Family Violence Prevention & Services

The Family Violence Prevention and Services (FVPSA) formula grants to states and territories fund more than 1,600 local public, private, nonprofit and faith-based organizations and programs demonstrating effectiveness in the field of domestic violence services and prevention. These domestic violence programs provide victims of domestic and dating violence and their children with:

• Shelter
• Safety planning
• Crisis counseling
• Information and referral
• Legal advocacy
• Additional support services

See State & Tribal Domestic Violence Services: FVPSA Fact Sheet for more information. For a list of entities that receive FVPSA funding, see the State Administrators list.

The Family Violence Prevention and Services Program is pleased to announce the release of its guide for state and territorial administrators, Navigating the Family Violence Prevention and Services Program.

The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) Grants to Native American Tribes (including Alaska Native Villages) and tribal organizations are formula grants funded through a 10% set aside in the FVPSA appropriation. The purpose of these grants is to assist Tribes in efforts to increase public awareness about, and primary and secondary prevention of, family violence, domestic violence, and dating violence, and to provide immediate shelter and supportive services for victims of family violence, domestic violence, or dating violence, and their dependents.

Funding is available to all Native American Tribes and tribal organizations that meet the definition of “Indian Tribe” or “tribal organization” at 25 U.S.C. 450b and are able to demonstrate their capacity to carry out domestic violence prevention and services programs.

For more information, please see the FVPSA Tribal Domestic Violence Services Fact Sheet.

Each year, FYSB funds a range of discretionary programs coordinated by the Family Violence Prevention and Services Program. These programs aim to:

• Improve the prevention and intervention of domestic violence, dating violence and family violence
• Enhance available support and resources for victims and their children
• Ensure that services are accessible
• Foster practice changes within the domestic violence field
• Support research and data collection on the incidence of domestic violence, dating violence and family violence
• Enhance public awareness of issues related to domestic violence including the life-time health impact, advocacy within culturally specific communities, and the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment
• Enhance services for children exposed to domestic violence
• Expand leadership opportunities in the domestic violence field for people from underrepresented groups

Past initiatives have worked to:

• Improve coordination of services for runaway and homeless youth experiencing dating violence
• Eliminate barriers to service for victims of domestic violence with mental health and trauma issues as well as other specialized needs

For more information, please see the list of current discretionary grant projects.

The Domestic Violence Resource Network (DVRN) is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to inform and strengthen domestic violence intervention and prevention efforts at the individual, community, and societal levels.

The DVRN works collaboratively to promote practices and strategies to improve our nation’s response to domestic violence and make safety and justice not just a priority, but also a reality. DVRN member organizations ensure that victims of domestic violence, advocates, community‐based programs, educators, legal assistance providers, law enforcement and court personnel, health care providers, policy makers, and government leaders at the local, state, tribal and federal levels have access to up‐to-date information on best practices, policies, research and victim resources.

The DVRN includes two national resource centers, four special issue resource centers, three culturally-specific resource centers, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and the National LGBTQ DV Capacity Building Learning Center.  

Member organizations are:

• National Resource Center on Domestic Violence - Harrisburg, PA
• National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center - Lame Deer, MT
• Alaska Native Women's Resource Center - Fairbanks, AK
• Battered Women’s Justice Project & National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women - BWJP: Minneapolis, MN and NCDBW: Philadelphia, PA
• National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence - San Francisco, CA
• National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health - Chicago, IL
• Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence - San Francisco, CA
• National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities - St. Paul, MN
• Ujima, Inc.: The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community - Washington, DC
• Promising Futures Without Violence - Boston, MA
• National Network to End Domestic Violence - Washington, DC
• Safe Housing Partnerships - Harrisburg, PA
• National Domestic Violence Hotline - Austin, TX
• StrongHearts Native Helpline - Eagan, MN

Please read below to learn more about each organization and its work.

National Resource Centers

National Resource Center on Domestic Violence
800-537-2238
www.nrcdv.org and www.vawnet.org

The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) provides a wide range of free, comprehensive and individualized technical assistance, training and resource materials. The scope of NRCDV’s technical assistance is broad and includes domestic violence intervention and prevention, community education and organizing, public policy and systems advocacy, and funding. The NRCDV develops special collections, fact sheets, applied research papers, funding alerts, and training curricula, and supports several special projects designed to explore issues more deeply or develop more comprehensive assistance to a particular constituent group. These special projects include the Domestic Violence Awareness Project, VAWnet – the National Online Resource Center on Violence Against Women (funded by CDC), Building Comprehensive Solutions to Domestic Violence, and the DV Evidence Project and related research initiatives. 

National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center
1-855-NIWRC-99/406-477-3896
www.niwrc.org

The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, Inc. (NIWRC) is a Native nonprofit organization created to serve as the National Indian Resource Center (NIRC) Addressing Domestic Violence and Safety for Indian Women. As the National Indian Resource Center, NIWRC offers interwoven specialized expertise across domestic violence, sexual violence and healthy relationships through various disciplines and culturally specific resources across and for the movement.  NIWRC is a national technical assistance provider to Alaska Village programs and Tribal Coalitions across Indian Country. NIWRC offers free trainings, networking, NIWRC Toolkits, resources and culturally relevant responses to intimate partner and gender violence and promotes the leadership of Indigenous programs serving their communities. With additional circles of the anti-violence movement, NIWRC is dedicated to grassroots and policy advocacy, prevention, education, research activities, program development, raising public awareness, events sharing, offender accountability and traditional interventions of healthy relationships, justice on and off-tribal lands designed by and for Native Women base on their trial beliefs and practices.

State Resource Center to Reduce Tribal Disparities

Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center
907-328-3990
www.aknwrc.org

The Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center (AKNWRC) is dedicated to strengthening local, tribal governments’ responses through community organizing efforts advocating for the safety of women and children in their communities and homes, especially against domestic and sexual abuse and violence. Through the voices, languages, and teachings of tribes, survivors, and advocates, and in partnership with allies and other stakeholders, AKNWRC provides a voice at the local, statewide, national, and international levels for life-saving changes needed in laws, policies, and social norms. AKNWRC envisions Tribal women, communities, and families free from violence, healing the trauma and utilizing the wisdom of our ancestors to create effective community/Tribal responses to domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, trafficking, sexual assault, and related injustices.

Special Issues Resource Centers

Battered Women's Justice Project Criminal and Civil Justice Center
800-903-0111, ext. 1
www.bwjp.org

The Battered Women’s Justice Project (BWJP) promotes change within the civil and criminal justice systems that enhances their effectiveness in providing safety, security and justice for battered women and their families. BWJP provides technical assistance to advocates, civil attorneys, judges and court personnel, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, probation officers, batterers intervention program staff, and policymakers; and to victims of domestic violence and their families and friends.  Through trainings, consultations, and publications, we disseminate up-to-date information on recent research findings and promote the implementation of best practices and policies that emerge from the work of pioneering communities around the country. BWJP also manages the National Center on Protection Orders and Full Faith and Credit, which handles technical assistance on all issues related to the issuance and enforcement of protection orders. To address issues related to the defense of domestic violence victims charged with crimes, BWJP partners with a separate organization, the National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women.

National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women
1-800-903-0111, ext. 3
www.ncdbw.org

The National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women, located in Philadelphia, PA, addresses the unique needs of victims of battering who, as a result of the abuse they have experienced at the hands of their intimate partner, end up charged with a crime.  The National Clearinghouse strives to prevent the revictimization of battered defendants by providing specialized technical assistance, resources, and support to battered women charged with crimes and to members of their defense teams.

National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence
1-888-792-2873
www.futureswithoutviolence.org/health

For almost two decades, the National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence (HRC) has supported health care professionals, domestic violence experts, survivors, and policy makers at all levels as they improve health care’s response to domestic violence. The HRC offers personalized, expert technical assistance, an online toolkit for health care providers and DV advocates to prepare a clinical practice to address domestic and sexual violence, a free E-Bulletin and webinar series. The HRC also holds the biennial National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence—a scientific meeting at which health, medical and domestic violence experts and leaders explore the latest health research and programmatic responses to domestic violence.

National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health
1-312-726-7020, ext. 2011
www.nationalcenterdvtraumamh.org

The mission of the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health is to develop and promote accessible, culturally relevant, and trauma-informed responses to domestic violence and other lifetime trauma so that survivors and their children can access the resources that are essential to their safety, resilience, and well-being. We provide training and support to advocates, mental health and substance providers, legal professionals, policymakers, and government officials as they work to improve the ways that their agencies and systems respond to survivors of domestic and their children. Specially, our work includes (1) raising public awareness about the intersection of domestic violence, trauma, mental health, and substance abuse; (2) providing training and technical assistance to build the capacities of agencies and systems to address the traumatic effects of abuse; (3) developing and promoting policies that improve agency and system responses to domestic violence and other lifetime trauma; and (4) analyzing and promoting research that advances knowledge and builds the evidence base for responding to trauma in the lives of domestic violence survivors and their children.

Culturally Specific Institutes

Asian Pacific Institute on Gender-Based Violence
415-568-3315
www.api-gbv.org

The Asian Islander Institute on Gender-Based Violence is a national resource center on domestic violence, sexual violence, trafficking, and other forms of gender-based violence in Asian and Pacific Islander communities.  It serves a national network of advocates; community-based service programs; national, federal and state organizations; legal, health, and mental health professionals; researchers; policy advocates; and activists from social justice organizations.  It analyzes critical issues; promotes culturally relevant intervention and prevention; provides consultation, technical assistance and training; conducts and disseminates research; and informs public policy.  The API Institute’s vision of gender democracy drives its mission to strengthen advocacy, change systems, and prevent gender violence through movement-building and community transformation.

National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities
1-651-646-5553
www.nationallatinonetwork.org

The National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities, a project of Casa de Esperanza, is the national institute on domestic violence focusing on Latin@ communities. Working both domestically and internationally, we address four primary issues: increasing access to resources for Latin@s experiencing domestic violence; providing training and tools for professionals and community advocates; conducting culturally relevant research; and advocating for public policy based on the lived realities of Latin@s.

Ujima, Inc.: The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community
1-844-77-UJIMA (778-5462)
www.ujimacommunity.org

Ujima is a national resource center that addresses domestic, sexual and community violence. It responds to and develops an active approach to ending violence against women in the Black community. The name Ujima, Inc., was derived from the Kwanzaa Principle of “Ujima,” which means Collective Work and Responsibility. Ujima, Inc. provides education and outreach, training and technical assistance, resource development, research, and public policy efforts. It works to mobilize the black community and its allies to strengthen our families, recognizing that the safety and viability of our families is connected to the health and well-being of our individual neighborhoods and communities at large. Ujima, Inc. defines the black community as the African Diaspora in its broadest sense, e.g., African-Americans (descendants of slaves in the U.S.), African immigrants, Afro-Caribbeans, and Afro-Latinos/as.

Capacity Building Centers

Promising Futures Without Violence
617-294-6526
promising.futureswithoutviolence.org

Promising Futures Capacity Building Center (the Center), a project of Futures Without Violence (FUTURES), provides support on enhancing services for children, youth and their abused parents impacted by domestic violence. The Center provides support 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 is an expansion of FUTURES’ Clearinghouse of information on the Promising Futures Website. The Center supports the Specialized Services for Abused Parents and their Children (SSAPC) grantees as well as the field through facilitating a learning community, offering technical assistance and training, developing new resources and tools, and growing the research within evidence-based, trauma-informed, culturally relevant practices for children, youth and their parents.

National Network to End Domestic Violence
202-543-5566
nnedv.org

The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) Capacity Technical Assistance project provides comprehensive, specialized technical assistance and training to FVPSA formula grantees including state and territory domestic violence coalitions and advocacy organizations, FVPSA state administrators, and tribal programs. In addition, NNEDV has developed resources on building organizational capacity, spanning issues such as best practices, standards, certification, quality assurance, trauma-informed approaches, diversity and inclusion, and role clarity. NNEDV helps build strong organizations by coaching them through leadership transitions, implementation of evidence-based practice models, infrastructure development to effectively manage financial and reporting requirements, and improving the inclusion of historically marginalized communities.

Safe Housing Partnerships
800-537-2238
www.safehousingpartnerships.org

NRCDV also operates the FVPSA-funded national capacity building center on safe and supportive housing for survivors as members of the Domestic Violence Housing Technical Assistance Consortium (DVHTAC). The DVHTAC is a federal technical assistance consortium that leverages federal resources for housing, homelessness, and domestic and sexual violence service providers and advocates. This initiative strives to improve coordination across service systems; integrate trauma-informed assessments for violence into a coordinated response; help continuums of care (CoCs) develop partnerships with victim services providers; and identify policies and practices that promote positive outcomes, resilience, and stability for survivors and their children.

National Hotlines/Helplines

National Domestic Violence Hotline
1-800-799-7233
1-800-787-3224 (TTY)
www.thehotline.org

The National Domestic Violence Hotline is the vital link to safety and support for anyone affected by domestic violence. Highly-trained advocates can provide information, crisis intervention, help develop a safety plan, discuss options, and directly connect callers with sources of help in communities across the U.S. The Hotline is also an excellent resource for concerned friends, family members, co-workers and others seeking information and guidance on how to help someone they know. The Hotline provides support in more than 170 languages and is available 24/7 by calling 1-800-799-7233. Services are also offered via online chat at www.thehotline.org Monday through Friday, 9am-7pm CT.

StrongHearts Native Helpline
1-844-7NATIVE (1-844-762-8483)
www.strongheartshelpline.org 

The StrongHearts Native Helpline is a culturally appropriate, anonymous, confidential service dedicated to serving Native American survivors of domestic violence and dating violence and concerned family members and friends. StrongHearts connects callers at no cost one-on-one with knowledgeable advocates who can provide lifesaving tools and immediate support to enable Native survivors to find safety and live lives free of abuse. StrongHearts is a Native-centered hotline staffed by advocates with a strong understanding of Native cultures, as well as issues of tribal sovereignty and law. StrongHearts is a partnered effort, combining the technology and infrastructure of the National Domestic Violence Hotline with the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center’s expertise and community connections, as well as the trust of Native advocacy groups. 

Download more information on FVPSA-funded national technical assistance and training resource centers and culturally specific institutes. You may also download Domestic Violence Resource Network Organization Descriptions and the Domestic Violence Services Network Infographic.

The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act is the primary federal funding stream for State and Territorial Domestic Violence Coalitions, which coordinate state- and territory-wide improvements within local communities, social service systems, and programming regarding the prevention and intervention of domestic violence.  Every Coalition provides comprehensive training and technical assistance on a multitude of social, legal, and economic issues that affect victims’ safety and well-being.  Coalitions partner with government, private industry, non-profit and faith-based communities, and other stakeholders to effectively coordinate and improve the safety-net of services available to victims and their dependents.  

What is a State Domestic Violence Coalition?

Each State, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa, have a HHS-designated Domestic Violence Coalition.  Each Coalition’s membership includes a majority of the primary-purpose domestic violence service providers in the State or Territory. Click here to find your State or Territorial Coalition. Many Tribes also have coalitions, but they are funded and operated differently.  For more information, please contact the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center.

A primary-purpose domestic violence service provider is one that operates a project of demonstrated effectiveness, carried out by a nonprofit, nongovernmental, private entity or a tribe or tribal organization that has as its project’s primary-purpose the operation of shelters for victims of domestic violence and their dependents; or provides counseling, advocacy, or self-help services to victims of domestic violence.

Ending Domestic Violence Requires Teamwork

• The purpose of a Coalition is to provide education, support, and technical assistance to the primary-purpose domestic violence service providers and providers of direct services in the State in order to establish and maintain shelter and supportive services for victims of domestic violence and their dependents;
• Each Coalition serves as an information clearinghouse, primary point of contact, and resource center on domestic violence for the State and supports the development of policies, protocols, and procedures to enhance domestic violence intervention and prevention in the State.
• Coalitions play an important role in helping programs develop and continue culturally competent practices consistent with FVPSA guidance, including the promotion of trauma-informed services that help facilitate the social and emotional well-being of both victims and their children. 

Coalitions Provide:

• Coordinated and Accessible Services
  • Coordination and collaboration among victim services providers; community-based, culturally specific, and faith-based service providers; housing and homeless services providers, and Federal, State, tribal, and local public officials and agencies is needed to provide more responsive and effective services to victims of family violence, domestic violence, and dating violence, and their dependents.
• Trauma-Informed Programming
  • A trauma-informed approach involves understanding and responding to the symptoms of chronic interpersonal trauma and traumatic stress across the lifespan. Coalitions are uniquely situated to provide support to domestic violence programs in order to ensure that trauma-informed interventions are at the core of working with victims and their children. As Coalitions plan their training and technical assistance priorities, they include responses that help support trauma-informed services among their member programs to promote positive outcomes for all service populations.

Support for State Domestic Violence Coalitions 

10% of the funds appropriated by Congress for FVPSA formula grants are allocated for the Coalitions.  Each Coalition receives an equal share of the funding. Total funding for Coalitions was approximately $13 million in FY’s 2011 and 2012.

See a list of the coalitions. 

The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) provides funding for the on-going operation of a 24-hour, national, toll-free telephone hotline.  The Hotline is an immediate link to lifesaving help for victims.  It provides information and assistance to adult and youth victims of family violence, domestic violence, or dating violence, family and household members, and other persons such as domestic violence advocates, government officials, law enforcement agencies and the general public.

Accessibility

The Hotline can be accessed via the nationwide number 1−800−799−SAFE(7233) or TTY 1−800−787−3224 or (206) 518-9361 (Video Phone Only for Deaf Callers). The Hotline provides service referrals to agencies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.    Persons can also contact the Hotline through an email request from the Hotline website.

Services are provided without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, or disability (including deaf and hard of hearing).  Assistance is available in English and Spanish with access to more than 170 languages through telephonic interpreter services.

Services

The Hotline provides the following services:

• Crisis intervention.
• Domestic violence education.
• Safety planning.
• Directly connecting callers to Service Providers such as local shelters.
• Referrals to agencies that provide legal, economic self-sufficiency, sexual assault, elder abuse, children’s and other related services.

National Domestic Violence Hotline Fact Sheet