Findings from a Theology-Informed Training for Ethiopian Orthodox Clergy

Abstract Domestic violence interventions that engage religious leaders and clergy have increased significantly in recent years, spanning social work, psychology, public health, and international development. The international evidence indicates the need for culturally appropriate and theologically informed interventions that may combine religious and secular knowledge and approaches. The current paper presents such an intervention that was implemented with Ethiopian Orthodox clergy employing ethnographic, theological, safeguarding, and legal training content. Qualitative evaluation of the pilot showed that the theological component gave the training credibility from the perspective of the participants and helped them to become more confident in teaching against domestic violence in their communities. The paper proposes the need for developing robust evaluation strategies to better quantify the impact of theologically informed training materials and the influence of the trainers’ approach and identity as a way of designing more appropriate and effective domestic violence interventions in diverse cultural and religious contexts.