GFWC clubwomen work in their own communities, and achieve results that are global in scope.

Creating a Community of Advocates

According to the National Center for Victims of Crime, domestic violence spans all racial, socio-economic, and demographic boundaries. Domestic violence takes many forms, ranging from battering, rape and homicide to threats of violence, verbal assaults and other forms of intimidation. Only in the last two decades have attitudes about domestic violence begun to change.

The first shelter for battered women opened in 1974. Since then hundreds of other shelters have opened to provide shelter to abused women and their children; however, they often operate at capacity (Attorney General's Family Violence Task Force, Pennsylvania, 1989).

Your involvement in domestic violence awareness and prevention can take many forms. As a volunteer service organization, GFWC's members rightfully look to the needs of their own communities for guidance in creating projects and programs.

Why Look to Community Engagement Strategies to Prevent Family Violence?

While appropriate services and responsive institutions are important components in the effort to end family violence, it takes more than that to generate and sustain real change. Families and community members play a crucial role in preventing family violence for many reasons:

• Studies show that abused women turn first to those closest to them—extended family, friends, and neighbors—before they reach out to an organization or professional service provider. Relatively few access shelter services. And they seek out government institutions—police, courts, and child protection agencies—last.
• Families that experience violence are often disconnected from traditional service providers and isolated from services offered outside their immediate neighborhood.
• Community members often know which families need help and which services can make a difference.
• Community members know the cultural values, traditions, and practices that support violence—as well as those that can be used appropriately to intervene and stop it.
• Communities include men, women, and youth who understand the connection between violence in the home and on the street and see family violence as a primary barrier to community development and revitalization.
• Most community residents and leaders have the willingness and capacity to develop the skills needed to conduct family violence prevention and intervention activities.

To provide concrete guidance to communities, policy leaders, and individuals engaged in activities to end violence against women, the National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women developed the Toolkit To End Violence Against Women. The recommendations contained in the toolkit were reviewed by numerous experts in the fields of sexual assault, domestic violence, and stalking.

The Family Violence Prevention Fund offers the Children & DV Toolbox with resources, eductional tools, and access to free materials for communities. FVPF also created the Community Engagement for Change Initiative to provide community members with the tools to help victims of abuse and to end the cycle of violence. Download the Community Engagement Makes the Difference program guide.

California's 2007 Domestic Violence Awareness Month Toolkit was created as a resource to fit community needs and help promote Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.  This toolkit was developed by the California State Domestic Violence Interagency Collaborative, representing multiple state agencies and nonprofit organizations.

Seeitandstopit.org, a public awareness website maintained by the Teen Action Campaign, offers facts, statistics, and testimony on teen dating violence and provides information on how teens can get help for themselves or a friend and a toolkit for starting a school organization.