We help courts and communities respond creatively and effectively to domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence.
Watch our video to learn how courts in Rockford, Ill., respond to domestic violence.
Combining lessons learned at the local level with the latest research, our experts provide community-led, data-driven support to jurisdictions across the country looking to enhance their responses to domestic violence. With support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women, our Gender and Family Justice team provides training and hands-on assistance that rejects any one-size-fits-all frameworks. Our work focuses on victim safety and covers civil and criminal justice system responses to domestic violence from initial needs assessments to implementation, evaluation, and ongoing training.
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DV RISC Clearinghouse
To support a coordinated response to domestic violence homicide prevention and reduction, the Domestic Violence Resource for Increasing Safety and Connection (DV RISC), created with the support of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), is a national resource center featuring a wide variety of resources on risk and lethality assessments, multi-disciplinary community readiness tools, and training and technical assistance for communities working to identify and implement effective strategies.
Judge H. Lee Chitwood and Court Coordinator Jaime Clemmer discuss the innovative strategies they use for domestic violence cases in their rural Virginia county.
Initiatives
Access to Justice in Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Cases
Improving access to the courts for victims of domestic violence and those accused of harm enhances safety and accountability and ensures a more just and effective system.
Abusive Partner Accountability and Engagement
We use research and the experience of practitioners to help communities create new pathways for abusive partners to develop responsibility, healing, and ho
Domestic Violence Court
A pioneer in the creation of specialized domestic violence courts, the Center works to rethink and improve court responses to intimate partner violence.
Domestic Violence Mentor Courts
These specialized courts serve as resources for courts across the country by facilitating peer-to-peer learning and providing examples of effective practices.
Domestic Violence Training for Your Community
We train thousands of professionals each year on improving their approach to domestic violence, sexual abuse, dating violence, and stalking.
Enhancing Family Court Responses to Domestic Violence
We help courts grapple with the issues surrounding child custody and visitation for families experiencing domestic violence.
Judicial Engagement Network
Engaging judges and fostering judicial leadership is key to enhancing system-wide responses to domestic violence and sexual assault.
Justice for Families
The Justice for Families program supports communities that are improving how the justice system approaches families experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence.
These guiding principles were created as part of the Abusive Partner Accountability and Engagement Training and Technical Assistance Project, an initiative funded by the Office on Violence Against Women. They are designed to inform abusive partner intervention programming (APIP), also known as battering intervention, at all stages of intervention—development, implementation, and evaluation. The goal of the principles is to enhance not only programs but also the broader community response to accountability and engagement for people who cause harm through intimate partner violence (IPV).
In this episode, Melanie Thompson is joined by Audrey Morrissey, associate director of My Life, My Choice Boston, to speak on their experiences of transitioning once a case has closed and the potential challenges and feelings that youth may experience. They also discuss resources to help with this transition, strategies for navigating relationships within systems, and the importance of providing youth with consistent and stable relationships.
A companion to the Center for Court Innovation’s podcast episode exploring strategies for abusive partner intervention programs within the LGBTQIA+ community, this document discusses the differences between intimate partner violence in cis-heteronormative and LGBTQIA+ relationships.