Community-Level Prevention in DELTA FOCUS Stories

Recently, the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) and PreventIPV.org released the newest DELTA FOCUS Innovation story, Trauma-Informed Community Building. This is the fourth story to be released, and three more stories of success and lessons learned in preventing domestic violence will be released soon. The newest story, similar to the ones before it, highlight ways that DELTA FOCUS recipients have created change in their communities and highlight community-level prevention practices, too.

DELTA FOCUS recipients in Trauma-Informed Community Building addressed domestic and intimate partner violence prevention through impacting social and structural determinants of health. Coalitions combined efforts across sectors when partnering with a housing authority that addresses homelessness and rehousing, a community family and child resource center, and other community organizations that engage youth and adults in community assessment. In addition to working towards community cohesion and social efficacy for intimate partner violence prevention, coalitions and their partner organizations had to build trust and cohesion with each other and with the community in order to begin working on community-level risk and protective factors for violence. This DELTA FOCUS Innovation story provides great examples of multi-sector partners for community-level prevention that uses health equity approaches for violence prevention.

The three other previously published DELTA FOCUS Innovation stories also have implications for community-level prevention. In Engaging Men and Boys as Intimate Partner Violence Prevention Allies, projects included media campaigns highlighting local men in men’s engagement and prevention coalitions. Engaging Youth in IPV Prevention explores community-level prevention activities for youth like media campaigns and youth summits and organizing to change social norms. Policy-Based Prevention Approaches shows several ways DELTA FOCUS sites address community- and societal-level domestic violence prevention, including developing and disseminating policy education resources and providing technical assistance for local organizations working on changing school policy or for campuses looking to change their intimate partner violence prevention policies.

Learning from the success of prevention peers strengthens prevention across the nation. The DELTA FOCUS Innovation stories provide a brief narrative of intimate partner violence prevention that advances the field of primary prevention. Stay tuned to PreventIPV.org for more Innovation stories coming soon.