Investing in prevention supports intervention and service-delivery

Prevention work is not meant to replace victim services. The goal is to create a more nuanced continuum that addresses initial perpetration and revictimization in a proactive way.

Working to prevent IPV means getting at the root causes of violence and building ongoing, community defined solutions to address these. By virtue of taking a community level approach, prevention leads us to identify trends in victimization and to developing a better understanding of why and how violence occurs in any given community.

This can be a powerful tool.

Understanding the contextual factors which lead to victimization serves to not only enhance service delivery strategies for survivors but also to provide crucial leverage for changing environmental and systemic factors that may be contributing to victimization. For example, if revictimization is closely associated with economic insecurity, this may lead an agency to consider programmatic and policy efforts that work to meet these specific survivor needs. It’s all about how you use the information to reinforce and build upon the important work already being done.

Engaging in prevention also requires that traditional service delivery agencies support a strategic visioning process with communities – whereby the agency itself becomes more deeply rooted within the community it serves and develops a more robust understanding of the unique needs and resources that exist there. Prevention firmly places the agency or program at the center of any social change efforts within the community. This undoubtedly leads to new and strengthened partnerships (sustainability), innovative and informed agency practices (improved cultural relevance), and heightened visibility within the community (proactive engagement efforts). Prevention is a vital piece of the victim services continuum, contributing not only to long-term success of an agency, but also to the health and wellbeing of survivors and their communities.