Content by Keyword: Place-Based Initiatives and Community/Faith-Based Partnerships

The coordinating bodies and the advocates' efforts have created open communication among all the players. Previously, people were unaware of problems and, therefore, were unable to respond to issues that arose. Now everyone has a better understanding of how their actions and behavior affects others in the system and the system as a whole.

RWA and MSH have been at the center of changing the response to domestic violence in Carlton County. Many of the policy changes in law enforcement agencies, the prosecutor's office, and probation have resulted from the advocates' work. For RWA, this has consisted of developing relationships with other agencies over a number of years. More recently

Beginning in the early 1980s, several women living in Carlton County (including some former victims of domestic violence), began meeting to discuss what they could do for other victims in the county. These women had their own bad experiences with law enforcement and wanted to change the response for other victims. At that time, there were no domes

Given Carlton County's close proximity to Duluth, the community's coordinated response to domestic violence has been greatly influenced by DAIP. The community has at least five groups with missions that include domestic violence, either specifically or as part of a broader focus on violence. Leadership for Carlton County's efforts has come from Ru

Carlton County is a racially and ethnically homogeneous county of about 30,000 located just southwest of Duluth. Nearly 95 percent of its population is white, with the remainder Native American. The largest city within Carlton County is Cloquet (with 11,000 people). Also within the county's borders is the Fond du Lac Indian reservation. Portions o

Minnesota provides a significant amount of statewide direction and support to counties and regions in their efforts to address domestic violence, which has been a factor in both the Carlton County and Northern St. Louis County responses to domestic violence. There is a state level coordinating council and region-wide coordinating bodies as well. M

The Domestic Abuse Intervention Project (DAIP) in Duluth, Minnesota is a nationally- known model of coordinated community response to domestic violence. DAIP has received extensive publicity, is widely known, and conducts many trainings related to domestic violence for criminal justice and other agency personnel from all over the United States and

A number of changes in Kansas City were made between the mid 1980s and early 1990s, and since then, the community has refocused its efforts on fine-tuning and maintaining those changes. The improvements in the community's response resulted, in large part, from the perseverance of particular individuals who sought change. For many years, leadership

The Kansas City criminal justice response, in which domestic violence is typically a violation of a city ordinance and prosecuted in Municipal Court, differs from many other communities. Prior convictions in the Municipal Court cannot be used to "enhance" cases to a higher charge. In the past several years, the community has emphasized prosecuting

The Kansas City metropolitan area has many layers of systems to coordinate. The geography and multiple jurisdictions in Kansas City present serious challenges for collaboration among agencies. For example, the Kansas City Police Department serves all of Jackson County and parts of several other counties. Since Circuit Court jurisdictions correspon

Many people expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of batterer intervention programs in Kansas City. Over time the number of these programs has grown substantially. Up until about ten years ago, Kansas City had a single batterer intervention program which worked closely with the courts. The program had an office at the courthouse and initiated

Project Bridge grew out of a collaboration between Truman Medical Center and a domestic violence shelter, and was initiated by an attending physician in the emergency room and a faculty member at the UMKC School of Medicine who had done prior research on domestic violence. The goal of the program was to provide a "bridge" between the hospital and

Many of the shelters in Kansas City provide a range of services including counseling, outreach, support groups. One shelter also operates an inpatient substance abuse program for battered women, which was started with money from the portion of Kansas City's sales tax designated for substance abuse treatment and other drug-related activities. Since

Coordination of criminal justice efforts in Jackson County has been brought about largely by the efforts of key people, both within and outside of the criminal justice system, rather than by a central coordinating committee. While several ad hoc committees have been formed to address particular problems over the years, none has become a permanent

The DVN has been the main vehicle for coordination between the area's six shelters since it was formed in the late 1980s. One of its first activities was to establish the Court Advocacy Program for the Municipal Court. This program, which is currently funded by a state grant, is jointly staffed by the four Missouri-based shelters. While the Munici

One of the earliest efforts to improve the community's response to domestic violence came out of Legal Aid of Western Missouri in the mid-1980s. Legal Aid's Domestic Unit provided legal services for women obtaining protection orders and for divorce cases in which domestic violence or child abuse was involved. Legal Aid staff were concerned about t

Coordination activities in Kansas City stem largely from the leadership and initiative of a few key people in the community, rather than the ongoing work of a coordinating committee. The extent and nature of the coordination have fluctuated over time as leadership for this issue has changed; one person described this process as occurring in "fits

The greater Kansas City metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a sprawling area that encompasses 11 counties (7 in Missouri and 4 in Kansas), and has a total population of nearly 1.6 million. Jackson County Missouri is the largest county in the MSA and contains the city of Kansas City, Missouri. With about 630,000 residents, Jackson County account