Task Forces:
Task Forces come together to address a shared area
of concern related to the mission and goals of the Alliance.
Any member can participate in any Task Force.
Child Advocacy Task Force
LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, & Questioning)
Task Force Description
Task Force Page
Northern Virginia Task Force
Social Justice Task Force
Southwest Virginia Task Force
Virginia Teen Dating Violence Prevention Task Force
Wild Women of Wisdom Task Force
Caucuses come together as a group of people who have not had equal access to full participation in society and/or in the coalition. For example, there have been Caucuses for violence survivors, for women of color, and for lesbians. Membership is limited to those who share the identity of the Caucus.
Women of Color Caucus
Survivor Caucus
Child Advocacy Task Force
The Child Advocacy Task Force is a statewide collaboration to promote a healthy environment free of sexual and domestic violence for all children.
Our multi-disciplinary task force formed in the Fall of 2006 in effort to identify issues faced by children and youth who have been exposed to sexual and domestic violence and to collaborate on the development of effective strategies, tools, and interventions to meet the needs of these often forgotten victims. The Child Advocacy Task Force has had representation from over 80 child advocates from every region of Virginia. Please join us to work on behalf of our children.
Here’s what the Child Advocacy Task Force is working on…
Conference Project : One Voice: Gathering the Village to End Domestic & Sexual Violence for ALL Children Conference on February 21, 2008 in Richmond, VA.
Toolkit Project: A handy manual of interventions and tools for supporting child survivors
Print Project: Published materials illustrating the effects of abuse on children
Contact us at: 804.377.0335
View a Power Point slide show for more information about the Task Force.
LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,
& Questioning) Task Force
The LGBT Task Force was created in November 2003 to support
LGBT organizations, domestic violence programs, and sexual
assault crisis centers in Virginia to better outreach and serve
LGBT individuals who are experiencing interpersonal violence
through outreach, training and education. The goals of the
LGBT Task Force are to increase the visibility of LGBT individuals
who are experiencing intimate partner violence through building
collaborations with LGBT organizations in Virginia and to provide
training in each region of Virginia for domestic violence,
sexual assault, and LGBT service providers.
The Northern Virginia Task Force of VSDVAA is comprised of
Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, and Dual Programs. The group
meets quarterly to discuss individual program updates, current
legal and policy trends in the Northern Virginia area, and
is a space which provides support for the advocacy community
in the region. Due to the region’s urban environment
and jurisdictional closeness, the Task Force meetings are a
time to collaborate, problem solve, and improve our response
to victims of domestic and sexual violence.
Task Force Mission: The
purpose of the Social Justice Task Force is to address the
intersections of violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, economic
injustice, and other oppressions in the lives of survivors
of domestic and sexual violence and their children. This will
be accomplished by promoting social change and individual and
collective accountability in our work.
Goals:
1.) To actively raise
difficult issues about oppressions which may lead us within
the Alliance to challenge ourselves and each other and to question
our own assumptions and actions
2). To raise and actively promote
awareness about these issues in the Alliance membership, Sexual
Assault Crisis Centers and Domestic Violence Programs
3). To actively promote racial
equality and economic opportunities that include but are not
limited to, access to healthcare and living wage jobs within
our organizations and through the Commonwealth of Virginia
4.) To support and work collectively with other task forces
and caucuses which address specific oppressions.
Vision: The Intersection of Oppressions
In order to promote substantive social change
and effective service delivery, advocates must recognize and
address the intersections of other forms of oppression with
domestic violence and sexual assault (DV/SA). These other forms
of oppressions include, but are not limited to, racism, sexism,
homophobia, classism, ableism and ageism.
There are many ways to understand how the link between domestic
and sexual violence and other oppressions operates. These perspectives
are not mutually exclusive:
- Layers of oppression make some people more vulnerable
to DV and or/SA
- DV/SA are sometimes used as tools of other oppressions
(ex: homophobic man raping a woman because she is perceived
to be a lesbian)
- Some forms of oppression contribute directly to perpetuating
DV and SA. (ex: lack of economic justice and a living wage
keeping a woman in an abusive relationship because she cannot
support her children without the abuser’s income)
- DV and SA are forms of oppression in and of themselves.
Victims of DV and SA are disempowered, judged, and marginalized
because of the violence they have experienced.
People who have experienced DV and or/ SA and are also oppressed
in other ways because of their race, class, sexuality, gender,
etc. face multiple intersecting barriers to equality and safety.
(ex: if an African American woman is raped by a white man,
did sexism or racism or both contribute to her experience?
What additional oppression might she face as she tries to recover
or seek justice?) The fear has been expressed that “adding” an
analysis of other oppressions to our work would take a way
from the “real work” of addressing DV and SA. However,
these other oppressions are already there and not separate
in the lives of many people we serve (or should be serving). The
Social Justice Task Force recognizes that survivors deserve
to have all barriers they face understood and addressed comprehensively
by service providers.
All oppressions, including DV/SA, are perpetuated
by the belief that power must be power over, not shared power.
If we really want to end DV/SA, we have to strive for equality
and shared power. In order to accomplish this goal we must
take a stand against all forms of oppression and modeling the
values of equality and shared power in the way that we do our
work. If you have questions about the meetings or the task
force contact Lisa
Furr.
On August 2, 2004 programs from across Southwestern Virginia
met to form a Task Force to be proposed to VSDVAA. The
group identified the following objectives:
- To
provide a voice for historically oppressed and marginalized
people of Southwest Virginia within the Alliance and
society.
- To
provide a means for Southwest Virginia Domestic and Sexual
Violence advocates to meet and share information and provide
support while working towards a violence-free society.
- To
advocate for the equality of every programs' ability to participate
in Alliance work and training events reducing the obstacles
of prohibitive and excessive travel costs and staff time invested
thereby eliminating the need for some programs to choose
between participation in Alliance work and direct client services. (A
2-hour Alliance meeting or training requires a staff time investment
of 12+ hours, a 6-hour Alliance meeting or training requires
a staff time investment of 16+ hours in addition to prohibitive
mileage expenses and hotel costs. Large amounts of
staff time required to participate not only considerably
reduces the amount of staff time that can be spent providing
local services during the week, it creates an additional
hardship since the revision of the Fair Labor Standards Act.)
- To
address the challenges distinct to Domestic and Sexual Violence
victims/survivors in Southwest Virginia.
- To
be a catalyst for challenging and changing the disempowering
influences of dominant culture on citizens in Southwest
Virginia.
As a taskforce of the Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence
Action Alliance, VTDVPT is committed to furthering the mission
of all local agency staff doing teen dating violence prevention
work across Virginia.
VTDVPT’s ongoing activities include:
- Serving as a vehicle for networking and information sharing
amongst these professionals
- Organizing an annual statewide conference for teens interested
in dating violence prevention
- Finalizing a redraft of a facilitator’s guide for
anyone doing dating violence prevention work with teens.
(The guide is full of helpful suggestions and tested educational
activities.)
- Developing a new prevention initiative with the coaching
and training help of the PREVENT Institute staff at UNC Chapel
Hill.
The preliminary goals of the Wild Women of Wisdom Task Force
are to celebrate aging in a positive way, support each other,
share strategies about how we are able to do this work and
thrive—mentor women in the movement, and advocate for
older homeless, battered and sexual assault survivors, and
practice laughter and support our senses of humor. The Task
Force is in the process of creating a curriculum about how
sexual and domestic violence agencies can more effectively
work with older women.
Women of Color Caucus
The purpose of the Women of Color Caucus is to create a source
of peer/professional support and information, to develop Women
of Color leadership within the coalition, and to provide a
voice for Women of Color who might not otherwise be heard.
History has shown that Women of Color must be responsible for
doing our own work because no one else will do it for us. Meetings
are open to all individuals who self-identify as Women of Color,
particularly those who work in Virginia’s domestic violence
programs and sexual assault crisis centers.
Why the term "Women of Color"?
The term Women of Color is a political statement
because it represents women
as an oppressed class who have claimed the power to name and define
themselves and their experiences. Women of Color (WOC) include but are
not
limited to Native American, Africans, Hispanic, African-American, Chinese,
Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, Thai, Indo-Chinese, Vietnamese, and
Pakistanis. WOC reflect a diverse group of women.
The Survivor Caucus consists of survivors of domestic violence,
sexual assault, and child abuse; the goal of this caucus is
to provide a safe place for survivors to have their voices
heard while working within the Action Alliance to help implement
governing rules. The Caucus is currently working on developing
Camp Mabon, a camping and growth experience for survivors.
For
more information E-mail Directors@vsdvalliance.org. E-mail is not a secure form of communication. To ensure confidentiality please call the Family Violence & Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.838.8238 (V/TTY).
