The tribal sexual assault services program (tsasp), which is authorized by 34 U.S.C. 12511(e), is one of five grant programs funded within the sexual assault services program (sasp)

This Project Grant award from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women (CFDA 16.024 Tribal Sexual Assault Services Program) provides $675,000 over a 3-year period to the Stronghearts Native Helpline, Inc. to create, maintain, and expand sustainable sexual assault services for Native American and Alaska Native communities. The funding supports the Stronghearts Native Helpline, a culturally-centered helpline that offers free, confidential, and trauma-informed crisis intervention, safety planning, advocacy, education, and referrals to survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The grant will enable Stronghearts to enhance data collection, develop regionally specific outreach materials, and strengthen partnerships to increase awareness and access to these critical support services within tribal lands and Alaska Native villages.

Sasp was created by the violence against women and department of justice reauthorization act of 2005 (vawa 2005) and is the first federal funding stream dedicated solely to the provision of direct intervention and related assistance for victims of sexual assault. Overall, the purpose of sasp is to provide intervention, advocacy, accompaniment (e.g., accompanying victims to court, medical facilities, police departments), support services, and related assistance for adult, youth, and child victims of sexual assault, non-offending family and household members of victims, and those collaterally affected by the sexual assault. Tsasp supports projects to create, maintain, and expand sustainable sexual assault services provided by tribes, tribal organizations, and nonprofit tribal organizations within indian country and alaska native villages. With this funding, the stronghearts native helpline is a culturally honoring helpline for native american and alaska natives impacted by domestic and sexual violence. Over the past seven years of operation and growth in our contact volume, the demographics and data collected are beginning to paint a picture in real-time of our relatives who are seeking and in need of help. As a culturally honoring helpline, stronghearts native helpline must call attention to all forms of sexual violence that exist in our communities and the impact on all regardless of gender, age and cultural diversity. We recognize that there are hundreds (574) of tribal nations. We strive to honor all of our relatives, the cultural and ceremonial differences and their methods of healing. As a national helpline, this means our training, outreach and website materials must be all inclusive and respecting all genders, ages and cultural diversities. With this funding, stronghearts will employ strategies to ensure that our relatives experiencing sexual violence are aware of the supportive services that our advocates provide and understand how to reach out for help from stronghearts. We will create printed materials using regionally and culturally honoring images that resonate with our relatives from those specific regions, we will also strategize a method of distribution that includes attending outreach events and mailing materials to service providers in our database. We must also track the effectiveness of our marketing and communications efforts to ensure that we are meeting the mark. To increase data collection and data integrity, we will establish a separate helpline number and systems/processes for survivors of sexual violence. This will increase our ability to collect data specific to the sexual violence experienced, the needs of our contacts and the barriers that they face. Data collected will be made available to tribal nations, programs and organizations serving our relatives to ensure the services they provide are meeting the needs of our relatives. This awardwill be a three-year project.