About Prevention

Domestic Violence Prevention

The Tennessee Coalition is dedicated to ending domestic violence.  We receive funding from the CDC in the form of a DELTA (Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancement and Leadership through Alliances) grant.  This grant allows us to create, implement, and evaluate prevention strategies across the state.  Primary Prevention strategies are focused on stopping violence before it ever occurs by targeting risk factors and building community and societal resiliency through impacting culture, policy, and awareness.  These strategies include focuses on financial empowerment, bystander intervention training, workplace policy efforts, and statewide coalition building.

Domestic Violence Prevention Projects:

Upstander Intervention – This initiative works to create safe and supportive campus communities where college students are equipped with “upstander” (bystander) skills to intervene in situations related to sexual assault and/or intimate partner violence.  Student educators engage with their peers through trainings that increase awareness of rape culture, toxic gender norms, and consent that equips students with the tools and practices of pro-social behaviors that can contribute to safer campus communities.  Additionally, a social media campaign seeks to broadly impact the larger campus culture by challenging norms and spreading awareness.

Financial Empowerment – This initiative targets rural east Tennessee counties experiencing high rates of poverty to empower those at risk of being the victims of financial abuse from an intimate partner.  Trainings are conducted with service providers to increase awareness of financial abuse.  Additionally, partnerships are created with local financial institutions to create low barrier access to financial empowerment and credit rebuilding programs.  Other key community partnerships are developed to help financially empower the most vulnerable and at risk.

Safer Workplaces – This initiative targets organizational leadership for training and awareness on intimate partner violence occurring in the workplace.  The training emphasizes warning signs that an employee may be experience domestic violence, tips for creating safety protocols, appropriate accommodations for victims and consequences for abusers, and guidance in implementation of violence free workplace policies.

Statewide Coordination Efforts – Primary prevention strategies are necessary in all communities, and the Coalition seeks to expand the reach of prevention work across the state.  A State Leadership Team evaluates statewide needs and works in collaboration to target future areas of growth for prevention work. Among these needs are youth empowerment and intervention, the creation of infrastructure to support growing prevention efforts, and a focus on policy efforts.

Sexual Assault Prevention

The Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic & Sexual Violence (TCEDSV) in collaboration with the Tennessee Department of Health (DOH) acknowledges that sexual violence (SV) perpetration and victimization is a significant public health problem that requires a public health approach to decrease risk factors and increase protective factors related to SV. This includes a range of activities to address the way individual, relationship, community, and societal factors impact SV. This approach is more likely to prevent SV across a lifetime than any single intervention and is also more likely to benefit the largest number of people and reduce SV.

Sexual Assault Prevention Projects:

Technical Assistance & Publications – Technical assistance is provided through site visits and training regarding primary prevention to health departments, college and universities, and other organizations. The Coalition also hosts a resource line for individuals looking for resources across the state.

Bystander Intervention Training – The Coalition works with college campuses and restaurants, to train staff in bystander intervention. While focused on sexual violence, this program can be used to target racism, sexism, homophobia, or any form of hate. The Coalition is implementing this program in partnership with Sexual Assault Center, the Tennessee Department of Health and additional regional program partners.

Engaging Men – Engaging Men and Boys as Allies is an initiative that sets to model positive masculinity by decreasing negative bystander behavior and decreasing dating violence perpetrations, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, among male high school athletes. This prevents sexual violence by demonstrating an individual’s role in preventing violence and supporting survivors while also teaching skills and reinforcing norms that reduce their own risk for future perpetration.

Safe Bar – Safe Bar is an initiative and collaboration between the Sexual Assault Center and the TN Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, which focuses on training local bars and restaurants in bystander intervention and raising awareness about alcohol’s role in sexual assault. After participating in the Safe Bar training, Safe Bar attendees will receive Safe Bar window cling and drug-detecting coasters to pass out community members & establishment patrons.

Rape Prevention Education Institute – The annual Rape Prevention Education Institute hosted by the Coalition is a conference focused on sexual assault prevention. This free 2-day conference offers exceptional trainings and seminars by prevention professionals, educators, practitioners and change makers to discuss the latest methods and trends in the ever-evolving primary prevention efforts to end the public health crisis of sexual violence.