Member Organizations of the Domestic Violence Resource Network:
Thank you for your letter outlining ideas for additional steps that the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) should consider in addressing domestic violence and thank you for joining us to engage in conversation on October 16, 2015, about these issues. We appreciated both the letter and the follow up discussion. As noted when we met, we are strongly committed to addressing domestic violence across ACF programs. In this letter, we wanted to follow up on our meeting and provide some additional information as we directly respond to the ideas that you’ve put forward. We’ll welcome your further thoughts and recommendations.
Initially, though, I want to note that we are very encouraged by the increased funding relating to domestic violence that we received from Congress for fiscal year (FY) 16. The FY16 budget included an increase of $15 million for Family Violence Prevention Services/Battered Women’s Shelters, which will allow us to launch the Specialized Services for Abused Parents and Their Children Program ($5 million) and increase grants for local and Tribal domestic violence services and State Domestic Violence Coalitions. In addition, we received a $3.75 million increase for the Domestic Violence Hotline, which will support development of a tribal hotline, additional phone advocates, and improvements to the Love Is Respect website. We encourage your thoughts and guidance as we implement the additional programming we will be able to develop with the new funding.
Looking forward, the President’s budget request for 2017 proposes to build on the funding increases from 2016 with a $4 million increase for the domestic violence hotline to ensure timely response to calls, increase bilingual services, and expand online chatting and text services and with $1 million in funding for the creation of an Alaska Native Tribal Resource Center on Domestic Violence.
Turning to your letter and recommendations:
You asked us to require all ACF departments and offices serving families to set aside a reasonable portion of their available technical assistance and training funds for domestic violence training and technical assistance (TA) for their grantees.
When we met, we spoke both about the importance of ensuring that programs address domestic violence in their technical assistance efforts and ensuring that program approaches are effective. Across ACF, there is strong attention to domestic violence in programs including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), child support, Head Start, trafficking, runaway and homeless youth, and more.
We have initiated an internal process to strengthen our overall approach to technical assistance, including identifying where programs can build from and draw from the work that each other is doing. We think this is important both in domestic violence and other areas of our work. We’d welcome additional comments and observations from members of the Network as to particular areas in which you believe our attention to domestic violence needs to be strengthened or our existing TA is not as effective as it should be.
I don’t think would be advisable for the ACF Assistant Secretary to mandate that individual programs commit a particular portion of their TA funds to domestic violence or any other specific area, no matter how important the topic may be. In our existing structure, each ACF program with technical assistance funds is responsible for making its own decisions about how to best allocate those funds to meet the goals of the underlying programs, and absent extreme circumstances. I wouldn’t want to have organizational leadership overrule those decisions. At the same time, we will continue to emphasize the importance of ensuring that programs address domestic violence in their TA efforts, and again would welcome feedback about particular areas needing attention.
Throughout this letter we will share examples of our current training and TA efforts relating to domestic violence that supplement our dedicated funding for this work under the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act.
You asked that we prioritize the programs in the Office of Family Assistance (OFA), in particular TANF and Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) programs, as well as in the Office of Community Services (OCS), Administration for Native Americans (ANA) and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
Throughout this Administration, ACF’s Office of Family Assistance (OFA) has maintained a strong focus on addressing domestic violence, both in TANF and Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Programs. Most recently, in September 2015, OFA hosted a session at our National Conference for Human Services Commissioners and state TANF administrators on use of federal TANF and maintenance-of-effort funds to assist victims of domestic violence. In each of the last two years, we have sent out relevant domestic violence resources for TANF administrators and other stakeholders through the OFA “Peer Technical Assistance” listserv.
Under OFA’s new HMRF grant awards, the National Resource Center for Healthy Marriage and Families (NRC) has created a Family Violence Prevention Advisory Board to ensure that accurate, relevant, and up-to-date resources are available for staff and participants of Healthy Marriage/Relationship Education programs and other stakeholders. This advisory board will afford NRC access to experience and expertise across a broad spectrum of family violence issues as well as innovative prevention and intervention strategies. The entrance conference for new grantees included two sessions focused on domestic violence, including the session Intimate Partner Violence and HMRF Program, which the program manager of each grantee was required to attend.
The NRC also released a Family Violence Prevention podcast and hosted a webinar entitled, Addressing Domestic Violence: The Role of Fatherhood Programs. Additionally, the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse released a new section in the Responsible Fatherhood Toolkit: Addressing Domestic Violence, to provide resources to support fatherhood programs in addressing domestic violence and related issues.
OFA has also transferred research funds to the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation for the Responding to Intimate Violence in Relationship programs (RIViR) project, which seeks to understand how to best identify and address intimate partner violence (IPV) in the context of healthy relationship programming.
The Office of Community Services currently has a training and technical assistance contract to work with tribes receiving funds through the Community Services Block Grant and plans to raise awareness about domestic violence through webinars or other activities.
After our conversation this October, ANA determined that it should incorporate attention to domestic violence into our annual ACF Native American grantee meeting, which is coming up in June 2016. In preparation for this, ANA will confer with the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center regarding a domestic violence focused workshop for the grantee meeting.
ORR administers two programs that specifically address domestic violence within refugee communities. A number of Division of Refugee Services Ethnic Community Self-Help Program grantees conduct activities within their broader grant programs that address domestic violence and ORR’s Preferred Community Program grantees work with survivors of domestic violence and gender-based violence, focusing on single mothers and women at risk as target groups. ORR’s Division of Refugee Health has engaged in a number of related activities, including: a domestic violence webinar in 2015 for the refugee resettlement network and resources to support Gender-Based Violence as a topic in the upcoming Congolese refugee women’s health video. The Division of Refugee Health additionally provided TA resources for our Survivors of Torture program, including: domestic violence in a Refugee Context information guide for the National Partnership for Community Training, domestic violence webinar for torture survivors and their families, and other online resources for the National Capacity Building Project. Additionally, our Survivors of Torture grantee, Tahirih Justice Center, has historically centered its work on domestic violence and women’s rights. Finally, the program supported training and technical assistance for refugee health providers and has focused on domestic violence awareness and prevention.
You urged us to support training on dating violence and related trafficking issues to grantees under the Runaway and Homeless Youth Program and participants in initiatives in the Office on Trafficking in Persons.
ACF’s Family Violence Prevention and Services Program (FVPSA) have offered trainings on dating violence support strategies for the Office of Minority Health peer educators and we expect to do more. ACF’s Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) recently put out a toolkit developed by and for advocates in the runaway and homeless youth (RHY) and domestic and sexual assault (DV/SA) fields to help programs better address relationship violence with runaway and homeless youth.
Many programs in ACF’s Office of Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) include domestic violence referral mechanisms and protocols. For example, the National Human Trafficking Resource Center makes referrals to domestic violence providers and connects with domestic violence hotlines; the Rescue and Restore Regional grantees connect with domestic violence providers in their community capacity-building work; and the Trafficking Victim Assistance Program grantees may sub-award time-limited per-capita funding to serve foreign victims of human trafficking including those served by domestic violence organizations. FYSB is working to integrate domestic violence awareness and response into services and training and technical assistance offered under the Domestic Victims of Human Trafficking Demonstration Grants and the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) offers multiple resources addressing the intersection between human trafficking and domestic violence, including links to a five-part webinar series.
ACF works with other Health and Human Services (HHS) partners, including the Office on Women’s Health and the Office of Adolescent Health, to address the intersection of human trafficking, dating violence, and other forms of interpersonal violence. In 2014, FYSB’s Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program released a tip sheet (PDF) on the implications of human trafficking for adolescent health outcomes.
We are also building our trafficking work in runaway and homeless youth programs. In FY13, FYSB funded a three-year cooperative agreement to address the needs of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) youth experiencing homelessness, including risk of sexual exploitation. FYSB funds the Runaway and Homeless Youth Training and Technical Assistance Center (RHYTTAC) to strengthen technical assistance to RHY organizations to enhance services to RHY that may be survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. In FY15, RHYTTAC convened a two-day Street Outreach Program (SOP) meeting in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Polaris Project to increase SOP grantees’ knowledge on risks associated with social media and web communities. FYSB continues to partner with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Innocence Lost Task Forces to integrate trafficking into RHY programs, and in 2015, the National Runaway Switchboard conducted a review of the Runaway Prevention Curriculum to include a module to address child sexual exploitation and human trafficking prevention.
And finally, ACF is engaged in demonstration projects that aim to improve services for victims of human trafficking and build and sustain coordinated services in partnership with allied professionals in community-based organizations such as runaway and homeless youth, domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking victim services programs.
You urged us to continue to lead strategic planning efforts to address domestic violence as a serious public health issue requiring a sustained commitment to research, services, training, and technical assistance with examples including the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV).
All MIECHV grantees are currently required to screen participants for intimate partner violence and domestic violence. For anyone screening positive, they are also currently required to refer participants to services and ensure completion of a safety plan. Working with our grantee Futures Without Violence (FWV), FYSB has offered a two-part webinar series and in-person training on FWV Train the Trainers curriculum: Healthy Moms Happy Babies at national home visitation conferences. FWV has provided web based training for 41 states, in-depth TA with numerous programs, and sent out over 1,000 copies of the curriculum to over 42 states. We agree concerning the importance of working with the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau and will continue to do so.
In addition, ACF’s Office of Head Start (OHS), Office of Child Care (OCC), and FYSB released joint guidance on the importance of partnering to address the needs of families with young children who are experiencing domestic violence.
From March - May 2015, we hosted a four-part webinar series on the identification, dynamics, and best practices for the caregiving and teaching of very young children exposed to domestic violence. On December 4, 2015, FYSB and OHS partnered with FWV to hold listening sessions as an opportunity to determine Head Start /Early Head Start program training and technical needs at the National Head Start Association Parent Conference on Enhancing Head Start Programs. We agree that there needs to be a sustained commitment and as result, throughout 2016, we will continue gathering needs assessment data for our Head Start and Early Childhood Education programs, and are committed to establishing Training and Technical Assistance organizational partnerships among the National Center on Parent, Family and Community Engagement, National Center on Health and Wellness, and FWV.
You asked us to strengthen responses to domestic violence within housing and homelessness programs.
In the last two years, we believe there has been significant progress in strengthening federal interagency attention to domestic violence in addressing family homelessness. ACF is partnering with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to improve access and services for victims of domestic violence, including establishing an Ending Family Homelessness Domestic Violence Subcommittee that is co-chaired by the FVPSA program and DOJ’s Office on Violence Against Women. In collaboration with the Subcommittee, the FVPSA program is developing a concept paper on the effective components of Rapid Rehousing/Housing First Programs for victims of domestic violence, and case studies on coordinated entry system protocols for addressing domestic violence. One of our largest inter-agency accomplishments has been the creation of a Domestic Violence and Housing Technical Assistance Consortium, a 3-year interagency agreement to coordinate national training and technical assistance for homeless service providers, Continuums of Care, housing service providers, and domestic violence programs. To support the Consortium, DOJ, HUD, and HHS have awarded four technical assistance grants to build the capacity of homeless services, Continuums of Care, and domestic violence programs. In order to continue to strengthen responses, as you suggested, our collective work this first year will include: the development of a national needs assessment; policy and resource mapping; discussions regarding confidentiality, safety, and Homeless Management Information System comparable databases; launching an online resource center; and developing a conceptual framework.
You asked that through policy directives, we target greater attention to economic security for domestic violence survivors and in particular by building the capacity of the Assets for Independence (AFI) program and the Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS) within the ANA to offer TA to its grantees administering Individual Development Accounts (IDAs).
Recognizing that economic security is critical to the safety of domestic violence survivors, ACF issued guidance across ACF programs in October 2014, to emphasize the impact of domestic violence on all of the families served by ACF programs, to promote targeted economic support initiatives, and to build the capacity of TANF, Head Start, Child Care and other programs to respond to victims of domestic violence. At the same time, we sent a letter to every state highlighting these efforts and urging greater attention to domestic violence in human services programs.
In the area of child support, our Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) has hired staff with domestic violence expertise to provide technical assistance and develop training resources for state and tribal child support programs and state and local domestic violence programs. OCSE has also incorporated rigorous domestic violence protocol, screening, and training requirements into discretionary demonstration grants and Federal Access and Visitation formula grants. OCSE, in collaboration with the FVPSA program, established a Domestic Violence and Child Support Liaisons Network to support IV-D and DV Coalition state-level collaborations, peer learning, and problem-solving across state and jurisdictional lines. In 2012, OCSE partnered with FVPSA to develop a domestic violence resource portal for Office of Child Support Enforcement workers. In October 2015, OCSE disseminated new domestic violence policy guidance to state and tribal child support programs (IM 15-02) and a new child support program inventory and planning resources (Enhancing Safe Access to Child Support (PDF)) to provide a roadmap for actions child support and domestic violence programs can take together. OCSE and FVPSA then hosted webinars, one for state and local child support and domestic violence professionals and one for tribal child support and domestic violence professionals to introduce the new resources, highlight ongoing technical assistance available to promote safe access to child support, and announce the launch of a new Domestic Violence and Child Support Liaisons Network.
The Assets for Independence program (AFI) is encouraging applicants to form collaborations to serve survivors of domestic violence (and other vulnerable populations) through bonus points in the current funding opportunity announcement(FOA) and the AFI Resource Center website currently has technical assistance materials to help AFI grantees better serve survivors of domestic violence.
Each year, ANA provides training to potential applicants in the form of Project Planning and Development workshops and Pre-Application workshops. While we don’t directly provide technical assistance, our contractors do provide administrative, programmatic, and financial expertise to our grantees about particular subjects, including domestic violence. Communities can propose to do projects that will address domestic violence as a program area eligible for funding under Social and Economic Development Strategies program.
In regard to the review, update, and reissuing of directives regarding access to HHS-funded services for immigrant, refugee, and asylee survivors, as well as language access requirements.
ACF is hopeful that we will be reissuing joint guidance this year confirming that immigrant survivors are eligible for life-saving services, including domestic violence shelter and supportive services, regardless of immigration status. We remain committed to services for immigrant, refugee, and asylee survivors and will continue to work on this with DOJ and HUD and the Office of the Vice President’s Advisor on Violence Against Women.
With respect to language access, we added civil rights compliance language to ACF FOAs that serves to notify applicants for ACF funding of their obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and implementing regulation (Title VI) to take reasonable steps to ensure meaningful access to their programs by persons with limited English proficiency. ACF’s FOAs also provide links to civil rights compliance resources to ensure applicants and successful grantees can provide language access services consistent with Title VI.
FYSB is also focusing on improving language access planning in domestic violence programs by supporting a 23-state training and TA initiative. This initiative will include the development of organizational language access plans; strengthening partnerships with culturally specific community based organizations, and statewide Title VI compliance training. In May 2015, the FVPSA program held a language access planning training of trainers for state domestic violence coalitions and a training session for FVPSA state administrators to debut a language access planning toolkit developed by Casa de Esperanza with FVPSA funding. In 2014 and 2015, we continued to prioritize the linguistic accessibility of domestic violence programs by awarding supplemental grants to the Asian Pacific Institute on Domestic Violence and Casa de Esperanza. Additionally, we are committed to leveraging the resources and expertise from across the federal government to increase the capacity of grantees and employees who may come into contact with an immigrant or refugee family impacted by domestic violence. In 2013, the FVPSA Program held a federal meeting entitled Building Pathways to Services for Immigrant Survivors. This meeting brought together 45 representatives from federal agencies to discuss tools, strategies, and promising models for addressing the language needs of domestic violence survivors who have limited English proficiency.
You asked us to allocate resources, including for technical assistance, to develop comprehensive Tribal-specific responses to trauma and the continued trafficking of American Indian and Alaska Native women and children.
We share your concern about prioritizing the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native victims of domestic violence and trafficking and so please know that as a result we are now reviewing the allocation of FVPSA funding for Tribal Formula grants and training and technical assistance. In addition, the President’s budget request for 2017 includes support for an Alaska Native Tribal Resource Center on Domestic Violence to support services and build capacity to address the challenges that Native Villages face when responding to domestic violence. At the same time, across ACF through ANA and the Office of Trafficking in Persons, we are examining how we can expand support the efforts to address trauma, including historical trauma, and to promote economic vitality for American Indian and Alaska Native communities. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center published a webinar on Trauma-Informed Human Trafficking Screenings in 2015 and ANA included a program area of interest to fund victims of human trafficking in their annual Social and Economic Development Strategies (SEDS) funding opportunity announcement. One of the current SEDS grantees is the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center which provides American Indian women aged 16-21 with opportunities to gain skills in college and work preparedness and to provide a culturally grounded support group for young American Indian men aged 16-21 who are at high risk for involvement in commercial sexual exploitation. In 2014, ANA also issued an Information Memorandum, “Recognizing and Responding to Human Trafficking among American Indian, Alaska Native, and Pacific Islander Communities,” to 183 of their grantees. In 2015, ACF participated in several listening sessions on human trafficking hosted by HHS and other federal partners to learn about human trafficking taking place in both urban areas and in reservations and native communities. Human trafficking was on the agenda during the 2015 Tribal Consultation with tribal leaders. In 2015, FYSB Demonstration Grants for Domestic Victims of Severe Forms of Human Trafficking included Mountain grant projects in North Dakota and Montana providing comprehensive services to victims of human trafficking, including Native American victims.
Finally, FVSPA funds the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, which provided a webinar series on sex trafficking of Native Women and training on responding to human trafficking in Native American communities.
In regard to integrating violence and trauma assessment and intervention into health, mental health, and substance abuse treatment programs, we continue to work on best practice models for intimate partner violence screening and counseling in health care settings with the support of FVPSA’s Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence and FVPSA’s National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health, but recognize there is additional work to be done.
In 2014, FYSB’s FVPSA Program entered into an inter-agency agreement with Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Office on Women’s Health and the Bureau of Primary Health Care to fund an intimate violence (IPV) screening and counseling pilot project - Phase I - in three, geographically diverse HRSA supported health centers.
In 2015, FYSB’s FVPSA program continued their partnership with HRSA’s Office on Women’s Health and the Bureau of Primary Health Care to fund the second phase of the intimate violence (IPV) screening and counseling pilot project, which provided resources to support six additional health centers in partnering with domestic violence programs to increase their capacity to assess and respond to domestic violence with trauma-informed approaches.
Finally, in 2016, OTIP will be expanding the Stop, Observe, Ask, and Respond (SOAR) to health and wellness training on human trafficking to include Adaptation Guide content for social work, public health, and mental health/substance abuse professionals.
You urged us to provide training on and support for children and young people impacted by domestic and sexual violence.
Please know that per your letter and our meeting, we plan to explore further the child welfare response to domestic violence and make discretionary resources available to increase the collaboration between child welfare agencies and domestic violence programs.
In April 2014, the Children’s Bureau partnered with the FVPSA Program and FVPSA’s Resource Center on Child Protection, Custody, and Domestic Violence to coordinate a Domestic Violence Institute at the National Child Abuse and Neglect Conference. The Institute focused on challenges and opportunities presented by the domestic violence provisions in CAPTA, specialized positions, and national efforts to respond to the co-occurrence, the engagement of men of color in the child welfare system, the economic needs of both battered women and low-income men, and trauma-informed care.
In October 2014, the FVPSA Program worked with the Children’s Bureau to issue an information memorandum to commemorate Domestic Violence Awareness Month and encouraged grantees to participate in activities, reach out to domestic violence coalitions and programs, and utilize the National Domestic Violence Hotline and resource/technical assistance centers. This guidance helped to set an expectation of child welfare agencies to engage with domestic violence programs to address the co-occurrence of domestic violence and child maltreatment.
Additionally, the Children’s Bureau and the FVPSA Program have recently collaborated to create, for the first time, a Parenting After Domestic Violence Tip Sheet in the 2016 Children’s Bureau Prevention Resource Guide for release later this year as well as a What is Child Welfare guide for domestic violence advocates .
Conclusion
Again, we thank you again for providing us with recommendations on how we can improve services and programming for survivors of domestic violence. We are committed to continuing and strengthening our priority in efforts to address domestic violence across ACF programs. We hope the information in this letter is helpful, and please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with recommendations for us. Thank you again for the work that you and your colleagues are doing.
Sincerely,
Mark H. Greenberg
Acting Assistant Secretary
for Children and Families