Creating a coordinated community response program

There are several types of coordinated community response to violence against women:

• Community partnering – an informal, grassroots model where a collaborative oversight body helps to coordinate activities;
• Community intervention – focused on training and capacity building for organizations working to serve women, hold offenders accountable, and prevent violence;
• Community organizing – focused on raising awareness and encouraging action community-wide; and
• Interagency approach – focused on ensuring coordination between parts of the justice system and other service providers, operating from a common plan of action.

(See: UN Women, Domestic Violence: Legislation and its Implementation, (2009))

• The Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse offers additional information about the creation and functioning of an array of programmes across the US. Regardless of the format, participants in coordinated community response programs should develop:
  • a shared philosophical framework on violence against women;
  • an understanding of each others’ roles; and
  • a plan to improve the response of different institutions and agencies to violence against women.

• This often involves developing agreements across agencies, working out protocols of coordinated action, and creating legal memoranda of understanding that clearly define roles and expectations. Consistent communication is critical to maintaining an effective coordinated response. Communications should include keeping all partners apprised of developments, maintaining regular meetings, and planning for turnover and membership changes within the network or coalition so that valuable knowledge is not lost. Extensive information on building a coordinated community response program is available from the National Center for Domestic and Sexual Violence. See: Assessing the Justice System Response to Violence Against Women: A Tool for Communities to Develop Coordinated Responses, Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse; Minimum Standards for Creating a Coordinated Community Response to Violence Against Women on Campus, U.S. Department of Justice.

Assessing Systems

• Mapping the experiences of women who have been victims of violence is a key piece of developing a coordinated response. Documenting the experiences of women when they ask for help from police or others, try to access services, get legal help, find physical and mental health care, etc., is the first step in identifying partners that should be included in a coordinated community response network and will help prioritize gaps in implementation. Mapping the experience of advocates trying to help women escape from and recover from violence can also provide important insights. Mapping is often undertaken in the form of case studies of individual women, or consolidated needs assessment reports. The report What a Waste: The Case for an Integrated Violence Against Women Strategy, produced by the Women’s National Commission, provides examples of individual case studies from the UK that were used in the process of mapping for an integrated response. The Advocates for Human Rights’ report on implementation of laws against Domestic Violence in Bulgaria (1996) is an example of how court records and human rights fact-finding interviews can be used to map implementation.

Identifying Partners

• Partners in a CCR program can come from all relevant institutions, both public and private, that intersect with domestic violence. Although each community is different, key sectors to consider include:
  • Advocacy organizations
  • Educators
  • Employers and unions
  • Faith groups and traditional leaders
  • Government departments or ministries
  • Health care providers
  • Law enforcement
  • Legal system – judges, prosecutors, court staff, etc.
  • Media
  • Men’s groups
  • Parents
  • Social service providers
  • Victims/survivors
  • Youth groups