing and de­vel­oped ac­ces­si­ble safe­ty plans us­ing voice record­ings, tac­tile tools and au­di­to­ry code words.

The ses­sion al­so cov­ered the im­pact of trau­ma on per­sons who can­not vi­su­al­ly con­firm dan­ger and out­lined tac­tics used to ma­nip­u­late in­di­vid­u­als through their dis­abil­i­ty. Par­tic­i­pants re­viewed re­fer­ral path­ways to the TTPS Gen­der-Based Vi­o­lence Unit and oth­er sup­port agen­cies to en­sure time­ly re­port­ing and co­or­di­nat­ed in­ter­ven­tion.

As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent De­onar­ine Ra­goo and Wel­fare Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Ser­vices Man­ag­er Lakhan Seep­er­sad not­ed the im­por­tance of the part­ner­ship as con­cerns grow about vi­o­lence af­fect­ing vul­ner­a­ble groups and as dis­abil­i­ty leg­is­la­tion ad­vances.

Dur­ing dis­cus­sions, vi­su­al­ly im­paired par­tic­i­pants shared ex­pe­ri­ences in­volv­ing the move­ment of fur­ni­ture, the with­hold­ing of de­vices and the ma­nip­u­la­tion of sound cues to cre­ate de­pen­dence. These ac­counts guid­ed the ap­proach tak­en in the train­ing.

As­sis­tant Head of So­cial Sup­port Pierre said the TTPS re­mains com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing vic­tims are met with dig­ni­ty and sup­port. Both or­gan­i­sa­tions stat­ed they will con­tin­ue ef­forts to strength­en pro­tec­tion sys­tems for vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­sons.