#iaqs

[kahran042]

IAQs

Remember IAQs? If you don't, they're Infrequently Asked Questions - basically, FAQs and walkthroughs for video games that don't exist, made popular by Beath of Flams in the late 90s. Anyway, I've built up a fair-sized collection of IAQs over the years, and I want to share them with the public. So… here they are!

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[imkaan-blog]

Newsflash: Imkaan Safe Minimum Practice Standards are out today!

We are especially excited that through support from Trust for London, we are able to offer bursaries to 6 groups who wish to be accredited through the SMPS. BME women’s groups in London working around issues such as FGM, will be able to apply to have up to 85% of the costs covered by the bursary.

Sioned Churchill, Director of Special Initiatives and Evaluation at Trust for London, said of SMPS,

‘We felt it was important for community groups, who have developed knowledge and expertise in tackling issues such as female genital mutilation, to have this endorsed; and for commissioners of services to feel confident that these groups were working to an agreed set of safety standards.’

Marai Larasi, Executive Director of Imkaan, added,

‘We know that BME women and girls often prefer support  which is led and delivered by other BME women. These standards are designed to reflect the expertise and commitment that is held by the women and groups doing this vital work. In practice, the services provided by BME women’s groups are important, yet often undervalued spaces, and sometimes the only place a BME girl or woman feels able to approach for support.  We want to ensure that groups are able to work independently and  autonomously, while also reassuring girls,  women, partner agencies, and funders, that their work is both safe and empowering.’

Dorett Jones, Development and Training Manager at Imkaan, continued,

‘For us to create meaningful change in the fight to end violence against women and girls,  it is vital that black and minority ethnic community organisations are seen and related to as key Leaders in how we tackle forms of violence and support BME women and girls. BME women have the right to choose whom they seek provision from and we know that in the majority of cases this is from BME led by and for organisations. Imkaan's Safe Minimum Practice Standards provides a consistent, robust tool for organisations in their commitment to improvement and the continuous delivery of safe quality services for BME women and girls.’

The SMPS are available across the country. However, at this stage, the bursaries are only available in London. If you are a London-based BME women’s community group working around issues such as FGM, or if you are small specialist BME women’s ending violence against women and girls organisation, you may be able eligible for the bursary. If you have questions, are interested in the SMPS or wish to apply for the bursary, please email us at [email protected].

SMPS is available to download from our resources page.

[imkaan-blog]

Imkaan launches Safe Minimum Practice Standards (SMPS)

We are pleased to announce the launch of the Imkaan Safe Minimum Practice Standards (SMPS). The SMPS are the second in a series of accredited standards and part of a  broader Imkaan framework which is designed to support the delivery of  effective, high quality specialist provision for BME girls, women and their children.

Imkaan Accredited Quality Standards (IAQS) and Safe Minimum Practice Standards (SMPS) are:

Survivor focussed. We have placed great emphasis on maintaining an ethical position which keeps survivors at the heart of each element of the work, and which recognises the multiple, intersecting ways that BME girls, women and their children  experience violence, define needs, and access and utilise support.

Specific and specialist. Imkaan is the only organisation which has developed specific standards for BME ending VAWG services and these standards also highlight the specificities relating to work around forced marriage, female genital mutilation and ‘honour-based’ violence. As BME ending VAWG experts, we understand both the issues and the responses. We also understand the wider strategic context.

While the IAQS focus on all aspects of an organisation’s work including areas such as governance, the SMPS focus primarily on service delivery and practice and the ethos which underpins that practice. The SMPS are specifically designed for small, BME community groups delivering support to BME women and girls affected by VAWG, including more newly established specialist BME ending VAWG organisations.   They  will support organisations around their own quality assurance processes, as well as providing reassurance to girls, women and their children, funders and commissioners, and other stakeholders, that the work that they do is being delivered safely.

We wish to express heartfelt gratitude to all the individuals and organisations that shared their expertise and reflections with us.

This work would not have been possible without a grant from Trust for London and additional support from Esmée Fairbairn. We wish to thank you as funders for your commitment to BME survivors and the BME specialist and community organisations which support them.

SMPS is available to download from our resources page.

For more information, about the standards or any aspect of Imkaan’s quality framework, please contact us at [email protected]

[iaqs]

Q: Why do we cringe at the sound of nails on a chalkboard?

A: Even the thought of nails raking across the surface of a chalkboard makes me shiver. 

Sounds such as that, or a fork scraping against plates and the like, are often so unpleasant to the ear - but why? This remained a mystery for many years and it's only in the last few decades that scientists have finally found the explanation to our peculiar discomfort to such sounds. In fact, there's even been a Nobel Prize awarded for this nail-on-chalkboard research!

Two European researchers, Michael Oehler and Christoph Reuter, found that there are both physiological and psychological factors which underpin the fingernail-chalkboard mystery.

It has been common scientific knowledge that many of the sounds which our human ears discern as being most unpleasant occur between 2000 to 4000Hz. What's interesting is that Oehler and Reuter found that many "unpleasant" and "painful" noises such as the fingernails raking across a chalkboard had frequencies that were within this "painful" 2000-4000Hz range.

They went on to point out that many of the acoustic features of human speech also fall within this frequency band, and suggested that the shape of our ear canals may in fact have evolved to amplify such frequencies, something which they referred to as "open ear gain".

The second part of Oehler and Reuter's experiments involved playing the unpleasant sounds to their volunteer subjects, in which they informed half of their listeners that they would be listening to a piece of contemporary music, and the other half they would be listening to chalkboard screeches. 

Those who were told they would be subjected to the chalkboard sounds were more likely to rate the noises as unpleasant than those who were told that they would hear contemporary music!

Research on this topic is still ongoing, and there's been theories that the amplification of frequencies in the 2000-4000Hz range could have been important for human survival early in our evolutionary history, e.g. respond to a baby's cry for help, or heed the warning call from another human individual. 

Reckon I'm just whiny and that sounds such as a fork scraping on a plate ain't so bad? Enjoy:

Reference:

http://io9.com/5858325/why-do-you-cringe-at-the-sound-of-nails-on-a-chalkboard