Orange county human relations council (ochr) is requesting $400,000 to implement the anti-hate prevention and response program across orange county, CA

The Orange County Human Relations Council (OCHR), doing business as OC Human Relations, has been awarded a $400,000 Project Grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance under the Community-Based Approaches to Advancing Justice program (CFDA 16.047). The grant will fund OCHR's Anti-Hate Prevention and Response Program from October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2026. The program aims to prevent the increasing trend of hate incidents through education, community dialogues, and outreach, while also providing a rapid response approach to address the needs of victims and the community. Key activities include enhancing OCHR's hate prevention network, establishing practices to reduce hate speech and hate crimes, facilitating dialogue to defuse tensions, and developing a multi-faceted taskforce to improve response to hate incidents. Subrecipients will provide training on recognizing/reporting anti-hate incidents, community resource awareness, civil rights history education, and restorative practices.

The purpose is to prevent the increasing trend of hate incidents through education, community dialogues, and outreach while undertaking a rapid response approach to hate incidents through holistic partnerships that address the needs of victims and the community. Project activities include enhancing our hate prevention network, establishing practices or activities aimed to reduce the frequency and impact of hate speech, hate incidents, and hate crimes, and develop activities that facilitate dialogue and defuse tensions between groups, and that create a shared sense of empathy and a community environment that will not tolerate hate. Expected outcomes include the expansion of a multi-faceted taskforce to improve response to hate incidents, meet the personalized needs of antihate incident victims, and develop local strategies for education, outreach, prevention, and preparedness. Subrecipient activities include recognizing and reporting antihate incidents, awareness of available community resources to support victims of antihate incidents, an educational training on orange county civil rights history and understanding how IT impacts bipoc, and training in restorative practices/mediation to deescalate tension.