Summer 2018 Newsletter
Greetings!
On June 22, we celebrated KCSDV’s 36th anniversary since incorporating on June 22, 1982.
We are excited to celebrate 36 years of working to prevent and eliminate sexual and domestic violence. We are so proud of all of the work we have and are able to accomplish for victims, survivors, and all Kansans with our partners nationally, statewide, and in local Kansas communities!
KCSDV has evolved throughout these 36 years, and we’d love to tell you about what we’re up to now in this newsletter.
You can also learn more about KCSDV on KCSDV’s website at http://kcsdv.org/about.
THANK YOU for supporting KCSDV!
Joyce Grover
In 2016, KCSDV began working on the Empowered Families Kansas project, and in June, we were happy to host and update our national grant funders for the project.
The Empowered Families Kansas project focuses on children exposed to domestic violence – and victim advocacy services available to them. Children exposed to domestic violence as primary and secondary victims are especially vulnerable to future victimization in their lifetimes.
The three goals of the project are to alleviate trauma experienced by children and youth, to support enhanced relationships between children and youth and their non-abusing parents, and to improve systemic responses to children and youth and their non-abusing parents.
The project is statewide and in partnership with several KCSDV coalition member programs that are domestic violence victim advocacy services programs in local cities and communities in Kansas.
Right now, KCSDV is working with five KCSDV coalition member programs across Kansas to implement and execute youth mentoring services for children and youth ages 8 – 18 years old exposed to domestic violence, teen dating violence, and co-occurring bullying.
The mentoring programs have been successful, and some of the programs now have waitlists for participation. The mentoring programs have accomplished retaining children and youth participation for six months and longer, a difficult challenge when domestic violence is present. Referrals of children and youth to the mentoring programs are high, implying the regard by surrounding professionals for the programs.
As a part of the project, KCSDV updated and expanded the Domestic Violence Manual for Child Welfare Professionals and has completed six child welfare and domestic violence trainings for social workers, victim advocates, and child protective and child welfare professionals across the state this year.
KCSDV will soon collaborate with all 24 KCSDV coalition member programs that are domestic violence-focused to improve child and youth services.
To request a copy of the Domestic Violence Manual for Child Welfare Professionals, please email KCSDV Child Welfare Project Coordinator Kristina Scott at kscott@kcsdv.org.
Learn more about Empowered Families Kansas project and the Family Violence Prevention and Services Program’s (FVPSA Program) Specialized Services for Abused Parents and Children program at http://promising.futureswithoutviolence.org/news/expanding-services-for-children-and-youth/.
Contact your local domestic violence victim advocacy services program to learn more about available services.
In fall of 2017, KCSDV started the new and ongoing Kansas Statewide Data Initiative. The initiative gathers sexual and domestic violence victim advocacy services data from all 27 KCSDV coalition member programs across Kansas and reports the statewide, aggregated data for purposes of advocacy, funding requests, and public awareness, and to inform projects and training.
Thank you to our KCSDV coalition member programs for reporting your service numbers! We have already used the data in grant reports, internal reports, and countless external documents.
In 2017, KCSDV coalition member programs served over 59,000 people! Find more service numbers and see KCSDV’s first Kansas Statewide Data Initiative report for 2017 on KCSDV’s website on the Statistics webpage at http://kcsdv.org/learn-more/stats.html.
KCSDV is a statewide nonprofit organization in Topeka and a coalition made up of KCSDV and 27 independent, sexual and domestic violence, victim advocacy services programs across the state of Kansas. One of KCSDV’s coalition member programs, Alliance Against Family Violence (AAFV) in the city of Leavenworth, Kansas, served the Leavenworth County area until AAFV temporarily closed last year in November 2017.
AAFV was Leavenworth County’s first and only local, sexual and domestic violence, victim advocacy services organization.
Since AAFV’s closure, victim advocacy services have not been accessible in Leavenworth County, and victims and survivors might either not receive the help they need or they have to drive or get a ride to a victim advocacy services program at least 45 minutes away in Kansas City, Lawrence, or Topeka.
In 2017 alone, AAFV served over 500 people, who were victims of sexual violence, domestic violence, and stalking.
Alongside AAFV’s new Board of Director’s, KCSDV is asking for donations from all to help reopen AAFV to provide services to Leavenworth communities again.
Help make this happen by donating today via AAFV’s website at http://aafv1984.com. You can also help by participating in this fun social stroll and vintage car ride down Cherokee Street in the city of Leavenworth on August 4, 2018. The city of Leavenworth’s Kansas Country Store at 728 Cherokee Street and McDevitt & Duffy Corner Market Deli at 130 Cherokee Street are selling tickets now until the time of the event on Aug. 4. All donations help AAFV reopen to provide services to all Leavenworth County communities!
As AAFV’s Board of Directors President Sarah Gustin said (in a recent interview with Leavenworth Times): Once we’re back, we’re back for good.
Watch this video, recorded by forensic nurse, professor, and community member Jacqlynn Asherman, on why AAFV is so needed for Leavenworth County communities.
AAFV’s website is http://aafv1984.com. AAFV is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and all donations are tax deductible.
Mail check donations to “Alliance Against Family Violence”
Alliance Against Family Violence
P.O. Box 465
Leavenworth, KS 66048
Asylum is an internationally accepted concept. People requesting asylum are not “just trying to find a way to get into the U.S.” Asylum is a last resort for people seeking refuge in a third country and can often be the final life-saving option for them.
- The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV): Attorney General Decision on Asylum in the U.S. Further Jeopardizes the Lives of Domestic Violence Victims
- The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence (NTF): The President’s Executive Order On Family Separation Fails Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Survivors
- The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV): NNEDV Demands Immediate Return of Missing Child
Native and Indigenous women experience some of the highest rates of violence in the U.S., and KCSDV is happy to cosponsor Sarah Deer, with three Kansas tribal communities, as a speaker at “Native Nations and Violence Against Women” on July 30-31 in Mayetta, Kansas.
Professionals, regardless of their proximity to a reservation, benefit from Sarah Deer’s presentations.She explores the complexities of violence, internally and externally, against Native and Indigenous individuals. Native and Indigenous women’s experiences are not siloed to those living on tribal land, because the majority of people who are victims live in our communities across Kansas.
Deer’s latest book is The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America. One in three Native and Indigenous women report having been raped during her lifetime. The U.S. Department of Justice cites Amnesty International on the department’s website stating, “Violence against women is one of the most pervasive human rights abuses. It is also one of the most hidden. It takes place in intimate relationships, within the family, and at the hands of strangers, and it affects women in every country in the world… Indigenous peoples in the U.S. face deeply entrenched marginalization – the result of a long history of systemic and pervasive abuse and persecution. Sexual violence against Indigenous women today is informed and conditioned by this legacy of widespread and egregious human rights abuses.”
Deer is a coauthor of three textbooks on tribal law, and she has received national recognition for her work on violence against Native women and was a primary consultant for Amnesty International’s Maze of Injustice campaign.
She is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma and a professor at the University of Kansas. She is the recipient of a 2014 MacArthur Fellowship.
Native Nations and Violence Against Women is sponsored by the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, the Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska, the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, and KCSDV.
Thank you to Sarah Deer and to all of KCSDV’s Kansas tribal community partners!
More information is on KCSDV’s website at https://www.kcsdv.org/sarah-deer-2018.
KANSAS CRISIS HOTLINE: 888-END-ABUSE | 888-363-2287