The Lifesaving Family Violence Prevention and Services Act Turns 40

The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, better known as FVPSA, turned 40 this month.

It’s the first federal legislation ever enacted to prevent and respond to domestic violence, funding what has become our nationwide system of shelters and programs, saving lives.

Over the last four decades, FVPSA has provided close to $4 billion to help victims become survivors rather than grim statistics, and helped prevent violence and abuse from happening in the first place.

With its programs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, FVPSA doesn’t get as much attention as its better-known legislative complement at the Department of Justice – the Violence Against Women Act – but FVPSA remains the only dedicated domestic violence funding to states, tribes, regions and local agencies.

It also supports the critical National Domestic Violence Hotline and funds prevention programs.

FUTURES was there at FVPSA’s beginning, working at the time to convince people that domestic violence was worthy of public attention and that our communities would be safer and stronger if government took action. We worked tirelessly to move the issue out of the shadows, to help people recognize that it was more than a private family matter, and to convince policymakers to take domestic violence seriously.

FUTURES shared the story of FVPSA’s early history at an Oct. 29 event at HHS.

During those years when we walked the halls of Congress, I actually heard one policymaker question his colleagues’ support for the bill and suggest it be renamed the “take the fun out of marriage act.” That is what we were dealing with.

It’s a reminder that as important as funding, advocacy and services are to preventing and ending domestic violence, we also need to change the culture that tolerates family violence. Thankfully, times have changed but there’s still tremendous work to do.

One area where we have made much progress? The network of resource centers that are improving our country’s response to domestic abuse in myriad ways.

For example, FUTURES is proud to house the FVPSA-funded National Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence. It’s having considerable impact both nationally and globally, helping put an end to the days when health care providers routinely treated injuries and sent survivors home to face further abuse. It has driven dramatic improvements in the way health care providers address domestic and sexual violence.

FVPSA has recently been expanded to include an extremely important, promising new program to help children exposed to domestic violence. Congress created this program to break intergenerational cycles of violence, even as we provide crisis services to those fleeing abuse.

We know that on average half of shelter residents are children, but without dedicated resources and training to meet their needs, it is often difficult to provide the specialized care, advocacy, and supportive services these children need.  Our Promising Futures’ program, supported by FVPSA, helps prevent domestic violence and improve outcomes for parent and child survivors of family violence.

Listen to a special episode of our PIVOT podcast, where we celebrate the 40th anniversary of FVPSA, with an interview of Director Shawndell Dawson about what’s to come from the Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services.

On this anniversary, I hope we will rededicate ourselves to speaking out about domestic violence, and to ensuring FVPSA programs remain available to all people and expand them to those most vulnerable.

And we must increase funding and resources to help survivors and prevent abuse through culture change, economic opportunity, and increased attention to the next generation. Our challenge is to do more than mend the wounds of body and soul but to truly end this violence, once and for all.