2016 – 2020 Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant: Specialized Services to Abused Parents and Their Children (SSAPC) and Expanding Services to Children, Youth, and Abused Parents (ESCYAP) Grantee Profiles

Publication Date: November 15, 2016
Current as of:

The FVPSA Program’s SSAPC twelve demonstration sites consist of domestic violence coalitions, local domestic violence programs, tribal organizations, behavioral health organizations, and a state social services agency. These grantees will work to alleviate trauma experienced by children and youth; support enhanced relationships between children/youth and parents; and improve systemic responses to children and youth exposed to domestic violence, and their abused parents.

  1. Boston Medical Center Corporation
  2. Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc.
  3. Domestic Violence Action Center
  4. Durham County Department of Social Services
  5. Foothill Family Service
  6. Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence
  7. Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence
  8. Maine Behavioral Healthcare
  9. Mountain Comprehensive Care Center
  10. SouthEast Alaska Health Consortium
  11. Texas Council on Family Violence
  12. Travis County Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Survival Center

FVPSA’s new ESCYAP grantee, Futures Without Violence (FUTURES), will provide training, technical assistance, and coordination of our twelve new demonstration sites. For more than 30 years, FUTURES has been providing groundbreaking programs, policies, and campaigns that empower individuals and organizations working to end violence against women and children around the world. Learn more about the FUTURES ESCYAP grant.

 


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Boston Medical Center Corporation
Project Overview

Boston Medical Center Corporation’s objectives are: 1) to determine the effectiveness of our model in improving parent-child interaction and maternal coping related to stress, depression, and efficacy, as well as in increasing social and concrete supports; 2) to improve child psychosocial functioning and development, and 3) to train new mental health professionals in dyadic mental health services and disseminate our model and findings through health professional schools and publications.

The target population for Boston Medical Center Corporation’s project is dyads comprised of mothers and their children aged 0 to 5 in which one or both has been exposed to domestic violence (DV), defined as any abusive, violent, coercive, forceful, or threatening act or word inflicted by one member of a family or household on another occurring in the home. The core intervention will consist of a combination of individual, group, and dyadic therapy and parenting education to improve parent-child interactions, parenting confidence, and parenting competence; to reduce parenting stress; and to improve child socio-emotional and developmental outcomes.

Drawing heavily on two evidence-informed practices—the Group Attachment-Based Intervention (GABI) and Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP)—BELONG will address the impact of DV on mother and child as it affects parenting, child development, and child behavior. It will also provide direct social support, as well as social case management designed to increase access to concrete supports (e.g., food, housing assistance). The intervention will be delivered in eight sessions over the course of 12 weeks. It will be adapted for two age ranges: 0-2 years and 3-5 years.

Boston Medical Center Corporation will create new clinical and operational protocols for Project BELONG, as well as a curriculum and low-literacy parent education materials in English and Spanish. It will recruit 90 high-risk mother/child dyads consenting to participate in the intervention. It will employ electronic data capture and create a secure, web-based REDCap database to house all study-related data. The intervention will be delivered by licensed mental health clinicians and candidates for doctoral and master’s degrees in psychology and social work within a unique nonstigmatized community setting. Boston Medical Center Corporation will compare pre/post scores on standardized measures of parent/child interaction, parenting confidence and competence, parenting stress, depression, and child socioemotional functioning and development.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc.
Project Overview

The Flourishing Child Tribal TANF Enhancement will be located in Anchorage, Alaska and will serve abused Alaska Native and American Indian parents and their children, and Alaska Native and American Indian youth affected by family violence. Through a critical alignment of community partners — Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. (CITC), the tribal social services provider administering Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits in the Anchorage area, Anchorage Community Mental Health Services (ACMHS) and Abused Women’s Aid in Crisis (AWAIC) — the project will enhance and expand the reach of CITC’s highly effective Flourishing Child program. Since 2011, Flourishing Child has addressed the needs of Alaska Native children exposed to family violence in community settings including a Tribal Head Start and the AWAIC emergency shelter.

The Enhancement will mobilize key Flourishing Child partnerships with AWAIC and ACMHS to co-locate and streamline screenings, referrals, case management and prevention advocacy services, and culturally appropriate, trauma-informed mental health treatment for abused parents and children and youth exposed to family violence, at CITC’s Nat’uh Social Services Center. Co-location of services, in combination with intensive trauma-informed service training for staff from throughout Anchorage’s child-serving system of care, and a planning process to identify screening points throughout key CITC service departments, will provide access to the Flourishing Child family violence intervention services to all Alaska Native and American Indian people receiving Tribal TANF benefits in the Anchorage area — a population of 1,065 unduplicated families in 2015.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Domestic Violence Action Center
Project Overview

The Domestic Violence Action Center (DVAC), a 501 (c) 3 not-for-profit organization, is a community-based, non-residential program at the heart of Hawaii’s domestic violence (DV) crises. The Pulama I Ka Ohana (PIKO - “Cherish the Family”) will provide specialized responsive services to 360 abused parents, and 760 abused children and youth, with existing evidence informed supportive and advocacy services based on national best practices in serving survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). This application will fund: three family assistance counselors; one program manager; one attorney; child care providers; teen group facilitator (contract); children’s group facilitator (contract); site fees for group facilitation facility; and program costs.

DVAC proposes to: ameliorate trauma experienced by children and youth; assist in rebuilding relationships and bonds between children, youth and parents; and support non-violent family units with an array of services. These will address the unique dynamics created when living in a violent household. Filipino and Native Hawaiian families comprise the agency’s largest client populations, and will be the primary recipients of PIKO program services.

Children and youth exposed to violence display various behavioral, emotional, interpersonal, and learning difficulties. PIKO program features will be responsive and tailored to their needs. Parents may already be DVAC clients or may be referred by other community allies — e.g. shelters, financial assistance programs, health care providers, schools, churches or Child Welfare Services.

The array of PIKO program services will include:

  • Safety planning and comprehensive assessment of parents, children and youth.
  • Family support groups: Survivors of IPV and their children will strengthen their relationships and repair damage resulting from living with abuse.
  • Individual age-appropriate therapy for children, youth and survivors who would benefit from focused personal work.
  • Survivor support groups oriented to ethnic and cultural considerations.
  • Teen support groups for youth who have been child witnesses, and are at-risk for being victimized or for perpetrating teen dating violence.
  • Legal representation in Family Court matters, pertaining to custody, divorce, paternity, restraining or post-decree actions.

With an ethnically-diverse, well-trained staff, this uniquely-designed, unduplicated trauma informed holistic program will be available for a new group of survivors and their children.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016 
SSAPC Grantee: Durham County Department of Social Services
Project Overview

For more than a decade, Durham County, NC has maintained an integrated System of Care infrastructure that spans from birth through adulthood and maximizes collaboration and cooperation among key government agencies, community organizations, and families. The Durham Directors oversee the System of Care and include only officials from the highest level of county and city government. The Durham Directors’ current policy-level focus is to support initiatives and collaborations that work to alleviate community violence. The Durham County Department of Social Services (DCDSS) will capitalize on its inclusion in the Durham Directors to incorporate DIDVRS into the broader community violence reduction efforts. Durham County is centrally located in North Carolina and has a total population of 282,422, which is comprised of 53% White, 39% African-American, and 13% Hispanic. Last year, DCDSS investigated 1,477 reports of child abuse and neglect, which involved a total of 3,205 children. Approximately 29% of those reports were related to domestic and/or family violence (DV/FV). Although Durham County has shown innovation in much of its work around children and families, there are still major gaps in services and service connection and delivery, particularly with respect to DV/FV.

A key goal of the DIDVRS is to improve system collaboration among Durham community providers regarding their approaches, values, and assumptions when working across systems on behalf of abused parents and their children. The target population will include diverse children, ranging in age from 0-18 years, and their caregivers with a particular focus on Latino families, who are underserved due to language barriers and immigration status, and African American families, who are overrepresented in CPS reports related to DV/FV, but underrepresented in mental health services. The objectives for this project are expected to result in improved outcomes for abused parents and children/youth exposed to DV/FV by: 1) improving the system and responses to abused parents and their children and youth exposed to DV across Durham; 2) coordinating and providing new or enhanced residential and non-residential services for children and youth exposed to DV, with a particular focus on Latino and African American families; and 3) enhancing evidence and practice-informed services, strategies, advocacy and interventions for children/youth exposed to DV.

DIDVRS includes a NCTSN affiliate that will deliver staged training in three key elements of technical assistance to Durham first responders: (1) building awareness of DV/FV, (2) developing skills to screen for DV and its impact on children and make appropriate referrals, and (3) improving system collaboration between agencies to improve services delivered to families. By participating in DIDVRS trainings, first responders will be empowered to use collaboratively developed DV/FV screening tools and make appropriate referrals to a trauma-informed network of care, and will also improve their engagement with non-offending caregivers who have been abused. A rigorous evaluation will be conducted of all community-level, agency-level, and individual child and family outcomes to examine programmatic impacts. Lastly, DIDVRS will develop a sustainability plan for successful project activities and contribute to a national dissemination plan of lessons learned and implementation strategies.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Foothill Family Service
Project Overview

Through the Specialized Services for Abused Parents and Their Children (HHS-2016-ACF-EV- 1163) Foothill Family and its partners will target low-income and underserved abused parents, children and adolescents in Pomona, California. Specifically, population targets will center on Hispanic families, including newly immigrated and/or or monolingual Spanish speakers and African American families in Pomona.

A network of coordinating service provider partners, the Pomona Family Violence Treatment Network (PFVTN) will be established to enhance and expand systems of response, treatment and prevention services that address the needs of low income underserved abused parents children, and youth exposed to domestic violence (DV). Foothill Family and its partners will strengthen and enhance workforce capacity and service accessibility through the delivery of culturally relevant, age appropriate evidence based/ practice informed DV service for abused parents and children and youth exposed to DV. As a culmination of efforts, DV service delivery aptitude will be increased at local, county, and national levels through the dissemination of information/lessons learned regarding evidence-based and practice informed services, strategies, advocacy and interventions for child and youth exposed to DV. Foothill Family goals and objectives will enable DV providers, community based organizations, and government entities response systems to support children and youth recovering from exposure to trauma and domestic violence by assisting abused parents and children and youth to achieve new coping and life skills, and educating youth to end the cycle of violence.

Within the PFVTN project Foothill Family will provide the following services/intervention: 1) establishment and coordination of activities of the PFVTN, a network of collaborating agencies/organizations serving the city of Pomona and adjacent communities to enhance DV services; 2) a test of a home based case management model; 3) expansion of psychotherapy treatment services for parents, children, and youth; 4) training and expansion of available evidence based parent education workshops, art workshops for children and youth, and a healthy dating curriculum for adolescents; and 5) a pilot test of an integrated advocacy response team with the Pomona Police Department.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence
Project Overview

The disproportional impact of domestic violence on underserved populations is compounded by multiple, systemic oppressions, such as racism, which often show up as biases, assumptions, and stereotypes regarding gender, race, ethnicity, and class as well as anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments that are embedded in our culture. These biases, assumptions, and stereotypes affect governmental and community-based systems and responses, and prevent systems and community-based services from effectively providing access and services to abused parents and their children from underserved communities. Idaho Thriving Families seeks to improve systems and responses to abused parents and their children from underserved communities by the integration of a comprehensive anti-oppression and social equity framework in conjunction with the institutionalization of Building Promising Futures: Guidelines for Enhancing Response of Domestic Violence Programs to Children and Youth (Building Promising Futures) in six demonstration sites — the Community Council of Idaho (the state’s largest Hispanic nonprofit service provider), four community domestic violence programs, and one tribal domestic violence program — and across key governmental systems. Governmental systems include Idaho Departments of Health & Welfare Division of Family and Community Services (Child Protective Services), Head Start/Early Head Start, and Maternal/Child Health Home Visitation Programs.

The Idaho Coalition’s services focus on the institutionalization of Building Promising Futures into existing approaches in six demonstration sites through organizational change in the integration of an anti-oppression and social equity framework.

The group served is abused parents and children from underserved populations seeking services in the six demonstration site communities — demonstration sites are located in southwestern Idaho (serving Adams, Boise, Canyon, Gem, Payette, Washington, and Valley Counties) with the Hispanic/Latino population ranging from 23% to 25%; southern Idaho (serving Gooding, Jerome, Cassia, and Twin Falls Counties,) with a Hispanic population ranging from 16% to 27%% and a refugee population of approximately 1,000; and north Idaho (serving the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Reservation and Kootenai County) which includes over 10,000 tribal members.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence (KCSDV)
Project Overview

The Empowered Families Kansas project consists of three components that will improve outcomes for children and youth exposed to domestic violence.

The first component of the Empowered Families Kansas project will focus on establishing new, residential and non-residential specialized advocacy mentorship services available to youth (Tweens and Teens) exposed to domestic violence, and their non-abusing parents or caregivers, that are developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate, as well as evidence- and trauma-informed. To accomplish this, KCSDV has partnered with six of its member domestic violence advocacy programs that will serve as project implementation sites. These implementation sites are: 1) Family Crisis Services, Inc. located in Garden City, Kansas; 2) Hope Unlimited, Inc. located in Iola, Kansas; 3) Harvey County Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Task Force, Inc. located in Newton, Kansas; 4) Safehouse Crisis Center, Inc. located in Pittsburg, Kansas; 5) Domestic Violence Association of Central Kansas, Inc. located in Salina, Kansas; and 6) StepStone, Inc. located in Wichita, Kansas. This component of the project is expected to serve at least 300 youth exposed to domestic violence and their non-abusing parents or caregivers.

The second component of the project focuses on enhancing and expanding the statewide capacity of all 25 Kansas domestic violence advocacy programs to provide advocacy services to children and youth exposed to domestic violence and their non-abusing parents or caregivers that are developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate, as well as evidence- and trauma informed. KCSDV will provide resources with guidelines and strategies, training, and technical assistance to accomplish this project component.

Finally, the third component of the project focuses on improving the response by child protective services and child welfare professionals statewide to the needs of children and non-abusing parents when addressing the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child welfare-related issues. KCSDV will provide resources with guidelines and strategies, training, and technical assistance to accomplish this project component.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Maine Behavioral Healthcare
Project Overview

Maine Behavioral Healthcare’s Project BRAID: Building Resilience in Areas Impacted by Domestic Violence is a comprehensive program of training, technical assistance, and trauma treatment provision aimed at improving system responses to non-abusing parents and their children and youth exposed to domestic violence. Through these efforts and in partnership with domestic violence resource centers in targeted communities, parent competencies and well-being will be increased, and the trauma symptoms of children and youth will be decreased.

Targeted communities include two at risk counties in Maine: York County and Washington County. Within Washington County, the Passamaquoddy Tribal Reservation will be engaged as well.

By the end of the two-year project period, Project BRAID will enhance culturally and linguistically competent services by providing training and technical assistance to domestic violence resource centers and other service providers in various evidence-based or best practices.

Training in evidence-based trauma treatment models (CPP, CFTSI) will also be provided to clinicians in targeted communities, allowing them to provide these treatment models with high-quality supervision and consultation.

The project will evaluate results and, with advice from the local communities, enhance or adapt programs for special populations (i.e. tribes, rural communities) as appropriate.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Mountain Comprehensive Care Center (MCCC)
Project Overview

Mountain Comprehensive Care Center (MCCC), an experienced provider of adult and child victim services including DV, dating violence and other family violence, will expand and enhance its services by providing the Family Hope Project in the eight counties of Floyd, Johnson, Lawrence, Magoffin, Martin, Perry, Pike and Rowan located in eastern Kentucky and Central Appalachia, one of the nation's most underserved, rural and economically challenged areas.

The need for the project is crucial as this rural Appalachian region faces a host of socioeconomic and behavioral health challenges, high rates of domestic and other associated violence, and cultural bias impacting the well-being of children and families, and their desire or ability to seek help from abuse. Moreover, the availability of trauma informed, evidence-based, age and developmentally appropriate treatment and services for both children and adults is limited. Therefore, MCCC will expand its service capacity and service area (from its current programs) to provide the Family Hope Project to the targeted population.

Built on evidence-based practices from Futures Without Violence and the National Child Trauma Stress Network, the project will provide comprehensive, age, gender, developmentally, culturally and linguistically-appropriate, outreach and outpatient trauma focused treatment supported by case management, advocacy and linkages to supportive services. Key evidence-based practices found to be effective with the targeted population include: Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Adapted Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Special Populations, and Parent Child Interaction Therapy for children and joint parent sessions while Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will typically be utilized with adults. Services will be provided through a three-person team comprised of the Child Therapist, Adult Therapist, and Peer/Community Support Associate. This team will allow for specialized services for the child and for the adult as well as joint sessions to promote family bonding while also providing support for wraparound services and aftercare for up to three months post discharge. Services will be identified through comprehensive assessment and development of appropriate Person-Centered Plans.

Based on the requirements of the project and needs of the targeted area, participant eligibility includes underserved, rural children and youth in the targeted eight counties of Appalachia who have been exposed to domestic and associated family violence, and their non-abusing parent. Based on the demographics of the service area it is anticipated that nearly 100% of non-abusing parents will be women and will experience many of the area's challenges including poverty, unemployment, lack of higher education, and many who will also experience a mental health, substance abuse or co-occurring behavioral health disorder. MCCC will also target military families in the area who experience DV.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: SouthEast Alaska Health Consortium (SEARHC)
Project Overview

The overall goal of the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) Family Violence Prevention and Services program is to address the unacceptably high rates of domestic violence experienced by Alaska Natives in the rural communities of Southeast Alaska. The project will work to increase capacity for SEARHC Behavioral Health Division staff located in Juneau and in the rural health clinics, and to provide core and comprehensive domestic violence services to parents, children and youth. Program goals are designed to improve systems and responses to abused parents and their children and youth exposed to domestic violence, enhance residential and non-residential services for children and youth exposed to domestic violence, and contribute to the knowledge base of evidence-informed and practice-informed services for children’s domestic violence programs. Project objectives are to standardize trauma-informed, evidence-based care agency-wide and in collaboration with project partners. The Family Violence Prevention and Services program will improve the ability of the SEARHC Behavioral Health Division to counsel parents, children, and youth who have experienced domestic violence. Connections with local services providers in an effort to enhance collaborative services for families who have experienced domestic violence will also be a major focus of this grant project.

This target population for this project is the parents and their families of Southeast Alaska who have experienced domestic violence, with an emphasis on Alaska Natives. Alaska Natives experience a disproportionately higher rate of mental and behavioral health challenges compared to other populations in the U.S. Alaska Native children are overrepresented among the group of children needing treatment services. Many Alaska Native communities are plagued with high rates of depression and other mental illnesses, alcohol and drug dependency, hopelessness, and sexual abuse and violence. This can be linked to a disconnection from culture among Native people or the transgenerational trauma experienced by indigenous people. The prevalence of sexual violence and intimate partner violence is a major public health concern in Alaska. For nearly 30 years, Alaska has ranked among the top 5 states in the nation for forcible rape.

Through the Family Violence Prevention and Services program, the SEARHC Behavioral Health Division will become integrated with trauma-informed care through policy and practices that will be developed to utilize evidence-based trauma services throughout the continuum of care from outpatient to residential and non-residential services.


Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV)
Project Overview

The Texas Council on Family Violence (TCFV) has led a number of initiatives over the past several years to improve local and state-level collaboration in responding to families experiencing the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child abuse. Significant changes in statewide policy and local practices have resulted from this work, and TCFV is now ready to build on this success by scaling up initiatives more broadly and addressing the potential that participating agencies have expressed for enhanced efforts.

TCFV’s project will focus on:

  1. Advocating on behalf of domestic violence victims and their children, including coordinating services with the child welfare system and other statewide systems that impact abused parents and their children; and
  2. Coordinating enhanced residential and non-residential services to benefit children and youth exposed to DV.

TCFV’s initiative, GROWING SAFE, will work in the following areas:

  • Enhancing Collaboration between Domestic Violence Programs and Child Protective Services at the Local Level: through support for demonstration sites and dissemination of successful strategies and tools through training, technical assistance, and peer-group mentoring.
  • Statewide Collaboration with Systems that Can Address Intersections of DV and Child Maltreatment: TCFV staff will continue to work at the state level in collaboration with entities such as Child Protective Services, Children’s Advocacy Centers, CASA, and the Texas Municipal Police Association to promote policies and relevant trainings to build capacity and improve practices and responses of statewide entities that can impact responses to abused parents and their children.
  • Supporting Non-Abusing Parents in Promoting Child Resiliency: The support of nonabusing parents is shown to be the most significant factor in overcoming trauma for young people who are victims of child abuse or witnesses to domestic violence. GROWING SAFE will allow TCFV to work with domestic violence centers to pilot research-based parenting programs that promote child resiliency, and to disseminate selected programs for use in domestic violence centers and other local agencies interacting with DV survivors across the state.
  • Incubating Innovative Approaches: TCFV will solicit and fund three proposals in different locations in Texas that are implementing promising interventions with children and young people exposed to domestic violence whose families have not accessed DV services or been involved with CPS.

Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
SSAPC Grantee: Travis County Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Survival Center (dba SafePlace)
Project Overview

The purpose of SafePlace’s project “Safe and Nurturing Families” is to expand the capacity of domestic violence programs in Central Texas (7,000 miles of urban, rural and suburban communities) to help abused parents learn techniques to help their children heal from the trauma that they witnessed or experienced. The focus is on strengthening the relationship between parent and child and to overcome the trauma. Both victimized child and parent are the target populations for this project. The underlying belief is that we can increase the resilience of children exposed to violence to avoid future violence if we increase the safe parent’s skills and the parent/child attachment.

This project is needed because the collaborative partners have recognized significant gaps around effective interventions for families in the child welfare courts who have experienced domestic/family violence. A primary gap is that families in the child welfare courts in our service area are not consistently identified as having family violence and even when domestic violence is recognized, safety can be compromised and there is often a lack of referrals or linkages to appropriate resources, emergency shelters, and support services.

Travis County Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault Survival Center, doing business as SafePlace, will be the lead agency, coordinating services and providing grant management. SafePlace will also be providing direct services in Travis County by placing an advocate in local family courts overseeing the CPS dockets. Travis County family courts have been seeking ways to have SafePlace legal advocates in their courts. In addition, SafePlace will subcontract funds to family violence agencies in Hays-Caldwell, Bastrop, and Williamson Counties to provide trauma-informed services to strengthen the bond between non-abusive parents and their children and build capacity and improve system response of child welfare courts.

The “Safe and Nurturing Family” project will also allow SafePlace and its partners in surrounding counties to provide parenting support and training based on the evidence-based Nurturing Parent curriculum and the evidence-informed Protective Parenting Curriculum. Strong Start, the child abuse prevention program at Austin Children’s Shelter, will provide parent education services for Travis County clients, and will train participating agencies to do the same. In addition, SafePlace will contract with Asian Family Support Services to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate parent education services to Asian families, and Austin Children’s Shelter will hire a parent educator to work with Deaf/hard of hearing survivors.

The goals of the project are to:

  • Increase CPS/Family Courts understanding of family violence and ability to identify families in need of family violence services,
  • Have family violence advocates in courts to facilitate immediate introductions from the court to the family violence service providers.
  • Work with the non-abusive parent to improve their ability to parent and attach to their child.
     

Family Violence Prevention and Services Discretionary Grant 2016
ESCYAP Grantee: Futures Without Violence
Project Overview

Futures Without Violence (FUTURES) will build a Promising Futures Capacity Building Center (The Center), to support the network of domestic violence state coalitions and local community-based programs to serve children, youth and abused parents impacted by domestic violence. The Center will create intentional and sustainable care for children and youth that is aligned with the care and services they provide to their parents. FUTURES proposes to support domestic violence programs to build organizational structures and services that prioritize child well-being, opportunities for healing, building resilience, and breaking the intergenerational cycle of violence all within the context of the parent-child relationship.

The Center will be an expansion of FUTURES’ current Clearinghouse of information on the Promising Futures Website. With support and counsel from a National Leadership Committee and through partnership with local Specialized Services for Abused Parents and their Children (SSAPC) sites, FUTURES will facilitate a learning community, broker technical assistance and training, develop new resources and tools for the field, grow the research within evidence-based, trauma-informed, culturally relevant practices for children and youth and their parents in domestic violence programs, and support the sites to evaluate and document lessons learned.