Resource Library

Coordinated community responses (CCRs) to domestic violence have been successful over the past forty years in leveraging the criminal legal system to hold abusers accountable and send messages of help to survivors. Although some survivors have found safety, many others have, in fact, been negatively impacted by systemic intervention. In rural communities, such inequities can result when law enforcement is ill-equipped to meet the communication needs of Deaf survivors or when shelters are unprepared to meet the needs of survivors with mental illnesses. Rural CCRs need practical, concrete tools and strategies to identify and reduce systemic inequities so that ALL survivors in their communities experience increased safety, help, and support.

Understanding how to support survivor's privacy, privilege, and confidentiality rights is critical to support safety and choice. This webinar, presented by the Texas Council on Family Violence and the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, will provide an overview of both federal confidentiality laws and state statutes that offer protections to survivors, including the new privilege statute just passed for survivors of sexual assault. The presenters will also discuss exceptions to the law, and the important pieces of a properly executed a release of information to ensure survivors are informed and their privilege is protected.

This webinar will explain Project ReVEAL: Recording victim video statements as evidence to advance legal outcomes in family violence cases.

This webinar does a deep dive into what trauma is and how it impacts the brain via behaviors, memories, etc.

This webinar discusses why trauma affects victims in ways that might alter how she receives services and what you can do about it as a service provider.

This CCAW workshop, presented by Fred Fletcher and Caroline Huffaker, discusses available resources and strategies for improving law enforcement’s knowledge and understanding of crime victim compensation as well as real-world examples of how the program works (2019).

This survey explores the statistics and demographics behind recent sexual assault cases. The data helps professionals and bystanders understand who these victims are and how they respond to being attacked (2018).

This document highlights programs with victim contact processes, addresses safety challenges. inherent in this work, and offers considerations and best practices for safe and effective implementation (2020).

This review focuses on the effectiveness of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to reduce PTSD symptoms in children. The study describes the limitations and recommendations for future research on these methods (2016).

The Safe Shelter Collaborative allows advocates to communicate with each other to determine where there are available beds. If no space is available, a request for funding for a night at a hotel can be sent out through the associated app, SafeNight (2019).

This article discusses the overlap between domestic violence and human trafficking (2017).

This research provides statistics on the prevalence of domestic abuse in military families. Data includes PTSD rates, monthly compensation, and active-duty abuse experiences (2016).

This document provides recommendations for suicide prevention hotlines on how to prepare their organizations to respond to IPV, and practical suggestions and tools for crisis line staff on screening, risk assessment, safety planning, and referral for callers who are experiencing IPV (2018).

This research study focuses on a treatment program that may be useful for victims of IPV that have already left the dangerous environment (2012).

This study details the increased risk of mental health problems among female victims of domestic violence. The paper focuses primarily on depression and psychotic symptoms among DV victims (2015).

Amy Jones is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor and the CEO of the Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center- an organization that provides counseling, crisis intervention and advocacy for those whose lives have been affected by sexual violence. Our conversation today focuses on Rape Culture, a concept that first surfaced in the 1970s, notably in the publication of the work “Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women,” put forth by the New York Radical Feminists Collective in 1974, and then further explored in depth in the 1975 documentary Rape Culture. The term Rape Culture remains popular still, and recent films like Duma (doo-muh) have explored the impact of rape culture around the world. Today, Rape Culture is broadly defined as sexual violence being treated as the norm, wherein victims are blamed for their own sexual assaults. Over the past several decades the discussion of rape culture has endured and become more organized and may have finally found a collective, universal voice within the #MeToo movement which is becoming an effective catalyst for changing how we as a society think about rape and women’s rights (2020).

Gretta Gordy Gardner is the Deputy Director for Ujima., Inc.: a project of the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence at The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community. An attorney, Ms. Gardner’s career as a legal advisor for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking was inspired by her early work as a prosecutor in the Domestic Violence Unit of the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office. She has worked for over two decades to help shape guidelines, policies, and procedures that jurisdictions can use to end intimate partner violence and develop best practices for prevention and intervention in legal systems and community-based programs, which includes training and education on implicit bias. Today’s episode explores intersectionality, a concept introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw, that provides a theoretical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities (e.g., gender, race, class, sexuality, ability etc.) might combine to create unique modes of discrimination. Content warnings for this episode include: physical and sexual violence (2020).

Kelsey McKay is a nationally recognized expert on strangulation who developed a critical protocol for strangulation and domestic violence response and treatment. A former prosecutor from Travis County Texas, McKay founded McKay Training & Consulting to collaborate with leaders in fields of law enforcement in order to strengthen how communities collaborate, investigate, treat and prosecute strangulation and intimate partner cases. Her protocol - The Asphyxiation Assessment - is transforming the role of first responders in cases of crimes against women. This episode tackles the subject of strangulation – what it is, what it is not, and best practices in the fields of response, investigation, and prosecution. Content warnings for this episode include: abuse, physical and sexual violence (2020).

Award-winning journalist Rachel Louise Snyder examines the impact of her research in No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us a year post publishing. An outspoken journalist on issues of domestic violence, Ms. Snyder’s work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times magazine, Slate, Salon, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the New Republic, and others. No Visible Bruises was awarded the prestigious 2018 Lukas Work-in-Progress Award from the Columbia School of Journalism and Harvard's Nieman Foundation. Content warnings for this episode include: abuse, suicide/self-harm, and violence (2020).

Our guest today is Mark Wynn, 21-year member of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department who served as Lieutenant to the Domestic Violence Division and as a member of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Team for fifteen years. A trainer, advocate and specialist in the field of domestic violence for law enforcement, Mark Wynn is the recipient of no less that 121 commendations and 51 awards for his work, including the 1995 National Improvement of Justice Award and the 1998 Nashvillian of the Year Award. Content warnings for this episode include: physical violence and abuse (2020).

This advocacy-focused webinar, hosted by ASISTA, seeks to identify special immigration remedies for victims, including special VAWA provisions around confidentiality; and how to prepare enhanced safety plans for immigrant survivors  (2017).

This webinar, presented by the National Indigenous Elder Justice Initiative, explores elder abuse in Indian Country, as well as best practices to detect and investigate it (2017).

This fact sheet details the red flags that indicate if abuse is occurring towards a disabled individual. The Americans with Disabilities Act is also reviewed, and provides suggestions for action and prevention (Uploaded 2018).

This research summary examines domestic violence program effectiveness across the country, and provides the opportunity for other DV programs to secure continued support for proven programs and practices (2013).

This toolkit provides trauma-informed guidance on integrating questions about mental health and substance use coercion into routine mental health and substance use histories and into in-depth IPV assessments in primary care and behavioral health settings (2018).

This resource provides several videos of Catholic homilies, as well as survivor stories, geared towards spreading awareness about domestic violence (2019).

This article examines the role of APS workers in rural America, the extensive problem of elder abuse and neglect, and the difficulty of investigating these crimes in rural areas (2017).

The authors seek to provide a review of literature to disentangle what is known about bi-directional IPV patterns in military and veteran populations (2017).

This article focuses on Hispanic and Latino immigrant populations, and the barriers they face in domestic violence disputes, including language differences, financial dependence, and social isolation (2018).

This research brief examines peers and the extent to which they can contribute to their risk for and protection against dating violence (2014).

This paper investigates stalking experiences of health care professionals who were also victims of domestic violence (2018).

This paper examines whether participants' attributions of blame and responsibility toward a DV victim were influenced by whether or not she left the abuser (2014).

This study focuses solely on physical IPV by males, and addresses the mental health consequences faced by victims (2016).

This paper studies the problem of marital rape in a variety of countries, and examines how legal systems and political actors contribute to shaming and stigmatization in cases of rape (2016).

This article outlines a systems approach to the implementation of IPV screening and counseling, with a focus on integrated health and advocacy service delivery to support identification and interventions (2015).

This paper examines the impact of CCRs on women's exposure to IPV and contact with IPV services (2008).

This study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of CCRs, and suggest areas for enhancement in order to reduce DV recidivism (2002).

This survey was designed to determine what causes victims to recant in non-fatal domestic assault by strangulation cases, and how criminal conviction can be secured in the context of strangulation without pressuring the victim to testify (2016).

This data examines the prevalence and correlates of nonfatal strangulation among female survivors of IPV (2018).

This information sheet presents current evidence on the physical and mental consequences of IPV (2014).

This paper focuses on help-seeking barriers and factors impacting decisions to leave an abusive relationship among 15 immigrant African women. Barriers found in this study include a culture of gender inequality, acceptance of gender violence, concern for children, and self-blame (2009).

This article details the threats and barriers faced by battered immigrant women who are married to both U.S. citizens and immigrants. One of the most significant barriers discussed is the threat of deportation by the abuser (2000).

This paper raises the question of how to hold perpetrators accountable. Often times, the perception exists that victim reluctance is the problem in DV case outcomes. However, the authors seek to uncover who is in the best position to hold these batterers accountable (2005).

The authors uncover the literature on the epidemiology of nonfatal strangulation by an intimate partner (2014).

This paper analyzes the use of acute care services for sexual assault victims, as well as survivor and assault characteristics (2017).