The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC) announces the awarding of $4.95 million in federal funding as sub-awards to organizations that support Native Women, Men, children, LGBTQ and child survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault seeking services in tribal lands and communities. The NIWRC provides national leadership in ending gender-based violence in tribal communities by uplifting the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty.
The grant awards are funded by the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services (OFVPS) that administers the Family Violence Prevention Services Act (FVPSA) and the American Rescue Plan (ARP). This funding assists NIWRC in expanding its efforts to provide resources to service providers and other organizations in increasing their program capacity while improving access to services for survivors.
On October 28, 2021, HHS awarded $4.95 million in ARP supplemental funding to support community-based organizations to provide culturally specific activities for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence to address emergent needs resulting from the COVID-19 public health emergency. Following a competitive application process, NIWRC issued awards for Fiscal Year 2023 to the following organizations:
|
Organization |
City, State |
Award Amount |
Website |
|
Women of Nations |
Saint Paul, MN |
$70,000 |
|
|
Waking Women Healing Light |
Gresham, WI |
$141,500 |
|
|
Wac’ang’a Sweetgrass |
Sisseton, SD |
$99,912 |
No website |
|
Nez Perce Tribe Uuyit Kimti (New Beginnings) |
Lapwai, ID |
$75,000 |
|
|
Mother Nation |
Seattle, WA |
$175,000 |
|
|
Strong Hearted Native Women’s Coalition |
Valley Center, CA |
$133,319 |
|
|
Utah Navajo Health Systems/Gentle Iron Hawk Shelter |
Montezuma Creek, UT |
$185,188 |
|
|
Where All Women are Honored |
Porcupine, SD |
$127,330 |
No website |
|
Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition |
Saint Paul, MN |
$28,000 |
Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition (miwsac.org) |
|
Tribal Law and Policy Institute |
Saint Paul, MN |
$28,000 |
|
|
Gray O.A.K. (Ownership, Autonomy, Knowledge) LLC. |
Saco, ME |
$56,000 |
Women of Nations provides culturally specific emergency services and support to Native women, children, two-spirited individuals and their pets who have experienced trauma from domestic violence and sexual assault. Women of Nations empower Native American communities to put an end to all forms of violence through education and prevention.
Waking Women Healing Institute is a survivor led organization that was founded in 2020 to create a place of learning and healing that addresses violence faced by Native survivors of violence. This grant will support services to strengthen their virtual programming in response to domestic violence and sexual assault during COVID-19, including hiring new staff.
Wac’ang’a Sweetgrass is located in South Dakota. This organization offers a 24-hour hotline, emergency shelter, crisis intervention, counseling, referrals, support groups, behavioral health and other supportive services to victims of domestic violence. Funding will support two new advocate positions to address emergent issues resulting from COVID-19.
Nez Perce Tribe’s Program New Beginnings provides intervention, advocacy, accompaniment, support services, and related assistance for intimate partner violence victims and non-offending secondary victims affected by the violence. This program assists to create, maintain and expand sustainable services and activities that are responsive to the needs of victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking within their tribal community.
Mother Nation is a grassroots Native American organization offering culturally informed healing services, advocacy, mentorship and homeless prevention in the State of Washington. Their services are custom designed and provided by Native American Elders who apply culture to clinical practice. This grant will provide response to Sexual Assault in the King County Service Area, offering street outreach, shelter, housing assistance, advocacy, healing circles and beyond.
Strong Hearted Women’s Coalition (SHWC) offers shelter and legal assistance to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. SHWC’s prevention work include a focus on domestic violence, human and sex trafficking, missing and murdered Indigenous women, and sexual assault. SHWC will provide services for domestic violence response for 34 tribal reservations in five Southern California Counties, including provision of emergency supplies, quarantine hotel vouchers, education, outreach, and COVID-19 prevention.
Gentle Ironhawk has provided housing, counseling, behavioral health, referrals, and medical services to victims of domestic and sexual violence since its doors opened in 2019. Grants will be used for response to domestic violence and sexual assault in San Juan County, including advocacy and shelter services for Navajo survivors and victims, their families, and dependents.
Where All Women are Honored, whose primary focus is healing, serves to protect women and children who have been victims of sex trafficking, sexual assault, and domestic violence. They are located in Rapid City, SD. Grants will provide responses to domestic violence and sexual assault to fill gaps in services so that all victims in every part of the commonwealth have timely access to quality, culturally appropriate services, with a focus on COVID-19 emergent issues.
Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition is a statewide tribal sexual assault coalition that provides service and support for survivors of sexual assault and. assists in building culturally appropriate tribal, state, and federal responses to sexual violence and sex trafficking. MIWSAC will provide culturally specific sexual violence and sex trafficking awareness, sexual assault advocacy training, and technical assistance to those organizations receiving subawards from NIWRC under its ARP Support for Survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault from Culturally Specific Populations Grant Program.
Tribal Law and Policy Institute Tribal Law and Policy Institute (TLPI) is a Native American non-profit organization organized to design and deliver education, research, training, and technical assistance programs promoting the enhancement of justice in Indian country and the health, well-being, and culture of Native peoples. TLPI will provide culturally specific training and technical assistance addressing victim safety through policy development to those organizations receiving subawards from NIWRC under its ARP Support for Survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault from Culturally Specific Populations Grant Program.
Gray O.A.K. (Ownership, Autonomy, Knowledge) LLC is a Maine-based research and evaluation company providing technical assistance for tribes and non-profit organizations who support tribes in developing their capacity for data collection and synthesis. Gray OAK helps to build organizational capacity in the design and implementation of internal evaluation processes, data collection, and grant writing and management. Gray OAK will provide evaluative training and technical assistance to those organizations receiving subawards from NIWRC under its APR Support for Survivors of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault from Culturally Specific Populations Grant Program.
Under the ARP DV Survivors Grant, NIWRC staff is committed to providing Technical Assistance for sub-recipients by way of:
-
- Three Peer to Peer Meetings for sub-recipients to discuss challenges, activities, program ideas with opportunity to ask of the Grant Manager and ARP Liaison Coordinator, any questions surrounding programming, funding justification, etc.
- Up to ten (10) training culturally relevant training modules to be uploaded to the NIWRC permanent library in topic areas such as Shelter, policy and procedure development, self-care, avoiding burnout when providing services to relatives, seeking funding, and traditional/cultural means for self-care.
- Site Visits to
- See and experience first-hand the service area each sub recipient serves
- Meet in person with staff providing services, answer questions and provide recommendations for staff members such as trainings.
- Review documents such as Policy and Procedure, Code of Ethics/Conduct, Confidentiality, Intake, Releases, and seeing that they are in place, updated annually and also respects the cultural aspect/grass roots efforts
- Meet with the financial department to review accounting procedures and reports
- About the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center:
The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, Inc. (NIWRC) is a Native-led nonprofit organization dedicated to ending violence against Native women and children. The NIWRC provides national leadership in ending gender-based violence in tribal communities by lifting up the collective voices of grassroots advocates and offering culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty. Our staff and board of directors consist of Native women from throughout the United States with extensive experience and commitment to ending violence against Native women and their children. NIWRC's staff bring decades of expertise in building the grassroots movement to increase tribal responses to domestic violence and increase safety for Native women.
About FVPSA
Since 1984, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) has been an integral part of our nation’s public health response to domestic violence by providing funding, oversight, training, technical assistance, and guidance to emergency shelters, crisis hotlines, prevention programs, specialized resource centers, and a wide-range of federal, state, local and tribal partners across the United States. By addressing domestic violence as a public health epidemic, FVPSA’s reach is broad and changes lives. Each year, FVPSA-funded state and tribal programs serve more than 1.3 million victims and their dependents and respond to 2.7 million crisis calls; with these supplemental funds, FVPSA grant programs will be able to provide critical supports to even more families all across the country.
For more information on the ARP-FVPSA funding visit, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/fysb/policy-guidance/2021-fvpsa-495-million-american-rescue-plan-support-survivors-domestic. More information about the Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services (OFVPS) which administers FVPSA funding can be found at www.acf.hhs.gov/ofvps