CAWS North Dakota RPE Project - CAWS North Dakota is the designated state sexual assault and domestic violence coalition serving the state of North Dakota. Our mission is to provide leadership and support in the identification, intervention, and prevention of domestic and sexual violence. Proposed Project. The CAWS North Dakota Rape Prevention and Education (RPE): Enhancing Capacity for Sexual Violence Prevention Across State and Territory Sexual Assault Coalitions Project will prevent sexual violence (SV) perpetration and victimization across the lifespan by addressing social and structural determinants of health (SDOH) to achieve health equity and reduce disparities in specific SDOH. In this four-year funding opportunity, CAWS North Dakota will: • Build infrastructure and working relationships for SDOH-based SV prevention activities focusing on strengthening financial supports and collaborative regional and state relationships for the stable housing of underserved rural, Native American, and LGB women, thus increasing health equity and economic stability-related protective factors for these women’s risk of SV and across the lifespan victimization. • Promote social norms that protect against SV perpetration in the state’s rural areas by working with community-based SV service provider programs to focus on “men and boys as allies in SV prevention” programming for changing the rural patriarchal social norms (group-level beliefs and expectations of behavior), thus increasing the acceptance of non-violence and expansive sex-based/gender norms and reducing rates of SV perpetration and victimization. We request $540,000 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, RPE: Enhancing Capacity for Sexual Violence Prevention Across State and Territory Sexual Assault Coalitions Program. Who Will be Involved. CAWS North Dakota will be the lead applicant on this project, and will be working in collaboration with the RPE-funded North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services (SHD) to enhance the State Action Plan (SAP) to support state and community level implementation of SV prevention and the state tribal coalition First Nations Women’s Alliance to ensure the needed cultural sensitivity for engaging with Native American women. CAWS North Dakota will also be working with the Community Action Partnership of North Dakota to establish collaborative state and community partnerships, and implement the financial supports for stable housing strategy in the western ND communities of Minot, Bismarck, Dickinson, and Williston. In addition, CAWS will be working with the community-based service provider programs Three Rivers Crisis Center, Wahpeton, ND, Domestic Violence and Abuse Center, Grafton, ND, and Safe Shelter, Jamestown, ND to implement the strategy promoting men and boys’ social norms protecting against SV and other forms of violence.
