Policy & Systems Advocacy Content Topic Results

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Other Tax Credits

ckeene — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 16:46:41 +0000

Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Other Tax Credits ckeene Fri, 08/12/2016 - 12:46

Published

January 16, 2025

Author(s)

Shaina Goodman

Marium Durrani

Breckan Erdman Winters

Casey Keene

In 1975, Congress authorized a federal tax credit program called the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). It was conceived as an incentive to "make work pay" by giving low-income workers a refund for a percentage of their earnings. Since its inception, the EITC has been heralded as one of the most successful anti-poverty strategies in the United States, and numerous other tax credit programs have followed. Today there are tax credit programs for low-income workers with children and other dependents and for individuals seeking higher education, as well as outreach efforts designed specifically for underserved populations.

This collection highlights key resources for the EITC, the Child Tax Credit, Health Coverage Tax Credits, and others. It includes general information and fact sheets, reports and research, information about how tax credits affect eligibility for other federal benefits, resources to access state specific statistics and contact information, and resources specific to four underserved populations (domestic violence survivors, Native Americans, workers who are immigrants, and workers with disabilities). It also provides information on free tax preparation services across the country and ways to avoid predatory lending and tax services. Please contact the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence with comments, questions, or suggestions for new additions to this collection.

This Special Collection draws heavily from the work of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, one of the nation's premier policy organizations working at the federal and state levels on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals.

Special thanks to Anna Melbin, Founder of Catalyst Consulting and Training, for originally developing this collection in partnership with the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) in 2012, and to former NRCDV staff Shaina Goodman and Marium Durrani for their contributions. This collection is updated annually with new information and resources.

Identifying and Preventing Gender and Intersectional Bias in Law Enforcement Responses to Domestic and Sexual Violence

berdman — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 15:13:06 +0000

Identifying and Preventing Gender and Intersectional Bias in Law Enforcement Responses to Domestic and Sexual Violence berdman Fri, 04/05/2019 - 11:13

Published

January 14, 2022

Author(s)

Carrie Bettinger-Lopez

Rosie Hidalgo

Olivia Garcia

Renu Sara Nargund

This special collection is a product of the COURAGE in Policing Project, jointly supported by the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law, Casa de Esperanza National Latin@ Network, and UN Women. [Note: Rosie Hidalgo contributed to the production of this Special Collection prior to January 2021, in her capacity as Senior Director of Public Policy, Casa de Esperanza (now Esperanza United).] The purpose of this special collection is to compile resources focused on improving the law enforcement responses to domestic violence and sexual assault.

Domestic violence, sexual assault, and other forms of gender-based violence (GBV) are pandemics that are globally ubiquitous, despite decades of efforts to address these ills through public health, criminal justice, education, and social welfare sectors. Despite the devastating prevalence of GBV, the United Nations (UN) has reported that in most countries, less than 40% of women who experienced violence sought any sort of help, and of those, less than 10% sought help from the police (United Nations Statistics Division 2015). This reflects a profound mistrust of state systems whose frontline responders are usually law enforcement officers and whose purported mission is to protect and serve.

The reasons behind the fraught relationship between survivors and law enforcement are complex. They range from a lack of effective trainings on responding to GBV and communicating with survivors, to the use of investigation and prosecution policies and practices that do not account for the effects of trauma on victims, to a lack of accountability mechanisms for misconduct, including GBV perpetrated by law enforcement officers themselves, to biases (gender, race, and otherwise) that are ingrained in the criminal legal system. These dynamics particularly impact survivors from marginalized or underserved communities, who often have a deep mistrust of the police. Recent surveys underscore the significance of gender, racial, and other forms of bias in police responses to GBV, and the effects of bias on how people engage with the criminal legal system.

While law enforcement response is only one component of a comprehensive approach to GBV, it is a critical piece, particularly in the context of high-risk situations and when survivors seek to engage with the police. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began stepping up its investigations into discriminatory law enforcement responses to GBV in several cities and, in 2015, the DOJ published a Guidance entitled Identifying and Preventing Gender Bias in Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence (DOJ 2015). The Guidance, which articulates eight principles, was created to improve responses to GBV by the 18,000 law enforcement agencies (LEAs) across the U.S.

The guidance provides a foundation for considering how law enforcement can improve responses to survivors, women and girls of color, and people from historically exploited and vulnerable communities, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ+) individuals, who are disproportionately impacted by sexual assault and domestic violence. Through eight sections (A-G), this collection offers resources for identifying and preventing gender, racial, and other forms of bias, especially for underserved and marginalized survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

We hope that this special collection will provide various perspectives and resources for advocates, law enforcement leaders, and others who are considering ways to improve law enforcement responses to gender-based violence, particularly in underserved or marginalized communities. Our hope is to expand and improve pathways to safety for survivors.

We recognize that there are many unanswered questions that may come up for readers in the review of this special collection. These may include questions such as: how have advocates approached law enforcement issues? What is the historical impact of the work done by advocates? What is the ability of law enforcement to implement measurable and sustainable change? and how can law enforcement evaluate and correct itself at this point? While this special collection does not directly answer these questions, we recognize the importance of exploring these pertinent questions in future collections to better identify and prevent gender bias in the law enforcement response to sexual assault and domestic violence. We also acknowledge the need for rigorous evaluations of existing law enforcement training programs to bring greater accountability, enhance credibility, and bridge gaps in the program to ensure training effectiveness.

In the future, the COURAGE project plans to develop a collection of resources highlighting the importance of different pathways to safety, particularly for survivors who want alternatives to the criminal legal system, such as “violence interruption” programs, restorative and transformative justice, collective healing, economic justice, and health and housing justice. We welcome your feedback and ideas.

We approach this work with the intention of dismantling misogynist, anti-black and racist norms that are prevalent throughout U.S. society, including in the criminal legal system. Indeed, it is well understood that many survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault choose not to engage with the criminal legal system for a variety of reasons, including: a history of violence by law enforcement and other state agents against women, black and minority communities; fear of the immigration, child welfare, public assistance, and other consequences for survivors and their family members; deportation, exploitation, and a desire to protect one’s family from justice system involvement. Nonetheless, for the victims who do interact with the criminal legal system, the focus of this initiative is to make existing law enforcement systems more trauma-informed, survivor-centered, and accountable.

While criminalization of individuals who inflict GBV has historically been viewed as a proxy for justice, advocates and scholars are proposing alternative frameworks, such as “violence interruption,” restorative justice, community justice, collective healing, economic justice, health and housing justice, and “police abolition.” We endorse these calls for increased research and investment in non-criminal approaches to preventing and responding to GBV, and we believe they are in line with a human rights-based, “due diligence” approach.

While we must develop and embrace a long-term vision for safety, justice, and healing for survivors, we also believe that we must develop viable models to improve police response to GBV for the foreseeable future. For such a devastating and deadly problem, we must approach the problem in the here-and-now with tactical precision. This means investing in the alternative approaches outlined above, while insisting on improvements to the criminal legal system that currently exists.

While the role of law enforcement will likely evolve in response to these crises, it remains an important system actor in the GBV context for the foreseeable future. It is thus critical that LEAs espouse and implement the following principles, expanding on the DOJ Guidance: accountability for officer-perpetrated GBV; trauma-informed interactions with survivors; effective investigation of GBV reports; and attention to intersecting forms of discrimination. Doing so will help prevent gender and other intersectional forms of bias, thereby improving responses to GBV and contributing to a safer world for all of us.

The authors are grateful to colleagues from UN Women who contributed feedback and ideas to this special collection: Mirko Fernandez, Laura Capobianco, and Caroline Meenagh.

Preventing and Responding to Domestic Violence in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer (LGBTQ) Communities

ckeene — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 18:42:40 +0000

Preventing and Responding to Domestic Violence in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer (LGBTQ) Communities ckeene Thu, 08/11/2016 - 14:42

Published

June 01, 2019

Although the U.S. has made exciting progress in recent years, from the passage of marriage equality to shifting culturally-held definitions of sex and gender, people who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer* (LGBTQ) continue to face widespread violence, harassment, and discrimination. While research is limited, the research that is available indicates that members of LGBTQ communities experience domestic and sexual violence at rates that are equal to or higher than non-LGBTQ people, particularly when they hold additional marginalized identities, such as being a woman of color or an undocumented immigrant.

And while they experience high rates of violence, LGBTQ survivors also often face significant barriers to safety and accessing services, such as historical over-incarceration and harassment by police, unintended outing, discrimination by service providers, and a lack of culturally responsive services that can result in revictimization. Additional layers of oppression often add to these barriers – the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) found that “transgender people of color who completed the survey experienced deeper and broader forms of discrimination than white USTS respondents,” and although they experienced higher rates of interpersonal violence, Black respondents reported less comfort reaching out to police, medical professionals, and shelters for help. Additionally, the lack of LGBTQ-inclusive violence prevention efforts and healthy relationship programming in most communities results in low levels of awareness of the prevalence and impact of domestic and sexual violence in LGBTQ communities. This special collection is intended to help domestic violence organizations address these gaps in services for LGBTQ survivors.

The information in this special collection offers an overview of research and resources that are currently available on preventing and responding to domestic violence within LGBTQ communities. Resources provided in this special collection are especially relevant to organizations and individuals who want to increase their capacity to provide culturally responsive intervention services to the LGBTQ survivors of domestic violence and to those who want to work with LGBTQ communities on prevention strategies.

This special collection draws from the work of many leaders around the United States who focus specifically on the issue of domestic violence within LGBTQ communities. We want to specifically highlight the work on a national level that the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), The Northwest Network, the National LGBTQ Institute on IPV, The Network/La Red, and FORGE have done in partnership with these communities. Additionally, a list of organizations working around the issue of domestic violence in LGBTQ communities is provided at the end of this special collection.

Originally developed by the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse, this collection was updated in 2019 by the National LGBTQ Institute on IPV in partnership with the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. For more extensive information specific to transgender and non-binary survivors, see our Serving Trans and Non-Binary Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence special collection. For access to additional academic and conceptual articles on LGBTQ IPV, please visit the LGBTQ Institute’s online Zotero library.

PLEASE NOTE: With any personal identity the language chosen by the individual to describe their identity is of the utmost importance. Language that one individual uses to describe their sexual or gender identity can be considered offensive to the next. Definitions for these identities are not fixed and are always changing in meaning, both in society and by individuals.

Responding to the Needs of Immigrant Survivors of Domestic Violence

ckeene — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 17:33:29 +0000

Responding to the Needs of Immigrant Survivors of Domestic Violence ckeene Thu, 08/11/2016 - 13:33

Published

October 01, 2018

Author(s)

Patty Branco

Sheetal Rana

The term “immigrant" refers to individuals who come to one country from another country in order to live there permanently or for an extended period of time. Immigrants are very diverse, from varied socio-cultural, economic, and educational backgrounds. They include individuals and families who have lived in the U.S. for a short period of time, as well as those who have lived in the country for many years. They have different histories and biographies, including their experiences in their country of origin, on their journey from their home country, of the immigration process, and of living in the United States. Many immigrants are U.S. citizens or possess different types of legal immigration status, and some may be undocumented. This diversity among immigrant communities also extends to their experiences of domestic violence.

While there are differences in domestic violence experienced by immigrant survivors, there may be commonalities, such as patterns of abuse tied to the survivors’ experiences as an immigrant, as well as challenges and barriers to seeking help. Similarly, domestic violence service providers may face common challenges in offering services to immigrant survivors. These challenges and barriers could be linked to a limited understanding of issues related to the survivors’ immigration status, eligibility for public assistance, different cultural practices, English language proficiency, etc. It is also essential to note the importance of using a strengths-based approach, recognizing the courage, strength, resilience, and perseverance of immigrants who have sought to establish a new life for themselves and their children in the United States. This special collection explores the complex experiences of immigrant survivors and includes resources to support their path to safety and justice. It also includes resources that help domestic violence service providers respond effectively and appropriately to immigrant survivors.

It is important to note here that several documents included in this Special Collection focus on laws and regulations related to maintaining legal immigration status, public assistance, and related matters. These laws and regulations change over time and thus some of the documents included here may be dated or may become dated. For up-to-date resources on laws and regulations, please also consult the expert organizations listed at the end of this collection. This collection will be updated with new resources as they become available, and we welcome your comments and suggestions via VAWnet’s online contact form.

This collection was originally developed in 2009 by Sheetal Rana with the Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse, updated by Patty Branco on October 2018, and complements the related collections, Immigrant Women and Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking. Special thanks to Rosie Hidalgo and Heidi Notario for their valuable contributions.

Safety & Privacy in a Digital World

ckeene — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 12:42:57 +0000

Safety & Privacy in a Digital World ckeene Fri, 08/12/2016 - 08:42

Published

January 16, 2018

New Resources Added

June 28, 2018

Author(s)

Casey Keene

Breckan Erdman Winters

For many of us, technology plays an integral role in our day-to-day lives. We connect with friends and family on social media, access news and current events from online media sources, and use smart phones' GPS capabilities to figure out how to travel to new places. While rapid advancements in technology provide us with powerful tools to connect, learn, and exchange ideas, they also arm abusers with new ways to inflict harm.

This newly updated special collection explores ways to promote safe internet use, build healthy online communities, and promote social justice online, while addressing some of the ways that abusers misuse technology to commit gender-based violence. The collection features resources that highlight the importance of privacy and promote safe online interactions, paying particular attention to working with children and youth to foster safe online spaces. It also includes resources for survivors who have experienced or are currently experiencing digital abuse, and provides helpful information for service providers.

Technology is ever evolving, at a rate that sometimes feels impossible to grasp. There will always be a “next big thing” which will undoubtedly raise questions about the safety of survivors of abuse. It is our role to ask those questions, to support informed, survivor-centered choices around the use of technology, and to continue to advocate for the rights and needs of those experiencing abuse.

This collection was developed by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. Special thanks to the SafetyNet Project of the National Network to End Domestic Violence for their leadership and resource development in this area.

Serving Trans and Non-Binary Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence

berdman — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 15:52:01 +0000

Serving Trans and Non-Binary Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence berdman Tue, 06/13/2017 - 11:52

Published

November 01, 2017

New Resources Added

January 01, 2018

Author(s)

Breckan Erdman Winters

Despite the fact that people who identify as transgender or non-binary experience violence and harassment in every aspect of life at astoundingly high rates (NCTE, 2016), there are still significant gaps in services (Seelman, 2015) for these survivors of domestic and sexual violence. This Special Collection supports advocates and agencies seeking to build their capacity to provide accessible and inclusive services to trans and non-binary survivors.

This collection offers guidance on how to provide accessible, culturally responsive, and affirming services to survivors of all genders. It includes resources that explain the importance of pronouns and outline some key concepts and terms relating to gender identity and expression. Additionally, this collection cites recent research illustrating the broad scope of violence against trans individuals and communities, particularly for people who live at the intersections of multiple forms of oppression, and addresses the failure of systems to properly support survivors in these communities. It directs service providers to some helpful tools and guidance for promoting inclusivity and advocating for trans survivors within domestic and sexual violence organizations. Lastly, this collection also provides resources for survivors.

This collection draws heavily from the work of FORGE, a national transgender anti-violence organization that provides direct services to trans survivors of domestic and sexual violence, as well as training and technical assistance to service providers around the country. Visit their website for more information and resources on serving trans survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

Housing and Domestic Violence

ckeene — Fri, 12 May 2017 19:43:15 +0000

Housing and Domestic Violence ckeene Fri, 05/12/2017 - 15:43

Published

May 23, 2017

Survivors of violence face real barriers when trying to access safe housing – barriers caused by the power and control dynamics of abuse, a need for safety and confidentiality, economic instability, the effects of trauma, and the lack of affordable housing in communities. Nobody should have to choose between staying in an unsafe home and having no home at all.

This collection offers a doorway to the resources available through Safe Housing Partnerships, a project of the federal Domestic Violence and Housing Technical Assistance Consortium. The Consortium is an innovative, collaborative approach to providing training, technical assistance, and resource development at the critical intersection of domestic and sexual violence, homelessness, and housing.

The resources and tools included here are provided to advance your work at the critical intersection of domestic violence, sexual assault, homelessness, and housing.

Reproductive Justice & Violence Against Women: Understanding the Intersections

ckeene — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 00:40:12 +0000

Reproductive Justice & Violence Against Women: Understanding the Intersections ckeene Thu, 08/11/2016 - 20:40

Published

February 28, 2017

Author(s)

Amanda Manes

Reproductive justice is a framework and movement that links reproductive health and rights with social justice. The term was claimed and coined by women of color as a result of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development hosted in Cairo, and the reproductive justice movement emphasizes that a woman's reproductive health is not only based on individual choice but also a variety of factors and conditions within one's experiences, family, and community. While many women see abortion rights as their main issue – and it is indeed important – many women, and in particular women of color and low income women, often have difficulty accessing contraception, comprehensive sex education, sexually transmitted infection prevention and care, alternative birth options, adequate prenatal and pregnancy care, domestic violence assistance, adequate wages to support families, safe homes, and so much more. Even the right to parent is often threatened. Reproductive justice addresses all of these critical issues (Loretta J. Ross, SisterSong, 2006).

The reproductive justice analysis also understands that women, and particularly women of color and their communities, experience reproductive oppression. Reproductive oppression is "the controlling and exploiting of women, girls, and individuals through our bodies, sexuality, labor, and reproduction (both biological and social) by families, communities, institutions and society" (Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, 2005 and Loretta J. Ross, SisterSong, 2006). This reproductive oppression cannot be separated out from the other oppressions individuals and communities experience, just as a person's reproductive health experiences cannot be separated from mental, social, economic, familial, communal, or environmental well-being (Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, 2005 and Loretta J. Ross, SisterSong, 2006).

This intersectional paradigm at the core of reproductive justice acknowledges that systems of oppression simultaneously discriminate based on race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, age, immigration status, language, and other factors. These intersecting forms of oppression and discrimination have historically resulted in power, privilege, and resources for a select few and limited access to power and resources for a large majority, including women of color, women in poverty, women as an overall group, and others. Reproductive justice aims to bring about the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, social and economic well-being of women and girls, based on the full achievement and protection of not only women’s reproductive rights, but their human rights.

This collection includes select resources that detail the history of the reproductive justice movement, provide comprehensive information on reproductive justice and social change, and lift up the work of organizations that are advancing a reproductive justice agenda. Also included are resources on the intersection of domestic and sexual violence and reproductive justice, and information on federal and state policies surrounding the issue.

This is an update to a collection that was originally developed by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, and the Women of Color Network. We would like to thank SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, especially Loretta Ross, and the Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice for their years of dedication to and development of reproductive justice as a framework and movement and for all of their resources that are part of this collection.

Gender Based Violence and Intersecting Challenges Impacting Native American & Alaskan Village Communities

ckeene — Wed, 12 Oct 2016 20:34:43 +0000

Gender Based Violence and Intersecting Challenges Impacting Native American & Alaskan Village Communities ckeene Wed, 10/12/2016 - 16:34

Published

September 01, 2016

The identities of Native Americans/Alaskan Villagers originate in various experiences and political statuses. Enrollment status means an individual is a citizen of tribe. “Tribe” is defined by the United States for some federal government purposes to include only tribes that arefederally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, pursuant to the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, as amended in 1936 to include a number of Alaska Native villages (US Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2015). Throughout the country, there are tribes that have had active applications for federal enrollment for over 30 years. In the last three years, three new tribes have been granted “federal status” by the federal government, which oversees the application process and helps define which Native community has been given the political status of a sovereign Nation. However, Native identity and sovereignty are also defined by Native people as being about a cultural connection, such as being tied to the land and water, subsistence hunting and fishing, community life, traditional values, and spiritual practice, not simply a political status as qualified by Western thinking.

The voices in many of the materials included in this Special Collection may come from a sovereign nation perspective, while other voices represent those not enrolled or affiliated with a federally recognized Tribe. Hundreds of tribes exist without federal recognition, meaning individuals may be a member of a state recognized tribe or may not be enrolled in any tribe. Native communities also exist in cities or urban environments, known as “urban Indians,” where families are mixed in both federally/state recognized status or no political Indian status at all. Some individuals were born into an enrollment status, but have since been dis-enrolled from their tribes; this affects their political status of “Native American.” The identity of “Native status” is very complex. All of these identities and citizenship statuses, as well as where they live and where they come from, can affect the methods and availability of services to and for Native survivors.

Common Identity Terminology

Naming conventions have been proposed and used, but none are accepted by all indigenous groups. Typically, each name has a particular audience and political or cultural connotation, and regional usage varies.

Aboriginal
Alaskan Native
Alaskan Villager
American Indian
First Nations
Indian
Indigenous
Native
Native American
Native Hawaiian
Tribal
Tribe or Village Name (Navajo, Cherokee, Seminole and Emmonak are examples of self-identity used instead of the above list)

For more information on Native identities, please see the following resources:

Real Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native America by Eva Marie Garroutte for The University of California Press (2003)
Frequently Asked Questions on Federal Tribal Enrollment from the U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Affairs
American Indians and Alaska Natives - What are State Recognized Tribes? from the Administration for Native Americans (2014)
Federal and State Recognized Tribes from the National Conference of State Legislatures (Updated 2015)

The content of this collection has been selected to highlight areas of intersections impeding the safety of Native American families. Each section contains extremely unique impacts regarding sovereignty, policy, historical trauma and cultural impacts of cultural oppression or colonization. This collection is not meant to be a complete representation of all intersections of family or intimate partner violence, as it would be impossible to represent thousands of trauma-impacting factors; it is instead meant to provide a comprehensive collection of the most significant and researched resources on domestic violence and intersecting issues affecting Native and Alaskan Native people today.

Fostering Resilience, Respect & Healthy Growth in Childhood and Beyond

admin — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 14:58:04 +0000

Fostering Resilience, Respect & Healthy Growth in Childhood and Beyond admin Wed, 07/27/2016 - 10:58

Published

July 01, 2016

Author(s)

Ericka Kimball

Casey Keene

This Special Collection offers resources that promote strategies for creating environments where children can thrive with particular focus on enhancing capacity for resilience across the lifespan. While this collection emphasizes primary prevention strategies that foster healthy attitudes and behaviors, it also reflects our understanding of trauma as a common human experience, and explores post-traumatic growth as a positive framework for understanding trauma within the context of child development. Central to this collection is the belief that advocates working to end gender based violence are committed to the safety and well being of all children, and wish to create social change by investing in the potential that children offer – the promise of a new generation of non-violent, respectful young people and adults who resist traditional social norms that perpetuate violence against women and girls.

The resources in this collection are organized by intended audience and address all levels of the social ecological model. Here you’ll find materials for use by young people, parents and caregivers, teachers and school-based professionals, helping professionals, gender-based violence intervention and prevention advocates, and communities and organizations. Links to related Special Collections are also provided.

This collection was developed as a product of the Adult Children Exposed to Domestic Violence (ACE-DV) Leadership Forum, a project of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence established to amplify the voices and experiences of ACE-DV to enhance our movement to end gender based violence. Special thanks to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, the Vermont Network Against Domestic Violence, and the University of Minnesota School of Social Work for supporting the development of this resource.