Hope & healing for children who experience family violence - the proposed project will improve the family peace center's (FPC) response to children who have experienced family violence (FV) by…

Hope & healing for children who experience family violence - the proposed project will improve the family peace center's (FPC) response to children who have experienced family violence (FV) by expanding our capacity to identify and serve our population of focus of children and families experiencing family violence served at the FPC in milwaukee, wisconsin using evidence-informed interventions and strategies. We will accomplish this using the FPC's centralized data system (CDS) to standardize the identification and referrals for children who have experienced FV among the 14 CO-located partner agencies comprising the FPC. We will further accomplish this by increasing capacity to service those referrals with evidence-based interventions and strategies through implementing child witness to domestic violence groups for children and non-abusive parents, moms & teens for safe dates groups for adolescents and non-abusive parents, youth trauma support specialist positions serving both families living in our emergency shelter as well as families living in the community, a custody evaluator position, & project coordinator position. Goal 1 is to increase capacity of FPC partner agencies to identify and refer to service children who have experienced FV. Objective 1A. 10 of 14 agencies will use the CDS to ask adult victims about their children who have experienced FV. Objective 1B. FPC staff will use tools within the CDS to further assess individual needs of 65% of children identified. Objective 1C. At least 65% of children will have received a referral for service appropriate for their needs. Goal 2 is to increase capacity at the FPC to provide evidence-informed services to children who have experienced FV thereby improving their well-being including increased safety, decreased ptsd, improved behavior, and increased hope. Objective 2A. Expand provision of the "child witness to domestic violence" group from twice yearly to 4 times yearly (up to 48 families). Objective 2B. Provide group services via "moms & teens for safe dates" program 4 times yearly (up to 48 families) to adolescents in dating relationships or who have experienced FV between adults. Objective 2C. Provide individual support & advocacy for parents in our emergency shelter (~136 families yearly) and living in community (~136 families yearly) via youth trauma support specialist positions. Objective 2D. Provide custody evaluations 30 hours per week for families (~211 families yearly) experiencing FV at FPC's children's WI behavioral health clinic. Objective 2E. Institute for child & family well-being will train 2 cohorts of up to 60 FPC staff yearly via "building brains with care," increasing FPC staff knowledge of evidence-based ways to support for children who have experienced FV. Proposed activities will serve a total of 6,864 individuals annually and 32,604 individuals over the 5 year lifetime of the project.