The Community Wide Plan - Domestic Violence Network Domestic Violence Network

The Plan

Equity: Listening to the Truth, Amplifying Voices, Changing Systems

For over twenty years, the Domestic Violence Network (DVN) has been a leader in the community to address issues surrounding the prevention and intervention of domestic violence in Central Indiana. DVN has continued to facilitate collaborative relationships between service providers, community partners, and grassroots organizations, provide training on best practices, and advocate for those who experience violence. DVN plans to continue this work and expand on it during the organization’s next Community Wide Plan.

DVN spearheads a Community Wide Plan every three years to assess progress and address challenges to achieving violence-free homes. In an effort to address all forms of violence and oppression, and through research and community conversations, DVN decided that two long-neglected and vulnerable populations, Black and African American women and the LGBTQ+ community, will be the focus of the 2020 CWP. The 2020 plan, Equity: Listening to the Truth, Amplifying Voices, Changing Systems, focuses on two populations that have historically been left out of the conversation about domestic violence prevention and intervention. The statistics are clear: members of the Black and African American women and LGBTQ+ communities experience violence at higher rates than any other group in this country.

DVN seeks to get to the root causes of this inequity and facilitate collaboration among social service providers in Indianapolis to establish best practices in serving these focus populations. Leading up to the formation of Equity, DVN gathered input through community conversations with members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as with Black and African American women. DVN also conducted a series of focus groups with community partners, law enforcement, the City of Indianapolis, and grassroots organizations – all of whom work both directly and indirectly to end domestic violence. This fifth plan builds upon 2017’s CWP, Intersections, which set out to end domestic violence by examining common risk factors that lead to violence. DVN’s vision for Equity is that it will build upon the feedback gathered from survivors and the community-at-large, and for the plan to continue to be community driven.

Over the course of the next three years, DVN will lead the community to facilitate focused task forces for both populations, hold events and programming aimed at education and best practices, create training brochures, and work on educational outreach to service providers in Central Indiana on trauma-informed care. By working together and expanding our knowledge of the correlation between risk and protective factors with those who experience abuse, the community will be better equipped to prevent and respond to domestic violence today, tomorrow, and for years to come.

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