Delivering circles of support and accountability to protect communities from sexual harm and sexual reoffending

Volunteer

CoSA Norway visit Circles South West for practice sharing

Circles South West were very pleased to welcome two coordinators from CoSA Norway this month in a practice sharing exercise as they look to start Circles of Support and Accountability in their country.

Maren Riis and Lisa Gartner, probation officers from Norway, flew in from Oslo to attend the Circles South West training weekend and meet our new volunteers. They followed this up with meetings with our Volunteer Coordinator and Senior Coordinator to learn about our practices and processes of preparing and commencing a Circle as well as volunteer recruitment and retention.

They had previously visited the Netherlands for a similar purpose and will use everything they had learned from both charities to commence the first CoSA in Norway.

Sexual offences have risen in Norway in recent years and Maren and Lisa were keen to learn how CoSA could work for Norway. They plan to run a pilot programme initially consisting of one Circle before hopefully expanding the project further if it is deemed successful.

We were able to provide them with a lot of useful material that will help them commence the project with a relatively small staff, as is normal for a pilot project.

Circles of Support and Accountability is such a powerful tool in prevention and rehabilitation that we are so pleased it is expanding its reach to new countries.

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