Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community (IDVAAC) is a national policy and practitioner training center established to address domestic violence in the African American community. The formal mission of IDVAAC is as follows: To provide an interdisciplinary vehicle and forum by which scholars, practitioners, and observers of family violence in the African American community will have the continual opportunity to articulate their perspective on family violence through research findings, the examination of service delivery and intervention mechanisms, and the identification of appropriate and effective responses to prevent and reduce family violence in the African American community.

IDVAAC’s goals include the following:

Creating a community of African American scholars and practitioners devoted to working in the area of violence prevention in the African American community
Raising consciousness of the impact of violence in the African American community by gathering and disseminating information
Identifying community needs and recommending best practices

IDVAAC was conceived in 1993 when a group of four African American practitioners and researchers found themselves to be the only African Americans attending the First National Conference on Domestic Violence and informally gathered to discuss their concerns about the lack of emphasis on domestic violence in the African American community. Following the initial discussion in 1993, the group engaged in efforts to establish a formal organization by securing operating funds from the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

IDVAAC is housed in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota–St. Paul and is administered by Oliver J. Williams and a Steering Committee comprised of 10 women and men who have professional backgrounds in the areas of service delivery, violence prevention advocacy, and academic research. A major contribution of IDVAAC to the field of domestic violence has been the rejection of domestic violence intervention strategies that have been designed from a “one size fits all” perspective. As such, IDVAAC has led the way in promoting the view that effective prevention and intervention aimed toward the reduction of domestic violence among African Americans must be informed by culturally competent service delivery. That is, domestic violence interventions targeted to African Americans must take into consideration the experiences and realities that influence motives for and justifications leading to domestic violence, and how African American victims of domestic violence experience and make sense of their victimization.

Over the course of its existence, IDVAAC has sought to enhance awareness of domestic violence in the African American community and the competency of practitioners to address domestic violence among African Americans by hosting national forums that have featured practitioners and researchers recognized for their innovative approaches in the areas of domestic violence prevention and intervention. Selected forum topics have included Partner Abuse in the Black Community: Culturally Specific Prevention and Treatment Models, African American Children and Domestic Violence, Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence in the African American Community, Welfare Reform, Domestic Violence and the African American Community, Domestic Violence and the Hip Hop Generation, and Mobilizing the African American Community to End Domestic Violence.

In recent years IDVAAC has secured a combination of public and private funding to address a variety of issues, including assessing community stakeholders’ perspectives on the causes and prevention of domestic violence in the African American community, conducting national training institutes on the intersection of prisoner reentry and domestic violence, and examining factors that hinder and promote the use of supervised visitation in minority communities. Additionally, IDVAAC has embarked on a project to more broadly disseminate its work by hosting a series of Webcasts pertaining to cultural competency and prisoner reentry and domestic violence.

This example Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.