National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence
Thank you to the Steering Committee of the National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence for inviting me here today. We’re pleased to partner in sponsoring this conference.
As many of you know, ACF has responsibilities for a broad array of programs supporting low-income children, families, and communities. Along with our domestic violence work, the list includes Head Start, child care, child welfare, child support, runaway and homeless youth, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, refugee assistance, assistance for unaccompanied children, and others.
Among our activities, we administer the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act which supports more than 1600 domestic violence programs across the country. This network of shelter and supportive services addresses a homeless survivor’s critical need for safe shelter while offering trauma-informed programming.
Last year, we celebrated the 30th anniversary of our work in partnering with communities to address domestic violence through the implementation of the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act.
As one aspect of that work, for Domestic Violence Awareness Month last October, eight ACF offices issued Information Memorandums or guidance describing the importance of addressing domestic violence, and highlighting the role that their programs could play in doing so. And, we followed this up with a letter I sent to every human services commissioner (PDF) in the country providing links to the guidance and discussing the importance of attention to domestic violence across human services programs.
And, as part of Domestic Violence Awareness month, we held an all-staff meeting to bring attention to the work across ACF and to also encourage staff to seek assistance if they or someone they knew was facing a situation of domestic violence.
We thought it was important to take on this effort because in order to help human services programs better appreciate that addressing domestic violence isn’t just about the work of the shelters in their state. It has broad implications for the day to day work of every human services program.
Overall we know that while domestic violence affects every community, people living in poverty experience higher rates of abuse. Women living in disadvantaged neighborhoods are more than twice as likely to be the victims of intimate partner violence as are women in more advantaged neighborhoods.
The National Network to End Domestic Violence estimates that between 22 and 57% of all homeless women report that domestic violence was the immediate cause of their homelessness.
Domestic and sexual violence are often the reason a young person may first runaway or become homeless. Recognizing and understanding the intersection of runaway and homeless youth and intimate partner violence is critical to creating meaningful services and effective intervention and prevention strategies for both homelessness and relationship abuse, and in creating partnerships between the programs working with youth at risk.
Women and children in need of TANF are often struggling with poverty specifically because they have fled domestic violence or experienced unwanted pregnancies because of an abusive partner.
The toll of domestic violence on a child’s wellbeing can be life changing; unfortunately, children who witness domestic violence in their homes often experience other adverse childhood events, increasing the risk of subsequent health and behavioral difficulties. We also know from research that 47% of homeless school-aged children and 29% of homeless children under five have witnessed domestic violence in their families.
And you all know better than most about the long lasting and devastating impact violence can have on one’s physical and mental health.
So, for all these reasons, we welcome the opportunity to highlight the importance of attention to domestic violence across human services programs.
For example, the FVPSA program is partnering with the Office of Head Start to increase domestic violence awareness among Head Start Center staff. Together, they’ve launched a national webinar series regarding the impact of domestic violence on young children, provided domestic violence website and e-blast content for Head Start Centers, and are pilot-testing a domestic violence curriculum with Tribal Head Start personnel in the Eight Northern Pueblo Tribes.
Our research office is working with ACF’s Office of Family Assistance to strengthen approaches to addressing intimate partner violence in marriage and fatherhood programs, and is working with the Family and Youth Services to document how the National Domestic Violence Hotline funded by ACF is linking the public with needed resources.
And we’re working with other Federal partners to address the intersection between health, human trafficking, and other forms of inter-personal violence, including domestic violence.
For example, our Family Violence Prevention and Services Program funded efforts to strengthen culturally-specific training on human trafficking through technical assistance provided through Casa de Esperanza and the Asian and Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Violence. Activities will include a webinar training series on survivor centered trauma-informed trafficking services, grantee listening sessions on improving trafficking services, and sharing promising practices on serving survivors of trafficking within domestic violence programs.
In addition, we co-chair the Interagency Workgroup on Ending Family Homelessness with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. And within that, the Family and Youth Services Bureau co-leads a Domestic Violence Subcommittee.
The Subcommittee is working with partners in ACF, DOJ, and HUD to conduct listening sessions and lift up promising models for addressing the needs of families affected by domestic violence across the continuum of homeless services. The Committee’s work on domestic violence informed housing first strategies and coordinated assessment will inform federal guidance and technical assistance to support domestic violence and homeless services providers at the community level.
Our Family Violence Prevention and Services Program has been working with the Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence at Futures Without Violence to provide tools and raise national awareness about access to health care, the ACA benefits, and overall ACA provisions.
We are also working with Office of Women’s Health (OWH), the Health Resource and Services Administration (HRSA), the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Coordinating Committee for Women’s Health to raise national awareness about the Affordable Care Act and its provisions related to Domestic Violence. We have entered into an Interagency Agreement (2014-2015) with HRSA and OWH and are implementing a pilot project related to the Domestic Violence provisions of ACA in public health clinics.
Finally, we’re very pleased that the President’s Budget proposal for FY 16 proposes to strengthen the nation’s efforts to address domestic violence, proposing an additional $10 million for services to domestic violence victims; $8 million to expand the work of the national domestic violence hotline; and $5 million to provide services to the children of domestic violence victims.
In all of our work, we are proud to partner with you — health care providers and advocates, researchers and government partners.
Thank you for your dedication and commitment and we look forward to our continued joint work.