Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance

VAdata Training and Virtual Office Hours
2024-09-17 15:00 - 16:30, 2024-10-29 15:00 - 16:30, 2024-11-26 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York) | Virtual- Zoom

Principles of Primary Prevention
2024-09-19 09:00 - 15:00 | Training Center, 1413 W. Main St., Richmond, VA, 23220
Primary prevention programs are focused on reducing or eliminating the first-time perpetration of sexual violence and intimate partner violence (SV/IPV). This means figuring out what factors make some people more at-risk to perpetrate SV/IPV, and changing or interrupting those factors. This training delves into the key concepts underlying this innovative work, highlights promising practices from the field, and includes an overview of Virginia’s Guidelines for the Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence & Intimate Partner Violence used by sexual and domestic violence agencies throughout Virginia and across the country.

Emerging Together: Wholeness as Wellness - Building Healing-Centered Capacity for Us
2024-09-25 10:00 - 15:00 | Church of Our Savior Episcopal, 1165 Rio Rd E, Charlottesville, Virginia, 22901, United States
What: Wholeness as Wellness: Building Healing-Centered Capacity for Us
For whom: Advocates and leaders in the field of sexual and domestic violence advocacy, intervention, and prevention (*preferably, participants have joined a recent AWE Group Session and/or a Wellness Coaching session to layer learning/doing)
Why: Join us to begin to build a new way of being in our work – an intentional and critical paradigm shift in the movement from reacting to the crisis of burnout to anticipating and building healing-centered capacity to prevent it. Together, we will unpack the reality of the impact of this work and explore practices that support us in recentering our own wellness and wholeness in this work. This will be a reflective, interactive, experiential, and joy-filled session meant to foster mutual aid connections and ready us with insight and practices to get back to work whole and well.

Exploring Organizational Wellness
2024-09-26 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual- Zoom
What: Let’s begin to imagine robust strategies and practices for sustained wellness, connection and power.
For whom: Advocates, preventionists, outreach staff, and agency leadership are all invited to participate. Sexual and domestic violence programs seeking to bring about organizational change will benefit from identifying a diverse team to participate in attending as many sessions as possible.
Why: Promote wellness, resilience, and sustainability within SDVAs and in your community partnerships through building practices that focus on connection, resilience, trauma stewardship, and hope.

I Emerge: Wellness Coaching/Individual TA
2024-10-01 09:00 - 17:00, 2024-11-01 09:00 - 17:00, 2024-12-01 09:00 - 17:00 | Virtual- Zoom
For Whom: Advocates and leaders in the field of sexual and domestic violence advocacy, intervention, and prevention
Why: Dedicated time and space to fit your schedule, as well as your wellness-related intentions and barriers. This 45-minute one-on-one coaching supports your exploration of how to be connected, well, and whole in this work – from the inside-out.
Click the link to schedule your monthly coaching session.

Director's Virtual Meet-up
2024-10-02 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual- Zoom
The Statewide Hotline/Crisis Response Team would like to offer this space as an ongoing opportunity to increase partnership, learn more about the needs at agencies, have a place to share and learn more about Statewide Hotline operations, and to provide the space for folx to discuss challenges, highlights, regional updates, trends, etc. We look forward to seeing you all every other month in 2024 (February, April, June, August, October and December) on the 1st Wednesday from 2-3p!
Note: We will try to accommodate last minute language translation requests but we typically need two weeks to secure interpretation services.

Virginia Restoryation Report: What lessons did the data teach?
2024-10-03 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual- Zoom
Stories reveal, help us process, and reflect. Story circles have been part of our collective human experience across communities, cultures, and generations. The process of storytelling and the practice of bearing witness to one another’s stories is one of the most intuitive, most powerful, and most ancient medicines we have.

Virginia was one of 25 states and territories across the U.S. to participate in Restoryation, a national storytelling project and needs assessment among professionals working in the movement to end sexual and domestic violence. The primary goals of Restoryation were to employ storytelling to:

Pause and reflect on the impact of the previous 3 years on ourselves and our work.

Provide an opportunity for connection and healing through sharing our experiences and bearing witness to each other’s stories.

Name what is needed to create a thriving workforce and movement going forward.

Join us for a brief webinar to learn more about the data that came out of the Restoryation story circles held February-May 2023, and the Action Alliance’s next steps based on the lessons we learned.

Joyful Sexuality
2024-10-08 09:30 - 16:00 | Training Center, 1413 W. Main St., Richmond, VA, 23220
In this interactive and engaging training, advocates and prevention staff will gain a more holistic understanding of joyful sexuality and its relevance to our work in the movement to end sexual and domestic violence. Participants will be introduced to the six components of sexuality: sensuality, intimacy, sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual and reproductive health, sexual behaviors and practices, and power and agency. Participants will identify and explore the many ways that a joyful sexuality lens can be applied to prevention and advocacy work in sexual and domestic violence agencies. Participants will leave this training with an action plan to integrate joyful sexuality and reproductive justice into their work.

People of Color Caucus
2024-10-08 15:30 - 17:30, 2024-11-12 15:30 - 17:30 | Virtual
The People of Color Caucus was formed to create a space where folks of color can come together to be in community and foster connections and have connections on how to amplify each others voices. Caucuses are for Action Alliance members only.
In 2024, we have a lot of opportunities to meet and we hope to see you for one of them.
Note: We will try to accommodate last minute language translation requests but we typically need two weeks to secure interpretation services.

Violence Prevention in Action ECHO
2024-10-16 10:30 - 12:00 | Virtual
Join our Violence Prevention in Action ECHO program to build your prevention network, connect over challenging cases, and stay on top of best practices in sexual and intimate partner violence primary prevention!
Project ECHO is an international, evidence-based model for training and peer-to-peer learning, originally developed at the University of New Mexico for use by doctors and other medical providers. We’ve used the model since 2019 to cultivate a thriving community of preventionists from Sexual and Domestic Violence Agencies across the Commonwealth.
For more information about our use of the ECHO model or the structure of the session, please visit: https://bit.ly/VPAecho.

Identifying and Recognizing Organizational Habits
2024-10-16 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual- Zoom

Statewide Advocates' Meeting
2024-10-16 14:00 - 15:00 | Virtual- Zoom
The Statewide Hotline/Crisis Response Team would like to offer this space as an ongoing opportunity for folx working on the front lines and on the hotlines providing direct services and support! This is a space with opportunities to meet other advocates across VA, learn more about the Statewide Hotline and Project for Empowerment of Survivors (PES) and to share trends, highlights, events, regional updates, etc. We look forward to seeing you all every other month in 2024 on the 3rd Wednesday from 2-3p.
If you know of other Advocates, Hotline and/or Direct Services staff that could benefit from joining the space, please send their contact information to lwhite@vsdvalliance.org.
Note: We will try to accommodate last minute language translation requests but we typically need two weeks to secure interpretation services.

Emerging Together Gathering
2024-10-22 09:00 - 12:00 | Hotel 24 South, 24 South Market Street, Staunton, VA, 24401, United States
What: Together, in A.W.E.: Advocate Wellness Experiences in 3-D
For whom: Advocates and leaders in the field of sexual and domestic violence advocacy,
intervention, and prevention.
Why: Advocate Wellness Experiences are:
Time to HONOR the INNER experience of advocates
Space to BE with those who get it
Guidance to RE-CENTER…
So we can show up to this work whole and WELL.
This special edition A.W.E. session is an in-person opportunity to prioritize taking time to check in with ourselves and each other. We will explore wellness topics and skills that you can bring into your own wellness practice and into your work supporting survivors. Together, we will also have time and space to engage in personal reflection and build deeper connections with each other over a community meal.
Breakfast provided

Emergence: From Vision to Practice
2024-10-22 14:00 - 2024-10-23 16:00 | Hotel 24 South, 24 South Market Street, Staunton, VA, 24401, United States
What: An experiential gathering integrating a foundation of wellness and wholeness into organizational life. We will explore robust strategies and move from habits to practices.
For whom: Advocates, preventionists, outreach staff, and agency leadership are all invited to participate. Bring a diverse team from your organization to help your organizational wellness practices stick!
Why: Deepen your organizational foundation of wellness and wholeness through robust strategies and practices. By increasing retention of healthy staff at sexual and domestic violence agencies, we directly improve the emotional and physical safety and well-being of survivors who are in our care.
Breakfast and lunch provided on the 23rd.

Emergence: From Wellness to Impact
2024-10-24 09:00 - 2024-10-25 12:00 | Hotel 24 South, 24 South Market Street, Staunton, VA, 24401, United States
What: Let’s build relationships, expertise, and collective power to position healing-centered communities as catalysts for transformation. We’ll explore your landscapes, relationship maps, and readiness with the goal of having a measurable impact on at least one complex problem facing your community.
What are some examples of a community wellness project?
-Establish once a month free dental/vision/mental health/wellness checks for vulnerable communities at a location that is easy to reach in your community.
-Ask your community’s teens about what kind of activities or help they need outside of school and make a plan to meet one of those goals.
-Establish a pilot program in one middle or high school to implement trauma-informed and restorative responses to school discipline issues.
-Work with community organizers and partners to launch an affordable/workforce housing campaign.
There are so many possibilities!
For whom: Bring a team! Community Impact Teams are intended to be a collaboration between a sexual and domestic violence agency (SDVA) and 1-2 other community partners. In selecting community partners, consider how to deepen existing relationships in your work to respond to and prevent violence – for example, consider a partner working to support healthy child development, reduce maternal mortality, or create greater access to community resources that will ultimately lead to thriving families and communities.
Why: This is an opportunity for sexual and domestic violence advocates to learn, organize, and meaningfully implement with community partners who have shared visions for wellness.
Breakfast and lunch provided on the 24th. Breakfast provided on the 25th.
Please note: The Action Alliance will cover the cost of 1 night lodging for each registrant of this event.

Embracing Primary Prevention: Communities and Institutions
2024-10-30 10:00 - 16:00 | Training Center, 1413 W. Main St., Richmond, VA, 23220
One way we describe an integral practice in primary prevention is to water your roots deep. Which means that the prevention work you do should exist deeply in the places that you would like to make the greatest impact. For this training we will be discussing how to weave primary prevention into your community and the institutions that make this work possible. We will examine ways to sprinkle primary prevention throughout your agency and make connections with the institutions you would like to work closely with. This training is intended for prevention staff, agency leadership, and community partners.
Upon completing this training, participants will be able to:
-Formulate a shared vision and develop a strategic plan for their agency’s prevention efforts with their colleagues (leadership and/or grant writers).
-Discuss the common goals they share with preventionists from other agencies for ending sexual and domestic violence across the state.
-Describe effective prevention programming and describe a vision of community-level prevention for their agency.
-Understand how to apply strategies from the 2nd primary prevention guideline in “Fostering Community Resilience” titled “Institutionalized in Organizational Culture.”
-Use tools and models they received to support their efforts of institutionalizing prevention into their organization.

Annual Membership Meeting
2024-10-30 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual- Zoom
We will host our Annual Action Alliance Business Membership Meeting virtually on Wednesday, October 30, 2024, from 1-2:30 pm. For the Zoom link, please reach out to Leisha Santilli @ lsantilli@vsdvalliance.org

We Emerge: Coaching Session
2024-11-06 10:00 - 11:00, 2024-12-04 10:00 - 11:00 | Virtual- Zoom
What: A.W.E. Group Sessions (Advocate Wellness Experiences)
Why: Advocate Wellness Experience Sessions are:
● Time to HONOR the INNER experience of advocates
● Space to BE with those who get it
● Guidance to RE-CENTER…
● So can we show up to this work whole, and WELL.
Drop into these monthly sessions to prioritize taking time to check in with ourselves and each other. Explore wellness topics and skills that you can bring into your own wellness practice and into your work supporting survivors.
Sessions will be held on the first Wednesday of September, November, and December at 10am. Join one or all of the sessions.

Basic Advocacy Trainings- DV & SV
2024-11-12 08:00 - 2024-11-13 17:00 | SSRC, 22 East Church St, Suite 307, Martinsville, VA, 24112
DV BAT: This training is designed for advocates in their first year of work in the field of Domestic Violence Advocacy. Participants will be able to identify and define domestic and intimate partner violence; learn the building blocks for a trauma informed response and broaden their understanding of risk assessment and safety planning. Participants will also learn about resources in VA for supporting survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence.
SV BAT: This training is designed for advocates in their first year of work in the field of Sexual Violence Advocacy. Participants will learn how to recognize sexual violence, it’s root causes and its impact on individuals and communities; they will learn about the Cultural Context that supports sexual violence and an advocate’s role in changing that culture. Participants will also learn about the building blocks for a healing centered approach to sexual violence and be able to identify resources in Virginia for an effective response.
*It is highly recommended that new advocates receive both DV and SV Basic Advocacy Training.

Navigating Social Impact
2024-11-13 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual- Zoom

Emergence: Impact Teams Navigating Social Conditions and Events on Your Transformational Journey
2024-11-14 13:00 - 14:30 | Virtual- Zoom
What: An experiential gathering integrating a foundation of wellness and wholeness into life. We will explore robust strategies and move from habits to practices.
For whom: Advocates, preventionists, outreach staff, and agency leadership are all invited to participate. Bring a diverse team from your organization to help your organizational wellness practices stick!
Why: Deepening the organizational foundation of wellness and wholeness through robust strategies and practices. By increasing retention of healthy staff at sexual and domestic violence agencies, we directly improve the emotional and physical safety and well-being of survivors who are in our care.

State and Local Partners Meeting
2024-11-14 13:00 - 16:00 | Virtual- Zoom
These quarterly gatherings of advocates, preventionists, sexual and domestic violence agency administrators, state funders and other partners serving survivors of violence are opportunities for connection and collaboration on the local, regional, and state level. The State and Local Partners Meetings are a unique opportunity for agencies to share their expertise and experiences from the front lines with funding partners who would like to learn more about emerging trends, needs, and celebrations among our communities.
This year, we will be moving the focus to our collective work across the Commonwealth. Increasingly, survivors and advocates often face many of the same issues (such as affordable housing, transportation, child care, substance use, mental illness, and lack of community resources) regardless of their location within Virginia. We want to provide a better opportunity for networking, peer-to-peer connection, and a space to crowd-source ideas, resources, and promising practices. Our first three meetings will be virtual, and the last meeting of the year will be an in-person opportunity for professional development, resource sharing, and networking.
This invitation is open to advocates, preventionists, funders, and other partners serving survivors and/or supporting community education on healthy relationships. Our time together will be spent learning from each other, engaging in discussion on statewide issues, sharing valuable resources, etc. We anticipate that participants who join the meetings are coming prepared to engage in conversations that will continue to move forward the work of ending sexual and domestic violence here in the Commonwealth.

Virginia Restoryation Report Q&A
2024-11-18 11:00 - 12:00 | Virtual- Zoom
Virginia was one of 25 states and territories across the U.S. to participate in Restoryation, a national storytelling project and needs assessment among professionals working in the movement to end sexual and domestic violence.

Restoryation not only offered time to pause and reflect on the impact of the previous 3 years on ourselves and our work, but also to name what is needed to create a thriving workforce and movement going forward. So what is needed to do that?

Now that you’ve had a chance to look over the Restoryation findings, join us for a drop-in Q&A session about the findings and the Action Alliance’s next steps based on the lessons we learned.

Principles of Primary Prevention
2024-11-21 09:00 - 16:00 | Training Center, 1413 W. Main St., Richmond, VA, 23220
Primary prevention programs are focused on reducing or eliminating the first-time perpetration of sexual violence and intimate partner violence (SV/IPV). This means figuring out what factors make some people more at-risk to perpetrate SV/IPV, and changing or interrupting those factors. This training delves into the key concepts underlying this innovative work, highlights promising practices from the field, and includes an overview of Virginia’s Guidelines for the Primary Prevention of Sexual Violence & Intimate Partner Violence used by sexual and domestic violence agencies throughout Virginia and across the country.
Note: We will try to accommodate last minute language translation requests but we typically need two weeks to secure interpretation services.
