Public Policy
Using Music, Movies, Video Games & School Curricula, Start Strong Is Promoting Healthy Relationships
The middle school years offer key moments to educate young people and their parents about healthy relationships and teen dating violence prevention. Programs that are doing this work should meet youth where they spend time, such as in schools, and engage a range of community partners. And when these programs are effective in engaging youth as advocates and peer leaders, they can have lasting benefits. Those are among the lessons that adolescent experts, researchers and advocates shared with representatives from diverse federal agencies at a forum on July 20 at the United States Department of Justice. [...]
"Her Eyes Will See So Much"
At a time when the United Nations estimates that one out of every three women worldwide will be physically, sexually or otherwise abused in her lifetime, the Family Violence Prevention Fund and Women Thrive Worldwide have begun running powerful print and banner ads in Politico to urge Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act this year. Click here to see the ad. [...]
How Health Reform May Affect Victims of Domestic, Sexual, and Dating Violence
By making health care affordable and easier to obtain, health reform allows victims of violence and abuse to have access to services that would treat their abuse and many of the resulting conditions of that abuse before they worsen. In the new health care reform law, victims of violence and abuse were specifically included in several new protections and programs, and the new law also opens the door to integrating violence and abuse prevention into public health programs, research priorities, and adolescent health initiatives. [...]
International Violence Against Women Act Introduced in House & Senate
Violence prevention experts and human rights advocates cheered Thursday when Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Representatives William Delahunt (D-MA), Ted Poe (R-TX) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), spoke at a Capitol Hill event celebrating the introduction of the International Violence Against Women Act. This groundbreaking legislation would, for the first time, make stopping violence against women and girls a priority in American diplomacy and foreign aid. [...]
Congress Considers Violence Against Women
In recent weeks, two congressional committee hearings have examined the causes and consequences of violence against women in the United States and around the world. On May 5, OVW Director Judge Susan Carbon and other experts testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the importance of the VAWA during the economic downturn. A few weeks before that, on April 15, Representatives Bill Delahunt (D-MA) and Ted Poe (R-TX) testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, urging the U.S. to take action to end violence against women and girls around the world by passing the I-VAWA. [...]
Congress Continues Focus on Global Violence Against Women
Award-winning actress and UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman, and U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer, are scheduled to testify Wednesday on violence against women and girls around the world before a key House Subcommittee. This is the second congressional hearing in a month on the issue. On October 1, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held its first-ever hearing on global violence against women and girls. [...]
Good News for Domestic Violence Victims in Health Reform
On March 30, President Obama signed a health reform reconciliation bill, putting the final touches on a new law that offers significant benefits to victims of domestic violence. The new health reform law means that it will soon be illegal for health insurers to deny coverage to victims of domestic violence because they consider their abuse to be a preexisting condition. [...]
Help Advance the International Violence Against Women Act
Violence prevention and human rights advocates have launched a major push to pass the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA) this year. As of July 1, there are 112 I-VAWA co-sponsors in the House of Representatives and 28 co-sponsors in the Senate. The Family Violence Prevention Fund is urging supporters to reach out to their Representatives and Senators to encourage them to co-sponsor and support the legislation, and to thank all Members who are already co-sponsors. [...]
House Health Reform Bill Contains Key Domestic Violence Provisions
The Family Violence Prevention Fund is praising the U.S. House of Representatives for including in its health reform bill a key prevention initiative that will advance the health care system’s response to domestic violence and curb the tremendous health costs that result from it. The legislation, passed on November 7, requires private insurers and the new Health Insurance Exchange to reimburse health care providers who assess patients for domestic violence and provide brief counseling and referrals. [...]
Home Visitation Programs Can Help More Families if They Address Domestic Violence
With Congress considering a substantial investment in home visitation programs, they should be refined to more purposefully address the needs of mothers and children at risk for domestic violence, as well as the link between domestic violence and child abuse/neglect. That is the conclusion of Realizing the Promise of Home Visitation: Addressing Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment, a new brief released at a Capitol Hill briefing in February. [...]
House Subcommittee Examines International Violence Against Women
In late October, for the second time that month, powerful voices came to Capitol Hill to ask for stronger measures to stop violence against women worldwide and to press for passage of the International Violence Against Women Act. At an October 21 hearing before the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight, of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, violence prevention experts including U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Melanne Verveer and actress and UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman discussed the violence experienced by women and girls around the world. [...]
Key Senate Committee Considers VAWA
The Violence Against Women Act has been highly effective in helping stop domestic violence and other violent crimes against women, expert witnesses - including Ann Burke and Gabrielle Union (with Chris Burke) - told the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 10. But challenges remain, including better services for rural women, women of color and children exposed to violence, and homicide prevention. [...]
New International Center for Family Violence Prevention Fund
FVPF's new international center will function as a vibrant base for global action through groundbreaking programs that engage the public, facilitate dialogue and collaboration, and train the leaders who will help build safer, healthier, and more civil societies everywhere. Here, on the Main Post of San Francisco’s historic Presidio, we are transforming Building 100, a barracks where military bands once practiced songs that rallied troops on their way to war, into a center for generating peaceful alternatives to violence. [...]
Violence Against Women Act 2005
The Violence Against Women Act was the first comprehensive federal legislation to address violence against women in the United States. [...]
KEY RESOURCES
- Linking Local Providers with Federal Funding
- Support for Domestic and Sexual Violence Services through The Victims of Crime Act (VOCA)
- TANF Emergency Fund and Domestic Violence
- Budget and Appropriations
- Children and Domestic Violence
- Health
- International (PDF)
- Teen Dating Violence
- Workplace Public Policy and Domestic Violence
- Recommendations for the Department of Justice
- Recommendations for the Department of Health and Human Services
- Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008
- Program Description
