Savannah Summit 2010 Description

MULTI-STATE SUMMIT: BUILDING STATE CAPACITY TO BETTER SERVE IMMIGRANT VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE,

SEXUAL ASSAULT, AND TRAFFICKING

Introduction:

Violence against women in the form of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking are problems that affect all families across the United States regardless of socio-economic, racial, class, religious, and cultural lines.  Although relief for immigrant victims is available, many immigrant victims and their children do not benefit from these laws and services. 

For many immigrant victims and their children, systemic barriers in justice and social systems, including language, cultural, and economic barriers pose challenging obstacles to obtaining protection and relief under the laws in this country. 

Many communities are struggling with these issues as victim services programs, legal services agencies, law enforcement, and courts scramble to respond to the needs of growing immigrant communities.

The Immigrant Women Program (IWP), Legal Momentum has strived to protect and expand the rights of battered immigrants. IWP employs a broad variety of strategies including public policy advocacy, litigation, research, and technical assistance to and training of advocates, attorneys and government personnel in providing direct assistance to immigrant victims. 

Working under a grant from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), IWP promotes and protects the rights of battered immigrants and their children through nationwide and regional conferences, technical assistance, training materials, and outreach. 

IWP is a co-founder and co-chair of the National Network to End Violence Against Immigrant Women, which seeks to challenge and eliminate all forms of oppression and discrimination against immigrants facing violence by empowering them to build better lives for themselves and their children.[1]

Multi-State Summit, January 20-22, 2010,  Savannah, Georgia

The Multi-State Summit will be the sixth summit conference in a series of multi-state summits being conducted nationally. IWP held successful summits in:

·         The Southwest 2000 (AZ, CO, NM, NV, TX)

·         The Midwest 2003 (IA, MN, ND, SD, WI,)

·         The Southeast 2004 (AL, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC) and

·         The Northwest 2005(ID, MT, OR, UT, WA,WY);

·         St. Louis (not regional) 2007 (KS, MO, NE OH, TN). 

The 2010 Multi-State Summit will take place January 20-22, 2010 in Savannah, Georgia and is funded by the Office on Violence Against Women, Department of Justice.  The states being invited to bring state teams to the Sixth Multi-State Summit are Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, New Hampshire, Maine, and Oklahoma.

The Summit goals are to increase the capacity of states to identify justice and social services system barriers that harm immigrant victims and to craft systemic reforms aimed at removing these barriers.  The project is a coordinated effort of IWP and leadership organizations in each state. Generally we and OVW encourage that there be a minimum of two state team leaders for each state.  Often one of the lead organizations works generally on domestic violence/sexual assault against women and the second lead organization is most often a representative from a group that has experience working with women in immigrant communities. 

Each state will bring a multi-disciplinary team to the Summit.  The Summit will provide a forum for state teams to develop a collaborative process for addressing the needs of immigrant victims in their respective states.  State teams will be asked to contemplate how these needs can best be met. State teams will work together at the Summit to identify steps they can take when they return home that will improve services to and protection for immigrant victims in their state. Summit participants will have an opportunity to meet and network with allies from other states. 

Expert faculty composed of IWP and other national experts work with and support state team leaders in facilitating pre-summit state team meetings and state team meetings held at the summit that will result in the development of a state action plan. Expert faculty will work with each state team to ensure that state team plans are realistic and achievable.

Participation in the conference is by invitation only.  Each state will have a leadership team of two or three agencies who will work together to identify summit team participants, coordinate pre-summit state team meetings, and organize the implementation and further development of plans for action developed by state team members at the summit. Each state will bring to the Summit an interdisciplinary 10 person team. A portion of state team members must be OVW funded (e.g. STOP, Rural, LAV, Coalition, Arrest grantees) and should use their OVW travel funds to pay for their travel costs.  OVW grantees with questions about whether they can use their OVW travel funds to travel to the Summit should contact their OVW program specialist.

Most team members will need to fund their travel out of OVW travel funds or other funds their program can make available for travel.  Legal Momentum has limited funds it can provide to each state as a travel stipend of  maximum of $2,700 to fund travel (air, ground, per diem, hotel at double occupancy rate) for a maximum of three state team members.  This funding can only be used to cover the cost of state team members who do not receive OVW funding.  These funds can be used to fund programs that receive STOP funding but no other OVW funding. Teams will generally be composed of members working in the following areas: 

·         Domestic violence/sexual assault/trafficking advocacy groups

·         Community based organizations serving women in immigrant communities

·         Justice system (police, courts, prosecutors, judges)

·         Lawyers (e.g. legal services, immigration, family)

·         Immigrant community based programs with experience working with and supporting immigrant women and immigrant victims

·         Grant administrators (STOP, VOCA, FVPSA)

·         Faith-based organizations

·         Local representatives from the Department of Homeland Security

·         Local funders

·         Health care providers

·         Adult protective services or child protective services workers

The exact configuration of each state team will vary from state to state.  The goal is to identify a team of persons who are interested and can influence others to affect change in services for and treatment of immigrant victims.  IWP will work with state team leaders to help form this multi-disciplinary team. 

During the conference, the teams will attend substantive trainings on a range of issues relevant to working with immigrant victims.  These workshops will be taught by experts from across the country working with immigrant victims and justice system interventions. Topics to be covered include: cultural competency, criminal and civil justice issues, legal immigration options for immigrant victims of violence against women, issues that arise in family court cases for immigrant victims, public benefits access, and the development of working partnerships among victim service providers, immigrant organizations, and the justice system.  These workshops are not intended to be comprehensive, but rather to present issues and provide substantive background that will encourage discussion within state teams.  In addition to the training, participants will have an opportunity to learn from others from the six states who work in similar professions to their own and will meet throughout the conference with members of their own state team. 

At the conclusion of the Summit, state team members will identify one or more actions that they will either personally, or with the assistance of their agencies, undertake to help immigrant victims in their state. Each state team will also be required to commit to working together as a team with others in their state on one or more projects aimed at improving services and removing systemic barriers for immigrant victims.  After the summit, state leadership organizations will coordinate implementation and further development of state plans created at the summit.  IWP will provide technical assistance to state teams as they implement state plans and will follow up with state teams putting them in touch with other states across the country with whom they can share experiences and learn from others who have undertaken similar projects as the ones the state team is implementing.

The success of these summits is immeasurable.  State teams have not only continued to implement their state action plans, they have expanded on their summit goals and are now tackling more issues and challenges faced by the immigrant victims in their states.  The summits have served as a catalyst for state team members to work together to identify the needs of immigrant victims in each state and to remove the systemic barriers that inhibit immigrant victims from accessing justice and social systems.