Strategies To Respond to Intimate Violence Effectively (STRIVE)

Project Overview 

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a widespread issue that affects many people across their lifetime, including through childhood exposure to violence and teen dating violence (TDV). The Office of Family Assistance (OFA), which funds Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) programs, recognizes the importance of preventing and addressing IPV and TDV given the long-term harm caused by such violence and the need to protect HMRF participants’ safety. Further, higher-than-average rates of IPV and TDV in some HMRF populations underscore the importance of effectively addressing these forms of violence for HMRF populations. As such, OFA encourages HMRF programs to establish plans and partnerships for identifying and responding to IPV and TDV and requires that program staff consult with IPV experts during the development of their models and activities. Despite these efforts, there remains a need to better understand what approaches are effective in preventing and addressing IPV and TDV in HMRF program settings and to build capacity within HMRF programs to use these approaches. 

The Strategies To Respond to Intimate Violence Effectively (STRIVE) project aims to accomplish these goals by building upon foundational work from prior studies, including Responding to Intimate Partner Violence in Relationship Programs (RIViR) and Preventing Intimate Partner Violence when Engaging Dads (PAIVED), and generating evidence and resources to address IPV and TDV in HMRF program settings. Specific objectives include:

• Identify promising program approaches for addressing IPV/TDV in HMRF program settings, formatively test one approach, and disseminate findings from the formative test in accessible ways.
• Foster ongoing engagement of HMRF practitioners, HMRF program participants, people with lived experience, researchers, federal staff, and other partners with a vested interest in addressing and preventing IPV/TDV among HMRF program participants.
• Develop practical guidance and summarize technical assistance needs to build HMRF program capacity for preventing and addressing IPV/TDV. 

The STRIVE project is funded by OFA and is being conducted through a contract from the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) to Child Trends with a subcontract to Futures Without Violence. 

Point(s) of Contact: Jesse Coe and Christine Kim