MAWS
prevention programs, funded by state and federal agencies, and various
foundations are model programs which other domestic violence organizations
throughout the world can implement:
Creating Safety And Justice For Women And Girls:
This model learning center coordinates numerous community-mobilization
efforts, including education, training, and justice advocacy to
reduce violence against women and girls.
Transforming Communities operates on three levels:
1).
City of Novato - Trainsforming Comunities - Novato (TC-Novato) serves
as the pilot learning center for the Transforming Communities program.
Community Action Teams work with local schools, public agencies, and corporations
to activate new strategies to prevent domestic violence and abuse. These
strategies are developed to asses their affectiveness in deterring acts
of domestic violence and abuse in a community.
2).
Marin County - a regional network is in place to respond to domestic
violence incidents, and acts of abuse against women and girls. Groups
of volunteers form community action teams (CATs) to implement prevention
stratagies with Marin County's public and private sector.
3).
Statewide California - Transforming Communities Technical Assistance Training
(TC-TAT) provides technical assistance training and resource materials
to California domestic violence agencies, helping them develop skills
and resources to implement effective prevention efforts to stop violence
against women.
Improving Criminal Justice Response.
Mobilizing the community goes beyond educating the public about domestic violence through presentations
and brochures. Individuals are encouraged to join, and community groups
encouraged to form, a Community Action Team (CAT). A CAT is an opportunity
for collective action, where community members can work together to develop
campaigns and events that will hold perpetrators accountable by challenging
and changing the attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and policies that condone
and perpetuate violence against women and children. Highlights include:
Take Back the Night Rally and Forum, Take Back the Night Campout, Equality
Day Roundtable Discussion, Domestic Violence Awareness Month Outreach
Event, Media Letter-writing Campaigns, Local Community Organizing Meetings.
The CURB Intervention (Community Unit Responding to Batterers) . Each time a man is arrested
for domestic violence, the deputies at the county jail contact a trained
graduate of the MAWS Men's Program 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to meet
the man at the jail within 30 minutes. The CURB volunteer holds the man
accountable for his violence, ensures he understands the nature and extent
of his violence, respects restraining orders, and agrees to refrain from
further violence and to call the 24-hour Men's Hotline and attend the
Men's Program classes to prevent violence in the future.
The Men's Program class is taught every week to inmates in the county jail who are assigned
to participate in reeducation programs.
Developing the Community Policing Approach.
Community policing means that law enforcement and the community value
one another for the knowledge and experience each brings to the table
and invites one another's input and participation in creating safety in
the community. The Sheriff's Office and MAWS have worked to ensure that
project strategies exemplify the principle of co-production of safety.
Law enforcement training on domestic violence response is designed, coordinated,
and presented jointly by law enforcement and advocates. A focus group
to brainstorm ideas for prevention strategies involved survivors of domestic
violence, Men's Program graduates, and law enforcement (Sheriff's Office,
Novato Police, and San Rafael Police). The Jail Class is taught by a Men's
Program advocate and overseen by Sheriff's deputies. Advocates and criminal
justice agencies worked together to produce the Law Enforcement Protocol
for Handling Domestic Violence. COPS has been invited along with two other
community policing projects in Duluth and Chicago to participate in a
national study to further study and develop community policing approaches
to domestic violence.