Features

Intimate partner violence poses a significant health threat across Indian Country. Increasingly, health care professionals recognize that it is a major public health problem that causes grave and lasting harm to individuals, families and communities. In the largest-ever survey of its kind, a 2008 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on health and violence found that 39 percent of Native women reported that they were victims of intimate partner violence some time in their lives – a rate higher than any other race or ethnicity surveyed. Because most American Indian/Alaska Native individuals are seen at some point by a health care provider, the health care setting offers a critical opportunity for early identification and primary prevention of abuse.

To address this problem, in partnership with faculty from Sacred Circle and Mending the Sacred Hoop Technical Assistance Project, Futures Without Violence, formerly Family Violence Prevention Fund, worked with more than 100 Indian, Tribal and Urban health care facilities as well as domestic violence (DV) advocacy programs across the United States in 2002-2009 to improve the health care responses to domestic violence. Currently, Futures Without Violence is working with a Tribal health clinic, Kima:w Medical Center, as part of Project Connect: A Coordinated Public Health Initiative to Prevent Violence against Women.

Futures Without Violence has developed model policies and tools to better address abuse and prevent violence:

• Read Building Domestic Violence Health Care Responses in Indian Country: A Promising Practices Report (PDF)

• Order a hard copy of Building Domestic Violence Health Care Responses in Indian Country: A Promising Practices Report

• Read the Report’s Executive Summary (PDF)

• Read the Policy Recommendations (PDF)

• Download the Native safety card (PDF)

• View and order the “Awaiting Instructions: Coaching Boys Into Men Poster”

• View and order the “Fathering After Violence Poster”

• View and order “Violence Destroys. Keep our Families Sacred”--a poster for health care settings

• View and order the American Indian/Alaska Native Women’s Health Safety Card 

• Join the Native Health Initiative e-alert for professionals working across Indian Country to help address and prevent domestic violence and improve the health and safety of American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

• Get the Facts on violence against American Indian/Alaskan Native women.

For more information about the Native Health Initiative, contact:
Anna Marjavi amarjavi@futureswithoutviolence.org