Acknowledging the role of faith, spirituality and/or religion is crucial to enhancing cultural responsiveness and understanding the diverse needs of many people. This fact sheet outlines how faith communities can better support criminalized Black women survivors in their own communities and suggests that broader community-based anti-violence efforts should incorporate faith-based organizations into their responses.
Abusive partner intervention programs for people who harm their intimate partners take a variety of forms. These programs may share a set of guiding principles and serve as one piece within a wider coordinated community response to addressing intimate partner violence. In Native American communities, it is important that programs integrate cultural values and norms as a way to meaningfully engage people who have caused harm in a process of change.
Abusive partner intervention programs traditionally work to reduce recidivism and increase accountability. In this podcast, Juan Carlos Areán from our partner Futures Without Violence, speaks with Terri Strodthoff, executive director of the Alma Center, and Steve Halley, director of the Family Peace Initiative, about the growing recognition of the need to address underlying trauma in work with people who cause harm.
To help self-represented victims of domestic violence, many family courts have established court-based programs and partnerships that provide tailored civil legal assistance to victims. This document, based on the experience of more than a dozen representative courts, outlines important principles that have made these programs and partnerships effective.
Over the past 20 years, a growing number of young girls—disproportionately Black girls—have been criminalized and subjected to criminal and juvenile legal involvement. Notably, these girls have often experienced numerous forms of trauma before their involvement in the system, including poverty, racism, sexism, heterocentrism and transphobia, child physical and sexual abuse, sexual assault, dating violence, and exploitation.
In the U.S., six to seven and a half million people are victims of stalking every year. Nearly one in six women and one in 17 men have experienced stalking victimization at some point in their lifetimes. In this episode of In Practice, Rob Wolf discusses stalking in the context of domestic violence and intimate partner violence with national expert Jennifer Landhuis, director of the Stalking Prevention, Awareness, and Resource Center (SPARC).
Domestic violence risk tools are starting to be utilized in jurisdictions across the country, and comprehensive assessment strategies can also ask about past trauma and address these issues in turn. Presenters, Cheryl Davis, formerly of the Colorado Domestic Violence Offender Management Board, and Terri Strodthoff, Executive Director of the Alma Center, will share promising practices related to utilizing comprehensive assessment strategies to inform abusive partner intervention programming. They will also address emerging strategies for comprehensive assessment in light of COVID-19.
Domestic violence survivors often struggle with financial stability and providing for their children following a separation. Economic instability is a driving factor in why many survivors return to abusive relationships. While survivors may be entitled to access child support, it is often a confusing process that can put them at risk for further abuse. This guide outlines how courts can work with child support agencies to provide survivors with the support they need, and to make the process safe and effective for those survivors who choose to pursue it.
For many, courts can be intimidating, confusing, and discouraging. But small changes can go a long way to improving litigants’ experience. This fact sheet explains how satisfaction surveys can help courts identify problems, inefficiencies, and things that visitors to the court might find confusing or unsafe, particularly in cases involving domestic violence.