Our Impact
Voices Against Violence
Voices Against Violence, concluding its fifth year of oversight by The Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham, is an initiative comprised of women attorneys, TWF Board Members, and countless community friends. Convened in 2006, the Voices Against Violence Giving Circle has been committed to fundraising and grant-making over a five-year period. The overarching goal has been to change the system so that perpetrators are held accountable and there is swift intervention when the crime is at the misdemeanor level to prevent DV homicides. To date, The Women’s Fund has invested more than $327,000 to reduce the incidence of domestic violence by taking the following actions:
Established a docket for DV in the Birmingham Municipal Court, for the first time ever, and funded a YWCA Advocate for that Court.
- Because 2.5 days per week are now dedicated to DV cases, the Birmingham Municipal Court has been able to clear a backlog of more than 800 DV cases.
- Funded nationally sanctioned specialized training for DV judges.
- Leveraged a federal Law Enforcement Grant to initiate a shared information system prototype to enable judges to see perpetrators’ prior arrests across three municipalities.
- Purchased a laptop computer for the Bessemer Domestic Violence Court Judge so that she can instantly access perpetrators’ prior arrest records.
- With partner Verizon Foundation, funded the policy analyst position for the Jefferson County Family Violence Coordinated Community Response (CCR).
- Funded the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ACADV), to provide training for courts and law enforcement, and purchased digital cameras for the Birmingham Police Department to be used at crime scenes to document victims’ injuries.
- ACADV used VAV’s funds as the local match to attract federal money for the Birmingham Police Department’s efforts to serve outstanding domestic violence assault warrants, called Operation Hit Back.
- Sponsored a Men’s Breakfast in 2008 engaging author and male DV advocate Jackson Katz. Participants joined the Verizon Wireless national campaign, “There’s no excuse for abuse.”
- Offered the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Central Alabama (HICA) a challenge grant of $4,500, extending through 2011, to help fund the hiring of a part-time bilingual court advocate, a case manager, or other professionals who work with Latina women who need support when leaving a DV environment.
- Continuing to fund the YWCA Court Advocate in Birmingham Municipal DV Court and to fund the policy analyst position for Jefferson County Family Violence Coordinated Community Response (CCR), who works with professionals in the domestic violence arena to align policies.
Voices Against Violence needs your support to continue this important work to reduce the incidence of domestic violence and resulting homicides. Please get involved and help support this heroic work.
Resources
Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking
What is Human Trafficking? The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by means of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power of a position of vulnerability for the purpose of exploitation.”
Often resulting from a cycle of domestic violence and poverty, children who leave home are especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation within two to three days on the street. Trafficked children are significantly more likely to abuse substances, engage in prostitution as adults, and either commit or be victimized by violent crimes later in life.
In 2010, The Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham partnered with the Southeastern Network of Youth and Family Services and Freedom to Thrive, the local anti-trafficking coalition, to conduct a study, Invisibility: A Study of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Jefferson County, as a step toward researching, unveiling, and addressing commercial sexual exploitation of children within Jefferson County.
Through relevant national and local data collection, informational interviews, and a survey of 56 local social service providers, the Invisibility study identified local indicators, major gaps in services, challenges to care, and needs for formal protocols. During the research process of Invisibility, local cases that fit the definition of commercial sexual exploitation of children were identified, thus verifying the existence of the problem in Jefferson County.
On September 14, 2010, TWF held an Open Forum on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking in Birmingham. We invited service providers, law enforcement, and policymakers who have been working with this emerging issue to discuss their experiences and answer questions from the community. Our panelists included: Sarah Jane Camacho, Director of Freedom to Thrive coalition; Sherry Allen, Director of Southeast Network of Youth and Family Services; Special Agent Dana Gillis, FBI; Phil Cain, Associate Director of the Family Connection; Kaffie McCullough, Program Manager of the Juvenile Justice Fund; and Rep. Jack Williams (District 47, Vestavia Hills), who co-sponsored the Williams-Coleman Human Trafficking Act.
Based on the findings of Invisibility, we continue to convene and partner with agencies and organizations to strengthen the community and criminal justice system’s responses to this issue.
Women’s Economic Security
Status of Women and Girls in Alabama
Cycles of poverty disproportionately affect women and girls in Alabama. Almost 15% of all family households in Alabama are headed by a single female, and more than 61% of those households are at or below the poverty line. Women in Alabama earn 74 cents for every dollar earned by men, and the state ranks 3rd in the nation in the number of elderly living in poverty. A majority of the elderly poor population are women with smaller pensions and income from social security than men.
The Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham believes that all women should be secure financially and have the skills necessary for gainful employment. They must possess an understanding of how to best manage their assets and have access to affordable daycare.
To determine how best to direct the resources of The Women’s Fund, we commissioned a report on Women’s Economic Security by Dr. Michael Howell-Moroney of the Department of Government at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His report “The Economic Security of Women in the Birmingham Metropolitan Area: Challenges and Prospects for a More Secure Future” (Fall 2011) statistically confirmed many of our concerns. He found that single female-headed households in Alabama are almost eight times more likely to be poor than married-couple households. Rates of poverty are even higher in single female–headed households of color. There is a significant gap between the median income of single female–headed households and the living wage.
What is economic security? Economic security is having enough income and resources to meet the basic needs and daily expenses of each household member. Such needs and expenses include housing, childcare, food, transportation, healthcare, clothing, and other basic household expenses. Economic security also means possessing sufficient assets to cushion short-term economic shocks and provide security for the future.
2011 Women’s Economic Security Focus Areas
- Women and girls gain increasing knowledge and skills to assist their efforts to move up and out of poverty, including increased job skills, opportunities for career advancement, job placement, and reduced wage disparities.
- Women and girls develop behaviors and skills that promote long-term financial security, including asset development, debt reduction, increased savings, and reduced dependence on predatory lending.
- Women and girls have access to basic services to increase their economic security and stability, such as affordable child care, child care subsidies, health insurance programs, and paid parental leave.
Cut it Out
Salons Against Domestic Abuse
TWF board members, in consultation with domestic violence shelter directors in the Birmingham area in the year 2000, conceived of a project to train salon professionals to recognize signs and symptoms of domestic violence and to refer clients to the National Domestic Violence Hotline number for help. After TWF funding and refining the project for two years (from 2000 until 2002 in the state of Alabama,) Dianne Mooney forged a partnership with her company, Southern Living At HOME, Clairol Professional, and the National Cosmetology Association to take the program national in 2003.
From 2003 until 2009, Southern Living At HOME was the sole funding partner, with program management from the National Cosmetology Association. Currently, the program is administrated by ProBeauty Association with funding from Willow House.
Advisory Board partners are Esta Soler of The Family Violence Prevention Fund, Sue Else of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, Rita Smith of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and Katie Ray-Jones of the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
CUT IT OUT, Salons Against Domestic Abuse, is dedicated to mobilizing salon professionals and others in the fight to end the epidemic of domestic abuse in the United States. The program builds awareness of domestic abuse and trains salon professionals to recognize warning signs and safely refers clients to the National DV Hotline number for help.
During its years of implementation, the program has reached more than 80,000 salon professionals through the award-winning CUT IT OUT curriculum and seminar (written by Carol Gundlach of the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence), which are administered to beauty school students and salon professionals by local domestic violence service providers.
- In 2008, Empire Education Group, with its 87 cosmetology schools nationwide, adopted CUT IT OUT as part of its curriculum and adopted local domestic violence programs in each school location. This cosmetology education group led the way for Regency Beauty Institute to join forces, educating its 3,000 students.
- In late 2008, the American Association of Cosmetology schools, the trade organization for all cosmetology schools, adopted CUT IT OUT nationwide, educating the next generation of cosmetologists through their 700 member schools, which train 70,000 students annually.
- More than 20,000 calls from victims are received annually at the National Domestic Violence Hotline because of CUT IT OUT.
- Press coverage continues to grow at both local and national levels, with a particularly extensive article in The New York Times in 2008 that sparked interest both nationally and internationally.
- The program is now operating in Australia, and requests for materials have come from the UK, Canada, Chile, Russia, and the Bahamas. Requests for translations of the materials into Spanish, Japanese, Korean, French, and Russian also have been received.
- Support from state Attorneys General has been and continues to be strong in many states, most recently Arizona, Utah, New Hampshire, Ohio, Nevada, and Illinois.
Since the national launch of CUT IT OUT in 2003, this innovative primary prevention education strategy has distributed:
- 4 million safety cards, printed in English on one side and in Spanish on the other
- 50,000 posters in both English and Spanish
- More than 3,000 training kits
Please visit cutitout.org for more information.
Women on Wheels
TWF board members convened area service providers of programs for girls and teens in 2003 to determine the most critical needs in services for girls and women. After an extensive research process, the advisory board elected to address the need for medically related transportation for elderly women (who outnumber elderly men 7 to 1). Sadly, Alabama does not fund public transportation. With baby boomers aging, our community will not be prepared when many, many more elderly people are without transportation. The Women’s Fund has stepped up to lead others in addressing this need. United Way of Central Alabama’s Community Initiatives Division submitted the successful proposal that included a transportation resource center and volunteer-based on-the-ground service. It was successfully piloted during 2006.
