By: Kenya Fairley, Acting Director, Family Violence Prevention and Services
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey shows that 32% of women and 28% of men face violence by an intimate partner during their lifetimes.[1] Victims reported feeling fearful, being concerned for their safety, and having symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These factors can have broad impacts on their abilities to keep a job, access health care, have stable housing, and use social service programs. To address these needs, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) Program provides emergency shelter and supportive services. In 2017, FVPSA helped more than 1.28 million victims.
FVPSA became part of the Family and Youth Services Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families in 2005. But since 1984, it has been the main source of federal funding for domestic violence shelter and victim services. FVPSA’s programs and services support more than 1,600 local programs and more than 235 American Indian/Alaska Native tribes and tribal organizations. FVPSA also supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. In addition, it funds programs that develop and evaluate services to abused parents and their children. It also offers training and technical assistance, grantee meetings, and program guidance.
One aspect of FVPSA’s success is its ability to work across federal agencies to leverage resources and partnerships on behalf of domestic violence survivors and their families. FVPSA promotes solutions that work and that can be tailored to diverse individuals. It also assures that services are trauma informed to help victims recover from violence, abuse, and neglect. These partnerships promote best practices and cohesive responses to victims, no matter where they seek help and safety.
Here are some examples of key partnerships.
- Project Catalyst with the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Together we provide intimate partner violence (IPV), human trafficking, and trauma-informed training and technical assistance to primary health clinics funded by HRSA. The online toolkit, IPVhealthpartners.org can help community health centers and local domestic violence and sexual assault centers build thorough and sustainable responses to these issues.
- Safe Housing Partnerships with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Justice. Under this partnership, we implement the Domestic Violence and Housing Technical Assistance Consortium . It provides information and resources to organizations that provide domestic violence and homelessness services throughout the country. It also allows federal, national, and state partners to conduct research on and evaluate the overlap between these public health concerns.
- Quality Improvement Center with the Children’s Bureau. This 5-year partnership promotes effective child welfare responses when both domestic violence and child abuse occur. Under this partnership, we launched the National Quality Improvement Center on Child Welfare Involved Children and Families Experiencing Domestic Violence . It will create and distribute best practices and effective policies and strategies to help children in the child welfare system who face domestic violence.
- Prevent IPV with the CDC. Under this partnership, we fund the IPV Prevention Council and its online resource center, preventIPV.org: Tools for Social Change
. The Council is organized and operated through the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence and is focused on improving the capacity of coalitions and programs to advance and put into place a national agenda to prevent domestic violence at all levels of government.
Does your program have ideas on how to partner with us to improve services and supports to victims of domestic violence and their children? Would you like to discuss ideas to increase trauma-informed services? Contact FVPSA to see how we can work together. Staff can also come to your agency or division to share information and resources.
[1] Smith, S. G., Chen, J., Basile, K. C., Gilbert, L. K., Merrick, M. T., Patel, N., . . . Jain, A. (2017). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010-2012 state report. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.