Webinar – Celebrating 30 Years of VAWA: Understanding VAWA and Leveraging it to Support Survivors

Thursday, September 26, 2024
1:30 PM 3:00 PM 13:30 15:00

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Thursday, September 26th, 1:30 p.m. ET

Celebrating 30 Years of VAWA: Understanding VAWA and Leveraging it to Support Survivors

Free for members / $25 for non-members

Webinar details below.

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Webinar Overview

Since its enactment in 1994, The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has dramatically improved federal, state, Tribal, local, and communal responses to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking. VAWA created a coordinated community response to domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence, changing the perception of gender-based violence as a private matter to a societal issue that requires a multidisciplinary response. In this webinar, we will provide an overview of VAWA and how it has changed national, state, Tribal, and local responses to domestic violence. We will explore the benefits of VAWA, and discuss how organizations can utilize VAWA to support survivors in their communities.

Presenter Bios

Tierra Williams, MSW (she/her) serves as the V-STOP & Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Victim Fund (VSDVVF) Grant Program Coordinator at the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). She is responsible for engaging in grant program coordination for the VSTOP and VSDVVF Grant Programs as well as providing training, technical assistance and ensuring adequate grant-sponsored service delivery. She holds a Bachelors of Social Work from Mary Baldwin University (College) and Masters of Social Work from Temple University.

Kate Walz (she/her) is the associate director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project and leads the law project's gender-based violence work. Kate was on the drafting team for the 2013 and 2022 VAWA reauthorizations and provides technical assistance and advocacy to survivors, advocates, and victim-service providers on VAWA and effective VAWA implementation.

Cristina Velez (she/her) is the Legal & Policy Director of ASISTA Immigrant Assistance, a national organization that supports noncitizen survivors of gender-based violence through training, technical assistance, and policy leadership. She has represented immigrant survivors in various capacities throughout her career and previously directed the immigration units at Queens Legal Services and the HIV Law Project in New York. Cristina is a graduate of Cornell Law School and Oberlin College, and clerked for the Honorable Denny Chin in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

D.Fox (she/her/they/them) has worked in the domestic and sexual violence movement for over 30 years with a focus on fundraising, organizational development, nonprofit administration, and domestic violence population-specific housing and economic justice programming. In her role as Deputy Director of Housing Policy and Practice at NNEDV, D.Fox works tirelessly to advocate for safety and expanded federal housing protections and options for survivors and additional federal resources with federal appropriations and was instrumental in the passage of the HUD DV Bonus Funds in 2018. D.Fox leads NNEDV’s Collaborative Approaches to Housing for Survivors, a multi-agency technical assistance consortium designed to improve survivors’ access to safe, affordable housing and is considered a national expert at the intersection of gender-based violence, homelessness, and housing.

Rachel Graber (she/her) is the Vice President of Government Relations and Advocacy at Jewish Women International (JWI), where she advocates for survivors and advances key legislation. She has helped pass critical laws, including the 2022 Violence Against Women Act, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and the VOCA Fix Act. Throughout her career, Graber has focused on keeping firearms out of the hands of abusers and expanding protections for survivors. She has co-authored numerous publications on the intersection of domestic violence and firearms and played a key role in the creation of Disarm Domestic Violence, a resource for state firearm laws. Graber holds a Master of Social Work and a Master of School Counseling from the University of Iowa.