In addition to your state, Tribal, and territory coalitions, Rural communities have access to free or low-cost training and support through Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) technical assistance providers.
Table of Contents
All OVW TA Providers & Training Events
State, Tribal, and/or Territory Coalitions
OVW Tribal TA Providers
Rural-Specific OVW TA Providers
Rural Relevant OVW TA Providers
All OVW TA Providers & Training Events
Explore a directory of all OVW-sponsored TA providers and upcoming OVW-sponsored training events here:
OVW TA Provider On-line Directory
OVW TA Provider Directory PDF
OVW Calendar of Upcoming Training Events
State, Tribal, and/or Territory Coalitions
Connect regularly with your local State, Tribal, and/or Territory Coalitions:
Sexual Assault State & Territory Coalitions
Domestic Violence State & Territory Coalitions
Tribal Coalitions
OVW Tribal TA Providers
Working on or near Tribal lands? See this directory of OVW-sponsored Tribal TA Providers and Tribal Coalition Services
Rural-Specific OVW TA Providers
The following OVW TA providers bring rural-specific experience and expertise to Rural Program Grantees:
Enhancing Sexual Assault Services in Rural Dual/Multi-Service Agencies
Rural Training and Technical Assistance Project a program of the Resource Sharing Project, is available to Rural Grantees that are dual/multi-service advocacy agencies or sexual assault coalitions. The rural team provides webinars, publications, tools, national conferences, training and technical assistance for dual and multi-service agencies seeking to enhance services to all sexual violence survivors. The Rural TA Project can assist on a range of issues related to sexual violence services, such as: Developing an outreach plan for sexual assault survivors in your community; Performing a sexual assault needs assessment; Providing culturally and linguistically specific/accessible services to sexual assault survivors; and Advocacy for the unique needs of sexual violence survivors.
resourcesharingproject.org/rural-training-and-technicalassistance
Online Sexual Assault Training for Rural Law Enforcement Personnel
The Criminal Justice Institute’s National Center for Rural Law Enforcement offers two online courses of sexual assault training for rural law enforcement. Introduction to Sexual Assault for the Rural Executive Online provides rural law enforcement managers with the knowledge, skills, and resources for establishing a victim-centered response from their agency personnel. Introduction to Sexual Assault for the Rural Investigator Online is designed to enable rural officers to better understand the impact of sexual assault upon victims as well as ensure that each step in the investigation process is thoroughly conducted to apprehend the offender. The courses are available at the links below:
cji.edu/programs/sexual-assault-training-for-rural-law-enforcement-personnel/
Outreach to and Partnerships with Faith-Based Organizations
Safe Havens Interfaith Partnership Against Domestic Violence is a religiously diverse, faith-based nonprofit that provides training and technical assistance on how to build partnerships with rural faith leaders. Faith is a fundamental pillar of identity and community for many rural Americans. When faced with sexual or domestic violence, rural survivors often understand these traumas through their faith and seek help from people they trust in their faith communities. Safe Haven’s resources can help rural advocates reach out to faith leaders and faith communities, help faith leaders support victims in their congregations, and help advocates and faith leaders build partnerships to support victims together.
Prevention of Adolescent Relationship Abuse
The Center for Healthy Teen Relationships, an initiative of the Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence, provides technical assistance for Rural grantees on the prevention of adolescent relationship abuse, stalking, and sexual assault. The Center for Healthy Teen Relationships offers on-site training and capacity building, web-based trainings called TeenThreads on topics that build capacity of Rural programs to create catalytic collaborations to engage and educate youth, engage and educate parents and caregivers, educators, and other important youth-influencers, develop model policy, and create youth-led communications and positive social norms marketing. Check out the 2016 Our Gender Revolution campaign materials for your community or school.
idvsa.org/initiatives/ovw-rural-ta/
Rural Advocacy and Interagency Responses to Violence Against Women
Since 1998, Praxis has been working with rural advocates and practitioners to support their goals of enhancing safety of rural survivors and addressing crimes of violence against women. Praxis organized the Rural Technical Assistance Project to help reduce the sense of isolation by providing peer-to-peer discussion, training and resources that focus on successful rural strategies. Praxis supports rural advocacy programs to orient their work and develop skills to organize an end to violence against women in rural communities: Build capacity and leadership to engage in system reform efforts, enhance skills in addressing complex issues facing rural survivors, and establish core advocacy models to engage in long term, social change-oriented advocacy. Praxis also supports rural communities in advancing criminal legal system responses to battering that enhance safety for victims and accountability for offenders: Adapting and replicating models without having to re-create the wheel, implementing model policies and practices, and establish interagency protocols and working agreements.
For more information:
info@praxisinternational.org,
651-699-8000, x 2500
Rural Sexual Assault Response Teams/Coordinated Community Responses
The Sexual Violence Justice Institute at Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault promotes justice for victims of sexual violence through collaboration, leadership, training and technical assistance as a national resource for expertise in the criminal justice response to sexual violence. We equip Sexual Assault Response Teams (SARTs) across the country with skills, tools and knowledge essential for a coordinated, compassionate response to sexual assault. SVJI @ MNCASA provides customized and specialized assistance to help rural SARTs/CCRs to improve their response to victims of sexual violence.
http://www.mncasa.org/sexual-violence-justice-institute/rural-grantees/
Enhancing Your Court Response to Domestic Violence
The Center for Court Innovation seeks to help create a more effective and humane justice system by designing and implementing operating programs, performing original research, and providing reformers around the world with the expert assistance needed to launch new strategies.
The Center for Court Innovation collaborates with OVW and other OVW-designated TA Providers to provide a wide range of technical assistance services to OVW grantees seeking to develop or enhance their court, civil legal service, and supervised visitation programs to improve the handling of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking matters. Assistance available to Rural Grantees includes:
• On-site trainings to selected OVW Rural program grantee sites.
• Web-based trainings for OVW Rural Grantees.
courtinnovation.org/areas-of-focus
Children’s Advocacy Centers
National Children’s Alliance (NCA) is the national association and accrediting body for a network of more than 850 Children’s Advocacy Centers—CACs. We provide support, advocacy, quality assurance, and national leadership for CACs, all to help support the important work that CACs do in communities across the country. CACs provide a coordinated, evidence-based response to children who have been abused in all 50 states. NCA offers support and guidance to rural communities to implement best practices and core competencies within the multi-disciplinary team/CAC model.
nationalchildrensalliance.org/national-initiatives
Coordinated Community Response
Research and practice confirm that the engagement of multiple entities are required to make the changes needed to effectively respond and prevent sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, stalking and sex trafficking. The University of Colorado Denver Center on Domestic Violence offers Rural grantees a variety of supports to develop and expand their collaborative Coordinated Community Response efforts:
- An online, confidential Assessment Survey
- Access to an online Peer Learning Hub
- An annual series of 4 webinars
- A Rural Communities-Collaborative Responses conference in 2019
- Individual coaching and technical assistance
Rural-Relevant OVW TA Providers
The following OVW TA providers bring experience and expertise on issues relevant to Rural Program Grantees:
Abuse in Later Life
Through advocacy and education, the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life (NCALL) works every day to improve victim safety, increase abuser accountability, expand coordinated community response, and ultimately, put an end to abuse in later life.
Advocacy Learning Center
The Advocacy Learning Center, offered by Praxis International in partnership with the Office on Violence Against Women, is an 18-month experiential course created to examine the vision, identify the principles and knowledge, and practice the skills and qualities that make advocacy a powerful force in the movement to end violence against women. Working with other advocates, you will develop new ways to define and structure advocacy, from engaging and working with survivors to strategizing and acting to change systems and community responses. The Advocacy Learning Center curriculum presents conceptual frameworks and theoretical foundations that can strengthen the application of advocacy in any setting.
Contact:
info@praxisinternational.org
(651) 699-8000
praxisinternational.org/advocacy-learning-center
Analyzing Institutional Responses to Violence Against Women
Since 2003, Praxis has been providing support to communities to analyze institutional responses to violence against women through the use of Institutional Analysis, community assessment, best practice assessment, and Safety and Accountability Audits. Praxis’ Institutional Analysis methods help communities to engage in system reform on behalf of survivors of violence against women. By focusing on how workers are organized to act on cases, the process uncovers how complex institutions and systems either meet the needs of or produce negative outcomes in the lives of real, everyday people. Teams of advocates, community members, and agency representatives talk with survivors about their experiences with a system, talk with and observe people at work, map out the steps involved in processing cases, and review policies, forms, and case records. The process produces a road map for institutional changes that will enhance safety and well-being for survivors and accountability of offenders.
Contact:
info@praxisinternational.org,
651-699-8000 x2500
praxisinternational.org/institutional-analysiscommunity-assessment-2
Training and TA for Attorneys
The American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence provides expert training and technical assistance to OVW grantee attorneys on critical legal issues raised when representing victims of domestic and sexual violence, including custody litigation, effective use of interpreters, legal needs of clients with disabilities, “DV 101” for lawyers, pro se assistance, implementations of the Standards of Practice in Civil Protection Order Cases, etc.
americanbar.org/groups/domestic_violence
Blueprint for Safety
The Blueprint for Safety, originally developed and implemented in Saint Paul, MN, is a prototype that can be used by any community hoping to link its criminal justice agencies together in a coherent, philosophically sound domestic violence intervention model. Praxis can provide consultation to communities interested in adapting The Blueprint in their jurisdiction(s).
Contact:
info@praxisinternational.org
praxisinternational.org/blueprint-for-safety
Building Legal Capacity to Combat Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Against Immigrants
The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.’s project on Building Legal Capacity to Combat Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Against Immigrants provides OVW grantees with substantive immigration law training and assistance with the application for Board of Appeals recognition and accreditation, the DOJ’s certification of nonprofit legal immigration programs and their staff. The primary objective of the project is to create and enhance immigration legal services to battered immigrants across the country in 30 underserved communities, including rural areas.
Capacity Building for Rural, Tribal, Underserved, and Culturally Specific Serving OVW Grantees
The National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities is a project of Casa de Esperanza that builds bridges and connections among research, practice and policy to advance effective responses to eliminate domestic violence and to promote healthy relationships within Latin@ families and communities. The National Latin@ Network provides training and TA for OVW grantees and partners to assess their organizational structure, and enhance their ability to effectively manage, operate and sustain their organizations serving in rural, tribal, underserved and culturally specific communities. Casa de Esperanza will provide targeted technical assistance to ensure OVW grantees serving Latino communities and non-grantee Latino organizations expand their capacity to serve battered Latinas and their families.
nationallatinonetwork.org/learn-more/courts-language-access
nationallatinonetwork.org/learn-more/request-technical-assistance
End Abuse of People with Disabilities
The End Abuse of People with Disabilities website is managed by the Center on Victimization and Safety (CVS) at the Vera Institute of Justice. This website is a place to connect with others engaged in this work, to access the latest resources and research from the field, and to advance the thinking around intervention and prevention.
Complex Legal Problems for Immigrant Survivors
The purpose of ASISTA is to centralize assistance for advocates and attorneys facing complex legal problems in advocating for immigrant survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. Many service providers are overwhelmed by the increasing complexity of immigration law as it overlaps with other areas. Our clearinghouse offers samples and best practices and our consultant’s training services are available to enable service providers to more thoroughly fulfill their purposes. Immigrants are entitled to justice, including in the areas of domestic abuse or sexual assault. All immigrant survivors deserve access to essential services. Our goal is to enable service providers to offer accurate and up-to-date help to immigrant survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.asistahelp.org/en/technical_assistance/
Immigration (VAWA, T and U visas), Family, Public Benefits, Housing, Health Care, and Language Access
The National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project provides direct technical assistance and training for attorneys, advocates, judges, police, sheriffs, prosecutors, and other professionals whose work affects immigrant women, children, and immigrant crime victims at the Federal, State and local levels.
Language Access and Interpretation
The Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence’s Interpretation Technical Assistance Resource Center provides technical assistance and training to OVW grantees on language access and interpretation: spoken language interpretation, sign language interpretation for deaf victims who do not use ASL, compliance with federal and state language access laws and policies, distinctions between bilingual advocacy and interpretation, etc.
Police Response to Violence Against Women
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) is a professional association for law enforcement worldwide, representing more than 30,000 members in more than 150 countries. The IACP provides members with the opportunities to connect, participate, learn, advocate, and succeed. IACP offers a variety of training opportunities from online, self-paced education sessions and webinars, to hosted, in-person training events and conferences. With support from the Office on Violence Against Women, the IACP’s National Law Enforcement Leadership Initiative proposes to build the leadership capacity of sworn law enforcement executives across the United States on violence against women crimes, strengthening the commitment of law enforcement officers to respond to these crimes, and enhance the ability of communities to respond to victims.
Assistance available to Rural Grantees includes podcasts, conferences, and onsite training on:
- Police Response to Violence Against Women
- The National Law Enforcement Leadership Initiative on Violence Against Women
- Trauma Informed Sexual Assault Investigation Training
- Identifying and Preventing Gender Bias in Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence
www.theiacp.org/Violence-Against-Women
National Protocol for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examinations of Adults and Adolescents
The SAFEta project of the International Association of Forensic Nurses was developed out of the need to disseminate and implement the National Protocol for Sexual Assault Medical Forensic Examinations of Adults (SAFE Protocol) and adolescents broadly across the United States.
The kidsta.org project is a National Protocol for Sexual Abuse Medical Forensic Examinations Pediatric providing all Pediatric Sexual Assault Responders Technical assistance and essential knowledge about sexual assault medical-forensic examinations and related topics.
Victim and Survivor Rights to Privacy
The Victim Rights Law Center’s Privacy Rights Project provides Rural and Legal Assistance to Victims Program grantees with free access to the qualified experts who can answer the myriad of confidentiality, privacy and privilege questions encounter and tools and resources needed to protect and promote victims’ privacy rights.
Youth-Informed, Youth-led Love is Advocacy Project
National Domestic Violence Hotline and Break the Cycle are partnering on the OVW TA Love is Advocacy project to deliver youth informed and youth led training and technical assistance to rural and frontier OVW grantees.
The primary target audience is rural youth advocacy organizations, or rural DV providers who are recipients of Rural Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, and Stalking Assistance Program Funding. The TA and training is focused on rural and frontier areas and areas that are under-resourced or face other access challenges.
loveisrespect.org
thehotline.org
breakthecycle.org/working-rural-and-frontier-youth