The grants to enhance culturally specific services for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking program is authorized by 34 U.S.C. 20124

The Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women awarded a $400,000 Project Grant under the Culturally and Linguistically Specific Services Program (CFDA 16.016) to MEI Fong And Associates/Asian Women's Shelter (AWS) for the period of October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2027. Through this grant, AWS will implement a project addressing multiple statutory purpose areas, including: 1) working with state/local governments and social service agencies to develop and enhance strategies for providing culturally specific services to victims; 2) increasing community capacity to provide culturally specific resources and support; and 3) strengthening criminal justice interventions by providing training on culturally specific responses for Asian American victims and survivors in San Francisco, California. Key activities include case management, counseling, a multilingual digital storytelling project, training for law enforcement and criminal justice facilities, and expansion of language access using AWS's Multilingual Access Model.

This program supports the maintenance and replication of existing successful community-based programs providing culturally specific services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, as well as the development of innovative culturally specific strategies to enhance access to services and resources for victims who face obstacles to using more traditional programs. Culturally specific services means community-based services that include culturally relevant and linguistically specific services and resources to culturally specific communities which are statutorily defined as american indians (including alaska natives, eskimos, and aleuts); asian americans; native hawaiians and other pacific islanders; blacks; and hispanics. Projects must address at least one of the programs statutory purpose areas. Through this new culturally specific services program project, MEI fong and associates/asian womens shelter (AWS) will implement a project addressing multiple purpose areas including: purpose area 1- working with state and local governments and social service agencies to develop and enhance effective strategies to provide culturally specific services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking; purpose area 2 - increasing communities capacity to provide culturally specific resources and support for victims and their families; and purpose area 3 - strengthening criminal justice interventions, by providing training for law enforcement, prosecution, courts, probation, and correctional facilities on culturally specific responsesfor asian american victims and survivors in SAN francisco, california. Specific activities will include: 1) case management; 2) counseling; 3) a multilingual digital storytelling project 4) training for law enforcement and criminal justice facilities; and 5) expansion of language access using their multilingual access model (mlam).