Cultural Competency Project

In 2004-2005, the Coalition's Cultural Competency Project addressed barriers faced by immigrant and refugee victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, and worked to increase culturally competent services in Tennessee . The project sought ways to improve services to immigrant, refugee and trafficked victims of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (DV/SA) in Tennessee , to increase collaboration between DV/SA programs and organizations that serve immigrant communities and to increase understanding issues of immigrant victims among DV/SA programs and organizations that serve immigrants.

A committee established as part of the project worked with the Office of Criminal Justice Programs to facilitate the development of standards for culturally appropriate services for immigrant victims. OCJP will work with the Coalition towards the adoption of these standards, which have been incorporated into a replicable, comprehensive manual on serving immigrant communities. The Coalition provides training, resources, and technical assistance to aid in the implementation of these standards.

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The Coalition was recently awarded a grant by the Baptist Healing Trust to continue the work that was begun with the original Cultural Competency project. The goal of the Cultural Competency Training Program Pilot is to improve the safety of immigrant victims of domestic and sexual violence in Middle Tennessee by enhancing the capacity of programs who serve them. To achieve this goal, the Coalition will design and test a cultural competency training program pilot in partnership with ten domestic violence and sexual abuse programs in Middle Tennessee.

The ten programs have been chosen as pilot sites are: Hope House, Women are Safe, the YWCA of Nashville and Middle TN, Haven of Hope, RASAC, Genesis House, Bridges of Williamson County, The Shelter, Domestic Violence Intervention Center , and Morning Star. Over the next few months, Coalition staff will meet with these programs to discuss the agencies' current capacities to serve immigrant and other underserved victims. This will inform the next phase of the project, the design and delivery of Cultural Competency trainings at the pilot sites. The experience gained by conducting pilot trainings will be utilized to develop a comprehensive statewide training program. Additionally, Coalition staff will provide ongoing technical assistance to programs regarding the provision of services to immigrant and other underserved communities.