Developing a Community-Wide Comprehensive Prevention Plan

With the Family Justice Center now open and providing trauma-informed, coordinated services to survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual violence, and the Mountain Child Advocacy Center doing the same for child survivors of violence, community efforts are moving upstream. The end goal is to see a day when the Family Justice Center and Child Advocacy Center close their doors (or at least shift their focus) because our community just doesn't have anyone affected by this kind of violence anymore.

To this end, local Buncombe County partners are taking on an ambitious project: drafting a County-Wide Plan to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence, Sexual Violence, and Child Abuse. Why all three types of violence in one plan? Because we know that many of the risk and protective factors for these 3 types of violence are the same. The CDC has also published a helpful document, Preventing Multiple Forms of Violence outlining the reasoning for and possible approaches to addressing all three types of violence. With this document, along with the NC Plan to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence, NC Plan to Prevent Sexual Violence and the NCIOM's Task Force on Essentials for Childhood, a group of motivated and forward-thinking  professionals and community members affected by violence are working together to envision a community where interpersonal violence is not tolerated, and they are mapping out actions to take to make that vision a reality.

The Prevention Task Force, led by Katie May of Our VOICE, is moving this planning process forward. To learn more or to be part of the prevention planning process,, email katiem@ourvoicenc.org.