domestic violence

Solutions For the Most Dangerous Part of Pregnancy: Violence in the Home

Across California, organizations are working on anti-violence solutions to improve outcomes for parents and their babies. Efforts include working with physicians to better detect and help pregnant people who are experiencing abuse.

Women are more than twice as likely to die from homicide during pregnancy and the year following childbirth than from hypertensive disorders, hemorrhage and infection.

Analysis: It’s Time to Rethink Our Response to Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence has escalated over the past two years. Research points to economic distress, increased time indoors with abusive partners, and worsening mental health as exacerbating factors.

I wanted to better understand this crisis, which often flies under the radar. So I reached out to several advocates and practitioners to find out more about intimate partner violence and how some organizations are leveraging community healing practices to address the problem.

Opinion: We Need Sustainable Funding to End Domestic Violence

California’s education system needs more social, emotional and sexual health education that recognizes the racial and gender identities of young people. Prevention programs can meet this need.

California’s legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom should include $15 million in ongoing funding in the state budget. By combining prevention and intervention funding, we can address the needs of survivors of violence and also prevent future violence.

Domestic Violence Survivors Often Don’t Want to Call the Police. California Tries A New Approach

In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will fund pilot projects that provide alternative responses to domestic violence. While cities and jurisdictions have launched similar efforts, California is the first state to support such experiments at scale.

“It’s the biggest investment in alternative responses that the state has ever seen,” said Cat Brooks, of Justice Teams Network.

California Laws Don’t Prevent Minors from Marrying Adults

In California, a person under 18 can marry with the consent of one parent and a judge. The state is one of only nine in the nation that do not set a minimum age for marriage.

People married as children or teens are more likely to experience domestic violence, contract sexually transmitted infections, have early pregnancies, and end up divorced, research shows. Marriage under 18 also contradicts age of consent laws in many states.

The Pandemic Spurred a Domestic Violence Epidemic. It’s Not Over Yet.

Since the pandemic began, California organizations that serve domestic violence survivors report getting more requests for help than ever before and hearing more stories of extreme abuse.

Rather than diminish, this trend has persisted as society reopens and survivors feel better able to seek help because they’re no longer trapped at home or worried about getting the virus, advocates said.

Taking a Stand: How Teens Are Working to End Relationship Violence

Hundreds of young people across California are sparking conversations in their schools and communities about what healthy relationships should look like and how to recognize abusive behaviors. The California Health Report spoke with six of these youths about their activism and the experiences that motivate them.

All the youths we interviewed saw an urgent need to help more young people recognize abusive behaviors in themselves and others.

Mike Duncan, the founder of Native Dads Network, sits on a bench.

To Counter Domestic Violence, Some Native Americans Embrace Tradition

Mike Duncan is founder of Native Dads Network, a Sacramento-based nonprofit that runs workshops on healthy parenting and relationships. The workshops draw on traditional Indigenous teachings about the value of life, the role of parents and the sacredness of women.

The network is one of a growing number of programs across the state that seek to address high rates of domestic violence in many Tribal communities by using Native American people’s own traditions and history as a guide.

Cat Brooks, executive director of Justice Teams Network, a coalition of organizations dedicated to eradicating state violence, sits outside her home in Oakland, Calif. At 19, Brooks was severely beaten by her husband but when the police intervened, Brooks was taken to jail rather than her husband. Martin do Nascimento / Resolve Magazine

Alternatives to Calling the Police for Domestic Violence Survivors

If involving the police and criminal justice system isn’t a safe, reliable option for most survivors, why is it offered as the main pathway for seeking help? A majority of survivors who called the police on their abusers later concluded that police involvement was unhelpful at best, and at worst made them feel less safe.

The conversation has gained new urgency amidst the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and calls to reevaluate the scope of police funding and responsibilities.

How Colleges Are Supporting Students Leaving Abusive Relationships

Relationship violence threatens not only students’ physical safety and emotional well-being, but also their academic prospects. Some campuses are finding solutions to help keep survivors in school.

Federal law requires schools and universities that receive government funding to prevent gender-based violence and harassment, and address the needs of survivors so they can continue their education. Survivors have the right to special accommodations such as extra time to complete their school work.

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