Thursday, April 3, 2025
4/3/2025
Rape Prevention and Education - Sexual violence remains a significant health problem affecting the lives of many people in Texas. A prevalence survey conducted in 2015 revealed that 33.2% of adult Texans have experienced some form of sexual assault in their lifetime. Texas will use Rape Prevention and Education (RPE) funds to reduce risk factors and increase protective factors associated with the occurrence of sexual violence (SV) at the community-level. The state will contract with an evaluation team to build state-level evaluation capacity and contract with the state sexual assault coalition to provide training and technical assistance (T/TA) for RPE programs. At the state level, efforts will focus on realigning programming based on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO). In fiscal year 2024 (FY24), Texas will continue with strategic programming that requires programs to implement at least 75% of their strategy at the community or societal level to promote health equity. Texas will also revise reporting, evaluation methods, and T/TA. In FY25, Texas will issue a request for proposals (RFP) for sub-recipients that aligns with the NOFO. RPE programs will implement all three Focus Areas (strengthen economic supports, create protective environments, and promote social norms that protect against violence). RPE programs will use the Close to Home approach to mobilize communities to address and prevent violence. The outcomes of this project will include: increased alignment of goals and strategies between the Texas Logic Model, State Action Plan, and local prevention efforts; improved data-based decision-making; increased capacity to implement and evaluate community- and societal-level primary prevention SV; increased ability to promote and incorporate health equity into SV prevention; overall increased evaluation (process and outcome) efforts; and an increased state and local-level capacity to improve health equity in Texas. T/TA will increase the capacity of RPE programs, community partners, and state-level organizations to educate communities about health equity related to SV; implement SV prevention programming with a health equity lens with populations who SV disproportionately affected; decrease risk factors (such as general aggressiveness and acceptance of violence and societal norms that support sexual violence) and enhance protective factors (such as emotional health and connectedness and community support and connectedness) for SV and other forms of violence; and identify, collect, and use data to drive decision-making and program implementation at the state- and local-level. To further increase capacity and the reach of RPE programming, Texas will strengthen existing relationships and identify and develop new partnerships with organizations engaged in violence prevention.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).