Examples from the field

Project Connect

Project Connect is a national initiative to change how adolescent health, reproductive health, and Native health services understand, respond to, and engage in efforts to prevent sexual and domestic violence. Research demonstrates that programs like Project Connect can help improve maternal and adolescent health and decrease the risks for unplanned pregnancy, poor pregnancy outcomes, and further abuse.

In recent years, Project Connect has trained nearly 6,000 health care providers in specific interventions to assess for, respond to, and prevent domestic and sexual violence in their clinical settings. The initiative has helped establish partnerships between public health programs and domestic and sexual violence advocates to effectively identify and refer victims of abuse. Project Connect teams have also had a significant impact on state-level policies, including instituting assessment of domestic and sexual violence into statewide protocols, improving data collection by adding new questions about domestic violence to statewide surveillance systems, increasing funding statewide for clinics that address violence, and requiring annual training on violence in key state programs.

The Teen Alliance Council of Warren County, Ohio

In this video interview, the Violence Free Coalition (VFC) of Warren County, Ohio describes their unique partnership with local substance abuse prevention practitioners and high school students in an effort to support the development of a Teen Alliance Council working to address multiple social and public health issues facing teens. Through the Teen Alliance Council and related programming, local high school students are given the structure, tools, and resources needed to lead prevention efforts within their communities and to inspire their generation to put an end to violence and substance abuse in all forms.

Engaging allies in health and wellness: A Wisconsin-based Health System’s Push for Prevention

This video focuses on a unique partnership between Gunderson Health System and the National Child Protection Training Center. Since 2013, this partnership has worked to build organizational capacity for prevention and has shifted the focus of medical practitioners’ everyday work from services and referrals to using a holistic prevention-based set of practices.