DV AWARE Dissemination Project: Building the Training Capacity of States, Meeting the Security Needs of Courts and Families

DV AWARE stands for Domestic Violence Analysis, Warning, Action, Recovery, and Engagement. Perpetrators of domestic violence can threaten the safety and well-being not only of their intimate partners and children, but also courts and communities. Beginning with a grant from SJI in 2021, the DV AWARE Project sought to support juvenile and family court systems around the country anticipate, identify, and mitigate violent incidents in their courthouses associated with domestic violence. It addresses two of SJI’s Priority Investment Areas – (1) Emergency Response and Recovery and (2) Training, Education, and Workforce Development – through the development and distribution of a number of tools, resources, and training opportunities for courts and communities across the country interested in implementing improvements in their handling of potential threats arising from cases involving domestic violence. The NCJFCJ and SJI convened experts in security, threat assessment and management, court administration, domestic violence advocacy, and juvenile and family court practices to inform the Project and the development of multiple unique resources. (See below) 

In the spring of 2023, the NCJFCJ and SJI will further disseminate the resources developed under the Project through the pilot of its multi-disciplinary curriculum directly to a Delaware-based team that includes judicial officers, court managers, court security, domestic violence advocates, and others seeking to improve their ability to meet the security needs of their courts, community, and staff.

Highlights of products developed through the project:

• What is DV AWARE? A short summary of the DV AWARE Project, highlighting its purpose as well as the Project’s resources developed to help courts and leadership teams looking for information that will help them understand, anticipate, identify, and mitigate incidents in their courthouses associated with domestic violence.

• The DV AWARE Guiding Principles, which were developed by national experts, and set fourth principles for collaborative, inclusive, strategic, and informed systems improvement, risk assessment, risk reduction, safety and response.

• The DV AWARE Blueprint, a brief guide that local leadership teams can use to form a DV AWARE Leadership Team and to guide that team in its development of training, policies, and procedures.

• The DV AWARE Toolkit, a web-based resource structured around the elements of Analysis, Warning, Action, Recovery and Engagement.

• The DV AWARE Multidisciplinary Curriculum. Designed to help multidisciplinary teams understand the elements of effective planning for and response to domestic violence-related dangerous incidents in courts, analyze their readiness and capacity to respond to domestic violence-related dangerous incidents, and create and apply policies, practices, and procedures aimed at improving court/system readiness and response.

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