VERA Institute for Justice: Forging New Collaborations: A Guide for Rape Crisis, Domestic Violence, and Disability Organizations

I was on the VERA website today and came across this project that I thought might be useful to policy-makers and concerned citizens/families.

From the website:
Between 2006 and 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women funded the development of collaborations between victim services and disability organizations in more than 40 communities to ensure people with disabilities who have experienced domestic or sexual violence have the community-based supports and criminal justice responses they need to heal. This report, based upon Vera's work with these burgeoning collaborations, recommends steps for building effective collaboration and practical strategies for overcoming common obstacles.


Executive Summary:

People with disabilities experience domestic and sexual violence at alarming rates. Yet they are less likely to receive the services, supports, and justice that their counterparts without disabilities receive. However, victim services and disability organizations across the country have begun collaborating to ensure people with disabilities have equal access to the community-based supports and criminal justice responses that are critical to surviving violence and healing after trauma. The U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) has led this effort by providing communities with funding for collaborative efforts to improve services for survivors with disabilities. Through its Accessing Safety Initiative, Vera's Center on Victimization and Safety supports these efforts by providing training and consultation on collaboration and capacity-building at the intersection of violence and disability.

By the end of 2010, OVW's Disability Grant Program had fostered more than 40 such collaborations. This report is based upon Vera's work with and observations of those collaborations from 2006 through 2010, as well as in-depth interviews with representatives from 10 of the groups and an extensive literature review on effective collaboration. It is designed for policy makers, practitioners, and first-responders interested in using collaboration to address violence against people with disabilities. It offers concrete recommendations for how to build effective collaboration between victim services and disability organizations, practical strategies for overcoming common obstacles, and steps to begin the collaboration process.

You can download the entire report (24 pages) here.