OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS
We have learned alongside our Community Partners as they have faced challenges, overcome barriers, and achieved extraordinary successes. Find out more about each project and the outcomes below.
YEAR
2011
GRANT CATEGORY
Family
GRANT AMOUNT
$108,400
Organization:
Texas Advocacy Project
Project Title:
Emergency Protective Order Project
Project Description:
Texas Advocacy Project is a statewide, nonprofit organization that provides free legal services to victims of domestic violence and is committed to ending violence in the home because no child should ever have to watch one parent abuse the other.
The grant provided by Impact Austin will fund the Emergency Protective Order Program, which provides victims of domestic violence with access to legal advice and assistance in obtaining protective orders during the critical period immediately after an abuser's arrest and during the following weeks as they make their transition to permanent safety.
Grant Status:
Texas Advocacy Project outlined two primary goals for this program, which were to provide the abovementioned services to 225 victims and their children each month (for a total of 4,050 victims) and to share best practices through training programs in Williamson, Hays, Caldwell, and Bastrop counties. Both of these goals were realized, with Texas Advocacy Project surpassing the former goal by 17%, assisting 4,746 victims and their children during the grant period.
Additionally, Texas Advocacy Project was able to enhance their communication to victims by sending written advice to victims that requested it and had a safe address to which it could be mailed. With respect to the second goal, Texas Advocacy Project delivered training entitled “Best Practices in Serving Victims of Family Violence through Emergency Protective Orders” in the five targeted counties, with attendance from law enforcement members, prosecutors, victim services personnel, and social service providers.
The Impact Austin grant was particularly valuable to Texas Advocacy Project, as it was able to help thousands of women and children break the cycle of violence during the eighteen-month period without being threatened by the loss of federal funding that many of the participants on the Travis County Family Violence Protection Team experienced. Texas Advocacy Project is dedicated to continuing these services by strengthening the partnerships created during the grant period and fostering pre-existing ones.