Saturday, November 29, 2008

Funding Frustration


What is the biggest barrier to implementation of programs to prevent Domestic Abuse?
Funding. Am I right? And the reason is it that only funding goes to service activities, running shelters right? Everyone agrees it is critical that these shelters be funded so those who are victims will be cared for. But what is wrong with funding prevention to stem the flow of victims, so it does not continue to be at least twice as many as can be cared for? The answer is very simple. You cannot get funding because the grantors will only fund projects that can quantify the results. Fix the Hurt recently applied for funding from Allstate Insurance to take Domestic Violence the Musical to different locations around the country, that could not afford to pay for the travel of the cast. Now everyone knows that domestic abuse is one of the big factors of economic loss to corporations and many employees lose their jobs because of the problems with an abusive spouse, whether that is the stated reason for termination or not. The result is the large percentage of the victims become homeless.

Allstate said efforts to prevent domestic violence did not meet their criteria because there was no evidence of building economic stability. I submit that the problem with funding is the excuse that there is no way to prove how many people are not beaten because of the prevention efforts!

Do you think we should suggest that since we cannot quantify the number of teen age girls that do get pregnant we should stop providing forms of birth control and put the money into unwed mother homes? Further we cannot determine the number of cases of sexually transmitted disease that are prevented so we should stop that program too. Why do we spend money on preventing death by drunk drivers when we cannot quantify the lives saved?

Perhaps we need to do follow up contact with people that attend the programs we present and if less that 30 percent have not abused their wife/husband then that is the number of cases of domestic abuse we have prevented.

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