District of Columbia Coalition Against Domestic Violence (DCCADV)

Membership support:throughout the course of the year dccadv held regular working groups addressing specific areas of focus: culturally specific service providers work group - dccadv convenes six member programs who provide culturally specific services to survivors of Domestic Violence. These quarterly meetings create designated space to discuss the unique needs of the populations they serve and incorporate strategies to overcome systemic barriers faced by members of the community. This past year our focus centered around increasing the housing options for culturally specific communities who are navigating additional barriers related to language access, immigration, the lack of a financial footprint or credit history, and the need to honor religious practices traditionally not observed in the us. Member programs participated in a retreat earlier in the year to set goals for the work group and build community across providers. Policy task force - dccadv quarterly convenes our policy task force meetings for member programs and the broader legal and service fields that impact Domestic Violence survivors most closely. Through our meetings in fy23 we were able to grow our collaborative efforts around a number of proposed bills. We leveraged our group discussions to legislatively change the way Domestic Violence is considered in a divorce proceeding into specific changes to the definition of Domestic Violence that is more expansive than current law. It was also through this group that we were successfully able to respond to critiques about the bill, that would not support survivors, in a unified voice and keep protections in place. We also began a deliberative process to determine parameters for the Coalition's response to pending bills and our proactive policy agenda. Participation in this group also led to increased testimony to support Domestic Violence survivors on several bills. The Domestic Violence housing continuum (dvhc) met quarterly to discuss challenges across housing options for survivors of Domestic Violence in Washington, dc. Meetings centered legislation impacting housing needsincluding the migrant services bill and influx of immigrants bused to dcchanges to the crime victims compensation program, and dc's shelter fund. The Coalition developed a guidance tool outlining federal and local requirements for voluntary services and gender inclusive spaces across local and federal government funding sources to help programs understand and effectively implement service requirements. The Coalition also did a significant amount of advocacy and technical assistance to the department of human services (dhs), the administrator of the federal family Violence and prevention services act funding to states and territories to ensure that after six months of non-payment form dhs that organizations were reimbursed per their grant agreements with the dc government. Membership steering committee dccadv and five elected executive directors, each representing one of the five service categories of membership, convene monthly to inform the Coalition's work and processes. The committee helped develop and pass a membership voting structure, and informed our annual needs assessment and policy priorities. The committee has also been working on revising the membership application process to incorporate recommendations from the racial justice work group, develop a membership dues structure, and an election process for new steering committee members as we approach the end of the first two-year term. Data work group - in march 2023, dccadv launched a data workgroup for member programs to share data collection processes, communicate about data points, and find ways to clearly communicate the needs of survivors in dc. Conversations center trauma-informed data collection and ways to collect and share program data without impacting survivor confidentiality. The work group identified a number of government agencies we want to connect with to identify what data points they collect relevant to Domestic Violence, and developed questions for each agency. The group also reviewed and informed the Coalition's 5-year needs assessment plan and identified commonly collected data points across dv service providers.