The Rural Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, and Stalking Program (Rural Program) supports efforts to enhance the safety of rural victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and supports projects uniquely designed to address and prevent these crimes in rural areas.
Donor Name: Office on Violence Against Women (OVW)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 04/11/2023
Size of the Grant: $950,000
Grant Duration: 36 months
Details:
OVW is a component of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). Created in 1995, OVW administers grant programs authorized by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and subsequent legislation and provides national leadership on issues of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. OVW grants support coordinated community responses to hold offenders accountable and serve victims.
The Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 added a new Rural Program purpose area on sexual assault forensic medical examination programs and added improving access to quality sexual assault examinations by trained health care providers to the program’s list of required strategies.
Purpose Areas
Pursuant to 34 U.S.C. § 12341, funds under this program must be used for one or more of the following purposes:
- To identify, assess, and appropriately respond to child, youth, and adult victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking in rural communities, by encouraging collaboration among domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking victim service providers; law enforcement agencies; prosecutors; courts; other criminal justice service providers; human and community service providers; educational institutions; and health care providers, including sexual assault forensic examiners;
- To establish and expand nonprofit, nongovernmental, State, tribal, territorial, and local government victim services in rural communities to child, youth, and adult victims;
- To increase the safety and well-being of women and children in rural communities, by–
- dealing directly and immediately with domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking occurring in rural communities; and
- creating and implementing strategies to increase awareness and prevent domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking; and
- To develop, expand, implement, and improve the quality of sexual assault forensic medical examination or sexual assault nurse examiner programs.
For many applicants, the Rural Program is one of the few sources of funding to support the provision of core services for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking. For this reason, OVW will only fund applications that propose projects that implement a collaborative response, support victim services, and/or create a direct response to these crimes in rural communities. Proposed projects must devote at least 70% of their project activities and budget to Rural Program purpose areas 1, 2, 3(A) or 4. Applicants may apply to address purpose area 3(B), but no more than 30% of the project budget and activities should be dedicated to prevention and awareness activities. OVW may approve project budgets that allocate more than 30% to prevention and awareness activities where strong justification is provided by the applicant.
In addition to the purpose areas, Rural Program grantees are required to implement at least one of the strategies set forth in 34 U.S.C. § 12341(b)(1)-(5):
- Implementing, expanding, and establishing cooperative efforts and projects among law enforcement officers, prosecutors, victim service providers, and other related parties to investigate and prosecute incidents of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault,
- and stalking, including developing multidisciplinary teams focusing on high-risk cases with the goal of preventing domestic and dating violence homicides;
- Providing treatment, counseling, advocacy, legal assistance, and other long-term and short-term victim and population specific services to adult and minor victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking in rural communities, including assistance in immigration matters;
- Working in cooperation with the community to develop education and prevention strategies directed toward such issues;
- Developing, enlarging, or strengthening programs addressing sexual assault, including sexual assault forensic examiner programs, Sexual Assault Response Teams, law enforcement training, and programs addressing rape kit backlogs; and
- Developing programs and strategies that focus on the specific needs of victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking who reside in remote rural and geographically isolated areas, including addressing the challenges posed by the lack of access to quality sexual assault examinations by trained health care providers, shelters and victims services, and limited law enforcement resources and training, and providing training and resources to Community Health Aides involved in the delivery of Indian Health Service programs.
Priority Areas
Advance racial equity as an essential component of ending sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking.
OVW recognizes the diversity within the populations in rural America and the existing gaps among current Rural Program grantees in providing services that fully reflect the rural communities that they serve. OVW encourages applicants to consider developing projects that address racial equity and ensure that services are representative of their community demographics. Applications should include activities that address this OVW priority through partnerships with and funding for culturally specific, community-based organizations and tribal organizations (including tribal governments and tribal nonprofit organizations)
To qualify for this priority area, applicants must partner with culturally specific, community-based organizations or programs and include project activities that specifically engage, promote, and serve the needs of underserved culturally specific communities. New applications currently providing culturally specific, community-based domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking services are encouraged to apply. Continuation applications that are not currently focusing on the needs of culturally specific populations are encouraged to build capacity in their organizations to address the needs of underserved culturally specific populations within their service areas. Applicants should consider
- Creating culturally specific outreach and educational opportunities in their communities,
- Hiring staff with experience serving culturally specific clients, and/or
- Establishing partnerships with culturally specific organizations that may or may not have experience addressing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking and offering cross training opportunities as part of the collaboration.
“Culturally specific” means primarily directed toward racial and ethnic minority groups (defined in section 1707(g) of the Public Health Services Act (42 U.S.C. §.S.C. § 12341(d)(4), directing OVW to give priority to projects that meet the needs of underserved populations.
Strengthen efforts to prevent and end sexual assault, including victim services and civil and criminal justice responses.
There has been a gradual increase in Rural Program applications focusing on sexual assault; however, there remains need to encourage Rural Program applicants to address this issue. New and continuation applicants are encouraged to include activities that address this OVW priority area through one or both of the following strategies:
- Sexual assault applications focusing primarily on responding to non-intimate partner sexual assault, including sexual assault across the lifespan. These includes prevention, outreach, offender intervention, medical forensic care, civil legal assistance, and victim services. Applicants are encouraged to include one or more of the aforementioned activities to provide comprehensive services that address physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs of survivors of sexual assault and their families. Examples of activities include, but are not limited to:
- Organizational capacity building to enhance sexual assault services within the organization;
- Developing policies and procedures directly related to serving sexual assault victims;
- Legal and medical advocacy;
- Crisis intervention;
- Sexual assault focused prevention, intervention, and awareness outreach;
- Staffing additional sexual assault advocate positions;
- Providing training for sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs).
- Developing, expanding, or enhancing the quality of forensic medical exams or SANE programs;
- Addressing challenges posed by lack of access to quality sexual assault services, such as transportation, childcare, and housing;
- Providing relevant accessible services to survivors across the lifespan regardless of when the incident(s) and disclosure(s) take place.
- Providing long and short-term evidence-based holistic healing services; or
- Culturally relevant, trauma informed care.
- Sexual assault applications that focus primarily on improving the criminal justice response to sexual assault, including the investigation, charging, and prosecution of sexual assault crimes. These programs must include a partnership with sexual assault victim service providers to ensure that survivors receive comprehensive support throughout the criminal justice process.
- Applicants are encouraged to enhance investigation and prosecution of sexual assault crimes and provide advocacy throughout the criminal justice process. Example of activities may include, but are not limited to:
- Providing sexual assault training for law enforcement and prosecutors;
- Supporting sexual assault investigator or prosecutor positions;
- Enhancing or creating law enforcement and/or prosecution sexual assault victim advocate positions;
- Supporting the apprehension, relinquishment, and storage of firearms, to include education and training on this topic;
- Providing criminal legal advocacy training for advocates.
Funding Information
- Anticipated Total Amount to be Awarded Under Solicitation: $32,000,000.00
- Anticipated Maximum Dollar Amount of Awards: $950,000.00
- Period of Performance Duration (Months): 36
Eligible Applicants
- City or township governments, County governments,
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized),
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments),
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education,
- Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education,
- Private institutions of higher education,
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education,
- State governments, Other
Additional Information on Eligibility
Eligible applicants are limited to: States and territories, Indian tribes, local governments, and nonprofit (public or private) entities, including tribal nonprofit organizations in the United States or U.S. territories. For more information, see the Eligibility Information section of this solicitation.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
