Petra Wünschová

Petra has designed a new approach to fighting abuse in the home that both builds cooperation between institutions serving affected children and shifts mindsets about who in society is responsible for breaking cycles of violence.

Petra is reducing the prevalence and impact of violence against children by changing the way society understands and approaches the problem. Current systems around children address the challenge as one of child protection, which leads to stakeholders blaming each other and disempowering children. It also fails to break intergenerational cycles of abuse. Petra offers a new approach that focuses instead on the wellbeing of children and their support systems, starting with family, and aligns all the stakeholders around that approach. As a result, instead of casting blame, everyone works together to address the real problem.

Having worked for more than a decade supporting child victims in a local NGO, Petra grew frustrated with the conventional model. Authorities would assess suspected or reported abuse through conversations with adult victims and perpetrators. Children who either witnessed or experienced the abuse themselves had their needs go unnoticed and their situations unresolved. Or they were seen as wards in need of protection and summarily removed from the family. In this case, they were housed in an institutional care setting foreign to them and subjected to a series of interviews in unfriendly places over many months. That is, if the violence was even considered actionable by responding authorities given the widespread cultural acceptance of corporal punishment in the Czech Republic.

Petra founded Centrum LOCIKA to shift this harmful dynamic. She is building a new collaborative infrastructure that focuses all the support systems around children on their wellbeing and preservation of family. In her model, families, social services, police, lawyers, and others all collaborate to ensure the most effective outcomes to individual cases of abuse and share general learnings to better address future cases. Stakeholders see the child not as a victim for whom experts speak but rather as an individual with agency and whose best interests are prioritized. The model affirms professionals’ expertise and knowledge base to create a flexible and safe learning space for honest reflection and discussion. At the core of the approach is a commitment to children’s health, wellbeing and right to safe spaces so that they can lead on reporting abuse and managing recovery from trauma. Petra also preserves the child’s connection to their family and home whenever possible to accelerate healing.

Recognizing that the broader culture plays an important role in enabling violence, Petra frames violence as a shared problem that everyone – not only affected families – is responsible for stopping. She works on the prevention of violence by creating and scaling early detection systems that position communities, schools, and children and families themselves as change agents. She provides resources for all of these actors to help prevent and respond to violence. She also creates channels for them to access support. Her goal is to reduce the time it takes to get support to an abused or at-risk child. She has made it safe even for parents who are worried they might engage in violence against their children to reach out. Additionally, she engages in broad public awareness efforts to elevate the issue and to change mindsets around corporal punishment.

Petra’s success is shifting how parents deal with their anxiety and anger, how teachers spot and react to signs of abuse, how the police investigate suspected cases, and how children heal. She is changing national discourse and policy, too.

More than 20% of children in the Czech Republic experience domestic violence by witnessing abuse and/or suffering it themselves. And far too many grow up thinking it is normal as a result. The World Health Organization has found that children who grow up amidst violence can suffer a range of behavioral and emotional challenges, including those associated with perpetrating or experiencing violence later in life. Domestic abuse has been associated with higher rates of infant and child mortality and morbidity. Yet uncertainty about how to find help in the Czech Republic – especially outside Prague – is still common. Fear and stigma lead to under-reporting, as do inadequate laws or poor implementation of existing legislation. The country only standardized its definition of domestic violence in May 2023, slowing consensus building amongst the police, judiciary, and others about what abuse looks like and action to be taken. It has also frustrated broader prevention efforts.

At the same time, the Czech Republic is currently one of only three countries in the EU that has yet to pass legislation outlawing corporal punishment. Even “mild” corporal punishment has been associated with lower levels of moral internalization, cognitive ability, and self-regulation, in addition to increased aggression and antisocial behavior, and poorer mental health. The good news is that while 60% of Czech parents think corporal punishment is acceptable, only 5% think it is a good tool. They just don’t see alternatives.

Challenges await children whose cases are reported and involve a crime. Because the professionals who work with them are spread across five or more institutions including Child Protective Services and the medical and criminal justice systems, children are interviewed and re-interviewed by up to 30 people across 15 locations. This retraumatizes the child precisely when safe spaces, trusting relationships, and empathy-driven support are most needed. And because therapy meant to help the child cannot be successful until others have stopped asking questions about the crime, psychologists generally do not join the conversations until investigations are complete.

Finally, silos exist between professionals despite regular interactions. Each office exercises territoriality over their respective areas of expertise. Their focus is usually on the parents – as victim or perpetrator – rather than the child. Communism’s legacy of top-down power dynamics and the mistrust that results persist. Lack of collaboration and transparency lead to lengthy case times, sometimes stretching as long as two years. And it’s the child, not the perpetrator, who is removed from the home while investigations continue, adding to their sense of instability and vulnerability.

Petra builds a collaborative infrastructure for the systems and stakeholders surrounding children that are tasked with addressing violence so that they can focus on child and family wellbeing and work together more effectively. She creates early detection systems to empower children, families, and other community members to help respond to and prevent abuse. She equips the public with awareness and tools to prevent violence. And she advocates to change laws that impact children and families.

Petra builds collaborative infrastructure built on trust, not connections, to break institutional siloes that protect turf and expertise rather than cultivate shared knowledge in support of the child. She has partnered with Prague’s District 7 to convene quarterly sessions for approximately 20 professionals from different institutions that serve child victims of domestic violence. These new learning spaces for a growing community of practice, called KOS, include representatives from city government, schools, the police, Child Protective Services (CPS), mediation and probation services, NGOs, and crisis centers. Ministry of Interior officials and pediatricians also occasionally attend. Petra facilitates analyses of case studies in a safe and welcoming physical space that she deliberately creates. Focus of conversation is placed not on perpetrators or how a crime was reported but instead on the experience and wellbeing of the impacted child in order to build empathy amongst group members. Colleagues are asked to share how previous work may relate to the case study to build familiarity and community. A shared vocabulary emerges. Participants might also discuss current challenges they need to solve and, in the process, build trust with peers whom they may not otherwise engage. Petra has found that increasingly, participants connect after platform meetings, too, to discuss challenges and ask for advice. In this way and based on anecdotal evidence, Petra’s KOS platform cultivates a sense of belonging and success in an otherwise fragmented ecosystem in which burnout rates are high. Centrum LOCIKA’s reputation as a place for stakeholder collaboration rather than finger-pointing has also led institutions such as CPS to seek Petra’s counsel on how to create similar safe spaces.

Petra also enables collaboration in specific criminal cases through the Child Advocacy Center she has launched at Centrum LOCIKA. The first of its kind in the Czech Republic, this Center is based in part on an American model by the same name and the Barnahus approach it inspired in Iceland and other Scandinavian countries. Yet while the US and Scandinavian models focus on accelerating access to justice for child victims of sexual violence, Petra’s Center deals with a broader range of abuse cases. It is designed to ensure that children who are victims of a crime of abuse do not experience more trauma as they receive help and provide evidence. Professionals come to the Center so that interviews a child must engage in are in one familiar place. An observers’ room adjacent to the interview room ensures that multiple professionals can listen to the same interview, limiting the number of times a child must recount the abuse. Centrum LOCIKA provides the case manager, child psychologist and legal advisor. They also facilitate the expert case conference that follows the interviews, which enables all stakeholders to co-create official notes that are then sent to the court.

Petra notes that prior to the Center’s founding, due diligence in preparation for a criminal case would typically take two months. Now, it can take as little as two days, minimizing the risk for further traumatization of the child. Professionals working together in this way to prepare records for trial based on a child’s responses is new in the Czech Republic and enables transparency and fluid communication across institutions. The conventional practice of the police, who are expected to solve cases promptly and usually fine a perpetrator rather than open a criminal case when the affected child doesn’t open up quickly enough to give testimony, is also challenged by more accessible firsthand testimony. Thus, by focusing on interprofessional collaboration and child wellbeing, this new way of working helps to reduce the downplaying of violence in families and helps to solve cases more effectively.

Petra’s second strategy focuses on early detection mechanisms and prevention. She started with her team a secure online chat during COVID lockdowns for affected children and is now developing an application to link the chat platform directly to a national hotline. This will enable police to identify a child’s location automatically. Petra has also launched a walk-in center for those aged 14-18 to make it as easy as possible for them to seek advice or help. To date, Centrum LOCIKA has worked directly with more than 3,000 children and their families through therapy services. She has built partnerships with both government and schools to ensure as many people as possible are aware of the signs and impact of domestic abuse - and of the steps everyone should take to avoid it. The Ministry of Interior counts her as Czechia’s leading expert. A partnership with Prague’s District 7 schools that the district itself funds ensures that teachers, administrators, and psychologists are now trained in how to spot signs of abuse in their students’ behavior. Teachers and school psychologists of the more than 4,000 children have since reported more confidence in speaking up about suspected cases. Teachers are also more comfortable recommending that families access Centrum LOCIKA services. Petra and her team have found that the questions teachers ask when seeking advice are less about how to handle students’ bad behavior and more about how to help them. The more empathetic, child-centered approach points to the impact Petra most wants to have. LOCIKA’s success at shifting how District 7 schools approach and deal with suspected cases of abuse provides a blueprint for future work with other school districts. Petra believes this scaling effort will rely largely on local partners who know their regional contexts better than Petra, as well as on local government funders.

Petra’s third strategy is the use of campaigns to shift both mindsets and culture. Centrum LOCIKA is seen as a leader in simplifying complex issues for public consumption. Their communication approach is trauma-informed and characterized by kindness, non-judgment, and offers of assistance. Rather than resort to fear tactics, Petra focuses on positive examples in straightforward language. Their ubiquitous infographics cover topics such as how parents can better manage their anxiety, ways to stop yelling, and why violence in the home is not a healthy choice. The Interior Ministry and many others have adopted them due to their effectiveness. To illustrate, Petra shared: “We have embraced trauma-informed communication. For instance, when the Minister of Social Affairs stated in an interview that a slap does no harm, our response wasn't to react with activism, condemning him outright. Instead, we recognize that he was raised with such beliefs as the norm, and our action should be geared towards supporting him to refrain from making such statements in the future -- not out of fear of repercussions, but out of genuine understanding to do things differently. We refrain from issuing statements declaring a minister unfit and demanding immediate resignation. Instead, we express our disapproval while avoiding creating the impression that the minister is inherently flawed or bad. We aim to foster understanding … [And since his statement,] the minister has opened doors for us by engaging in dialogue on the subject and attending roundtable discussions.” Petra has also found that an increasing number of calls to the Center are from parents who want to change how they act to minimize the risk of abuse.

Petra and her team launched Czechia’s participation in the United Nations’ World Day for the prevention of and healing from child sexual exploitation, abuse, and violence – held annually on 19th November. She has organized a national drumming event where children, parents, schools, government officials, and communities make noise to celebrate children’s right to be heard. Last November, more than 500 schools and 70,000 people participated, including Czechia’s President. Petra and team also designed materials for classroom use in the lead-up to the event, with particular focus on strategies for talking about violence. Petra co-founded a nationwide initiative last summer, as well, with government officials and several NGOs. This “Childhood without Violence” campaign has enlisted the support of leading politicians, medical professionals, media personalities, and other influencers to guarantee that by 2030, every child in the Czech Republic lives a childhood without violence. Total reach is now estimated at 7 million people. Impact on the 3,000+ children LOCIKA has worked with is captured qualitatively and based on the children’s own words. A strategic goal Petra has set for the next three years is to work with a local university to design two new impact measures. The first is a standardized feedback loop for children to use quarterly to track their progress. The second is a trauma checklist. One version will be for children under the age of eight, the other for those aged 8-18. Older children will be able to complete the checklist on their own. This systematic data gathering will enable more substantive analysis of the effects LOCIKA’s approach has on children’s recovery and wellbeing.

Because of the respect she has earned across the ecosystem, Petra sits on several government committees and regularly works with officials. Her collaboration with Czechia’s Labor and Social Affairs Minister has resulted in pending legislation that would mandate Child Advocacy Centers in all of the country’s 14 regions. Currently in its second reading in Parliament, the bill would establish a shared legal framework for all Centers to further standardize the system’s response. And at the time this profile was finalized in June 2024, the Czech government approved a proposed amendment that would, in fact, outlaw corporal punishment for children nationally. Petra’s work contributed directly to this major shift.

Petra plans to re-launch expert roundtables beyond Prague that she had initiated just prior to COVID. Focus will be on trauma-informed care of impacted children and the best way to adapt it to local contexts. These roundtables highlight Petra’s step-by-step approach to building a national network of Child Advocacy Centers that, once pending legislation passes Parliament, will be mandated. Primary funding will come from the national government itself as informed by its obligations as a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Private donors will also be sought, and Petra has already prepared the core funding proposals. That noted, at least six government offices have already funded LOCIKA’s work. Current collaborations with District 7 institutions including CPS and the police - both of which have changed how they respond to suspected cases of abuse thanks to their partnerships with LOCIKA – offer proof of concept for replication of the Child Advocacy Center’s expert case conference, too. And a new university partnership will help in the analysis of how this convening of experts to handle criminal cases in a more child-centered way is impacting the work itself. Petra also plans to work with city officials in and beyond Prague to ensure that more social services are child-centered and empathy-informed. To augment initial work with parents, she plans a dedicated hotline to advise on behavior change when it comes to disciplining children, as well as new learning videos. Petra will next build on initial collaboration with an NGO in Slovakia by engaging more partners to adapt the LOCIKA approach to local contexts. And her current work with displaced Ukrainian communities points to future scaling opportunities in Ukraine once the conflict ends. Local governments are a primary funding target, and Petra intends to highlight their ongoing support for the Convention on the Rights of the Child when proposing partnerships. Private donors will also be sought.

A deep sense of justice shaped Petra from an early age. She grew up in Prague in the 1970s and 80s, in a family that enjoyed a privileged position in Communist society. Some of her relatives’ acceptance of the Russian occupation in 1968 clashed with her own beliefs, setting her on a path of activism and contacts with the dissident movement. She was inspired from an early age by her grandfather, a practicing lawyer whose devout Catholicism would motivate sharp criticism of the Communist government. Petra also found solace and security in her judo practice, which provided a safe space in a home where emotions were suppressed and silence valued.

Petra recalls that on the first day of the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, her school principal warned students not to attend the protests. But when just a few hours later he changed his tune and encouraged them to participate, Petra started to wonder about people changing their attitudes and beliefs so quickly. Witnessing Community Party members join the protests just days after they had pledged loyalty to the government reinforced this growing interest. Petra wondered about the intent and beliefs behind people's words.

Amidst the socio-political tumult that would follow the 1990s, Petra's work for civic organizations exposed her to the era’s violence – including the rise of a neo-Nazi movement. Along with colleagues, she partnered with the media and police to hold racists accountable for the harm they were doing to others. She participated in cataloging evidence and helped to bring cases against the neo-Nazis. At the same time, she knew that it was necessary to shift the police force’s internal culture, as many officers were sympathetic to the neo-Nazis’ cause and she was helpful in the change that happened. This experience strengthened Petra’s resolve to make positive change. She would also work with Roma communities and pursued studies in art therapy, integrating her creative talents with her passion for healing and advocacy.

Her husband's early death was a pivotal moment. It prompted Petra to dive deep into the study of trauma, driven by a desire to shield her three children from the emotional scars of their father's death. She soon learned of a conference in New York that would focus on trauma and art therapy. She was so motivated to attend that she convinced the organizers to give her free admission. She used money she had been saving for a new washing machine to pay for her air ticket, and while she admits the decision may not seem rational now, it proved to be right and necessary at the time. The conversations she had in New York helped to plant the seed for what would become Centrum LOCIKA.

Petra would spend 15 years working as a psychotherapist in a crisis shelter serving women and children who had experienced violence. She increasingly found that rather than focus only on helping these victims recover from their trauma, she wanted to work for change on a bigger scale so that the systems around impacted children were grounded first in empathy. She wanted to focus more on protecting children’s rights. She also wanted to work with schools and parents to shift mindsets and help prevent abuse.

This would lead Petra to establish Centrum LOCIKA in 2015. The name is inspired by the tale of a princess who was imprisoned by a witch yet found her own strength to break free. Princess Locika symbolizes for Petra both resilience and empowerment. She wanted to look at abuse and recovery through the eyes of a child. An internship in England had revealed how common it was for the child to be taken away from their family. She insisted on a different approach, one that engaged the family in the child’s recovery and connected institutions meant to support it.