Since 2020 the world has changed, and throughout that time member programs have continuously adapted their services and navigated challenges to meet the emerging needs of survivors and their children. Over the past three years, WSCADV was there for local programs so they could be there for their community.
Our pragmatic action included:
- Securing $66.8 Million in emergency funding to keep the doors open at local domestic violence and crime victim programs and to help meet the emerging needs of survivors and address devastating funding shortfalls.
- Securing $8 Million in ongoing biannual funding for domestic violence programs—the first increase in the state domestic violence services budget in nearly 20 years.
- Equipping over 17,550 advocates and helping professions in over 200 training courses with the tools they need to best meet the needs of survivors in their communities, adapting to both virtual and in-person trainings based on safety and member program needs.
- Bringing together over 1,380 attendants at our annual conferences to hear wisdom from more than a dozen plenary speakers, to learn and build advocacy skills in over 60 workshops, and to be in community with each other across the state.
- Creating and equipping a cohort of four domestic violence programs with tools to implement the evidence-based Domestic Violence Housing First approach and providing $45,000 in flexible financial assistance for distribution directly to survivors to rebuild their lives.
Spotlight: Restoryation
In 2022, together with 24 other state and territorial domestic violence coalitions, we launched “Restoryation,” a national needs assessment project using storytelling as a way to understand and make sense of the immeasurable stress, fatigue, and secondary trauma experienced by domestic violence service providers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Survivor advocates have valuable stories to share. The project provided a way for front-line crisis advocates to pause, process their experiences, and re-connect. The project was also a way to assess and analyze the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the domestic violence workforce by an evaluation team led by Dr. Cris Sullivan, Dr. Gabriela López-Zerón, and Dr. Oyesola Oluwafunmilayo Ayeni.
Between Fall 2022 and Spring 2023, WSCADV hosted eight Retoryation Story Circles with over 110 domestic violence advocates across Washington State, providing a restorative space to process trauma, heal collectively, and re-build connection.
WSCADV is now in the process of learning from the evaluation data, assessing sustainability, retention, and organizational care of the workforce, and using these findings to help guide movement work forward. We look forward to sharing more with you over the coming year.