Community-Driven Domestic Violence Prevention

Community Safety

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

Approximately 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men in the US are affected by IPV, but its pervasive yet discrete nature has been a challenge for prevention and intervention efforts nationwide. The LA Homeless Services Authority states survivors of IPV are the largest subset of the documented homeless population (39%). Despite this, only $8 million of the county's $975 million American Rescue Act spending plan for housing and homelessness was allocated to IPV services. The unaffordable rental market exacerbates this issue, leaving many low-income survivors with a difficult decision between continued abuse and homelessness. A single parent working full?time would need $39.58/hr to afford a two-bedroom apartment in LA County, 183% higher than the state's minimum wage (nlihc.org). As we implore policymakers to address the intersection of IPV and homelessness, we must make meaningful efforts to support prevention and early intervention to stop generational cycles of violence and poverty.

To help protect our community and alleviate the impact on LA County's overburdened IPV service system, Rainbow Services (Rainbow) developed a prevention initiative that aims to shift the way our community identifies and responds to IPV. The program targets middle and high schools, colleges and universities, local businesses, faith institutions, and other community agencies with individualized, age-appropriate engagements that thoughtfully educate attendees regarding the dynamics of IPV, the local resources that are available to them, and how to safely intervene when they or someone they know is experiencing IPV. Beyond presentations, the program creates safe spaces that encourage attendees to ask questions and share their own experiences, and has dedicated, on-site staff for crisis intervention and service referrals as needed. The program also assists in updating internal policies and procedures, training HR and administrative staff, and supports the implementation of trauma informed classrooms and spaces, minimizing the stigma surrounding IPV and supporting open and honest discussions among students, staff, and parishioners. This multi-pronged strategy is aimed to encourage community-driven prevention and early intervention efforts to protect ourselves from violence while freeing up capacity for service providers to prioritize treating advanced IPV cases.

During the grant period, we will expand outreach through partnerships with LAUSD, the Boys & Girls Clubs, and local schools to exceed last year's engagement numbers (2,400 individuals) with focus on teens and transitional age youth. We expect to leverage these partnerships to expand the program countywide while capturing feedback to continuously improve our outcome measures. We will develop support groups for interested participants to share their lived experiences, and develop a mentorship program for youth modeled after our existing advocates program, where young survivors can share their experiences through public speaking engagements to bring awareness to teen dating violence. The program aims to support an increasing number of community members in protecting themselves from violence, while promoting a community-wide culture that actively discourages IPV. This shift will help alleviate the capacity of first responders and service providers, helping them focus on higher need cases.

As with all of our wraparound services, Rainbow tracks this program's metrics using our database software Efforts-To-Outcomes, a system comparable to HUD's Homeless Information Management System with added security features to ensure client confidentiality. This database tracks the number of engagements, attendees, topic(s) covered, case notes, and related metrics for review, reporting, and the development of outreach strategies. Qualitative data is gathered through pre- and post-surveys administered to all attendees of our presentations. Questions on the survey gauge individual understandings of IPV topics to see what participants may already know about IPV and what they have learned from our program. Open ended questions encourage feedback regarding how our engagements were effective, how they can be improved, and if there are any additional topics they would like to see moving forward. This feedback is regularly reviewed to support continuous improvement of our program.