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.
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.
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.
In communities of color, too often the options we have to address violence rely on punishment, police and incarceration. For too many, these options cause additional cycles of trauma and harm, and are not survivor-centered.
The murder of a Fresno woman by her partner on May 4 is a reminder of the dangers many domestic violence survivors confront when trying to leave a relationship, police and experts said.