The rural domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking program (rural program) is authorized by 34 U.S.C. 12341

The U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) awarded a $750,000 Rural Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, and Stalking Assistance Program (CFDA 16.589) grant to the Sego Lily Center for the Abused Deaf, a minority and woman-owned non-profit organization located in Salt Lake City, Utah. The 36-month project aims to: 1) identify and increase accessibility to services for deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking in rural communities; 2) continue increasing awareness within the deaf community about dating violence, sexual assault, and available services; and 3) enhance the knowledge and skills of service providers supporting this underserved population. The project involves collaboration with partners such as the Utah Division of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and other state and local entities to provide victim services, develop prevention strategies, and improve the capacity of professionals to assist deaf and hard of hearing survivors of violence.

Rural program funds are used to support programs that: 1) 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 victim service providers, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, courts, other criminal justice service providers, human and community service providers, educational institutions, and health care providers; 2) establish and expand victim services in rural communities to child, youth, and adult victims; 3) increase the safety and well-being of women and children in rural communities, by (a) dealing directly and immediately with domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking; and (b) creating and implementing strategies to increase awareness and prevent these crimes; and 4) develop, expand, implement, and improve the quality of sexual assault forensic medical examination or sexual assault nurse examiner programs. Grantees must use at least one of the following strategies in implementing their projects: 1) implement, expand, and establish 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; 2) provide 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; 3) work in cooperation with the community to develop education and prevention strategies directed toward such issues; 4) develop, enlarge, or strengthen programs addressing sexual assault; and 5) develop programs and strategies that focus on the specific needs of victims of who reside in remote rural and geographically isolated areas. Through this continuation OVW rural program project, sego lily center for the abused deaf, in partnership with department of workforce services office of rehabilitations division of services to the deaf and hard of hearing (dsdhh) &utah state division of services for the blind & visually impaired (dsbvi), utah registry of interpreters for the deaf (utrid), the refuge utah (TRU), dove center, utah legal services (ULS), amethyst center for healing (ACH), utah coalition against sexual assault (ucasa), and utah schools for the deaf and blind (usdb), will implement rural grant. This victim service project addresses the following purpose areas: 1,3, and 4 for beaver, box elder, carbon, clark (eligible city: mesquite & moapa valley), daggett, duchesne, emery, garfield, grand, iron, juab, kane, millard, piute, rich, SAN juan, sanpete, sevier, summit, tooele, uintah, washington (eligible city: hurricane, LA verkins, & ivins), wayne and wasatch counties. Specific activities will include:1) identifying and increasing accessibility in the number of services for deaf and hard of hearing victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking; 2)continuing to increase the knowledge of deaf community members about dating violence and sexual assault, and the services sego lily provides; and 3) enhancing the knowledge and skills of service providers and professionals. This project will address priority area 1 and targets the following underserved populations: deaf, deafblind, deafdisabled, and hard of hearing. The timing for performance of this award is 36 months.