We Are All Related: Importance of Braiding Innovation, Cultural Traditions, and Sovereignty into Advocacy Approaches
The Advocacy Training was a tribal-specific training for NCAI Fund Victim Services Micro-grant Program grantees. The training was oriented around the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC) Advocacy Curriculum. This Curriculum provides comprehensive, basic information and was created to support tribal programs in their efforts to provide advocacy and safety for survivors within their communities and make changes to end violence by embracing Indigenous culture.
The Advocacy Training focused on advocacy basics, dynamics and tactics of battering/intimate partner violence, overview of the role of advocates, the impacts and effects of historical trauma, basic safety planning, and Coordinated Community Response/Sexual Assault Response Team models.
Session 1: History, Root Causes and Dynamics of Violence & Social Change
- Today’s Reality: Violence Against Native Women & Children
- Root Causes of Violence: Colonization and Culture
- Connections Between Internalized Oppression, Violence, and Culturally based Solutions
- Reflections of Social Change, Brief Herstory of the Movement to End Violence against Native Women
Presented by Bonnie Clairmont, Tribal Law and Policy Institute
Session 2: Dynamics & Tactics of Battering/Intimate Partner Violence
- Necessary Distinctions: Conflict, Abuse, Violence, Domestic Violence, Intimate Partner Violence and Battering
- Dynamics of Battering: Power and Control
- Why Do They Go Back?
Presented by Lonna Hunter, Tribal Law and Policy Institute
Session 3: Sexual Assault and Sexual Assault Response Team (SART)
- Overview of the history and dynamics of sexual assault
- Understanding the scope of sexual assault within the context of Intimate Partner Violence
- Increasing awareness around the need for culturally appropriate responses to sexual assault
- Creating a victim centered approach to Sexual Assault in Tribal communities
Presented by Bonnie Clairmont, Tribal Law and Policy Institute
Session 4: Overview of Advocates Role
- Medical Model vs. Grassroots/Social Change Model
- Role of Advocates
Presented by Bonnie Clairmont, Tribal Law and Policy Institute
Session 5: Basic Advocacy Skills
- Relationship Building & Boundaries
- Active Listening Skills & Crisis Line Response
- Safety Planning
- Protection Orders
Presented by Lonna Hunter, Tribal Law and Policy Institute
Session 6: Trauma Informed Approaches & Advocacy
- Trauma & Domestic Violence: Framing the Issues
- What is a Trauma-Informed Approach?
- Responding to Trauma – What Helps
- Self-healing & Secondary Trauma
Presented by Lonna Hunter, Tribal Law and Policy Institute
Session 7: Working Outside Shelter Doors
- Ally-Building, Systems Advocacy & Creating Coordinated Community Responses
- Public Education & Community Involvement
Presented by Bonnie Clairmont, Tribal Law and Policy Institute
