Oversight_Panel
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002
I. Introduction and Logistics for the Day
II. Review of Accomplishments to Date
a. Received feedback from inspectors in SFPD that relationship between domestic violence units and organizations have been working better than ever as a collaborative. Cross-training helped to create better relationships.
b. More interaction with courts; judges at cross-training institute
III. Review Mission Statement and Current Strategic Plan Goals
a. All agreed that current mission statement was still the right one for the group.
b. Goals
i. Outreach: an area that we haven’t been able to focus on, have done work with cell phones and language access, not much response from Chronicle
ii. Batterer Accountability: created a committee, Mary Cavanaugh leader in this field is on panel, working with courts and probation, Dorka wants to access funding to do more research in this area
iii. JUSTIS: Judge Ryan taken interest in this issue, very slow moving project, need to push Mayor’s Office and City Departments to support this project
iv. Ongoing Governance: Brought on new members, looking for new members from community, a couple of people leaving committee at end of year
v. Funding: Develop funding plan, raise $ to support partner departments, Domestic Violence Cross-Training collaborative…
vi. Goal H (Identify other relevant systems and city agencies requiring domestic violence protocol development, including public housing/Housing Authority, Child Protective Services/Human Service Agency, and child care): Do we want to get into housing, child protective services, and other aspects of DV?
IV. Brainstorm/Prioritizing
a. Kathy Black: Goal H from the previous strategic plan is really important: “To Identify other relevant systems and city agencies requiring domestic violence protocol development, including public housing/Housing Authority…”: victims of domestic violence (DV) should be a priority for public housing and are currently not; Tony Alvarez has just been appointed as the new head of the San Francisco Housing Authority. As he has just started, it is an excellent time to speak to him about J&C mission; DV is now considered a priority for transfer; just as we now meet with the Chief of Police on an ongoing basis, we should set up meetings with Mr. Alvarez to discuss domestic violence and public housing on an on-going basis; the strength of J&C is to establish protocols; moving someone from one apartment to an apartment next door is not a solution to safety problems for women in public housing; the policy should be changed so that transfers are implemented to insure that women and children are kept safe;
b. Language Access
Dorka: As far as language access goals, we want live people doing language access –we must maintain continued access; community folks (The Language Access Coalition) are currently working with Police Department to create brochure about language access rights - now is an opportune moment to tackle language access;
Upton wants to continue working with language access issues as DV Consortium is putting Language Access as a higher priority;
Language access should also be looked at as cultural access;
Office of Language Services addresses both language and culture; the Office of Language Services has worked with DOSW, Office of the District Attorney, Office of the Public Defender, the Police Department, and Adult Probation Department to develop a pilot program that would offer free training to bilingual city employees (who are not currently certified by the City as bilingual) who work with law enforcement. The training would focus on improving interpretation skills (both language and culture), with a focus on domestic violence. The program would be developed by City College of San Francisco, and the domestic violence material would be developed by La Casa de las Madres.
c. Stalking
Emily: is there a way to start on a high impact project to increase awareness and create publicity for Domestic Violence issues and J&C? Possibly something about stalking (big recommendation from audit)? Poster, brochure? Resource guide? Billboards?
DA’s office has reestablished stalking task force; we should create joint project with them; maybe something that a PR firm could do pro bono; draw on work that Task Force has already done (a report currently in progress) ; Possible brochure + educational component because information about what stalking is and what resources are available is not getting to people
Stalking is not being addressed with DV; if there is a child involved (in a custody dispute, for example) this sometimes leads to stalking behavior-an issue that needs to be addressed,; the point of separation of the victim and the batterer up to two years is the most dangerous time, we must build relationship with Safe Haven’s project to address this issue
Stalking training is now a part of the advanced officer training at the police academy as a result of the safety audit, though there is still much to be worked on here. Capt. Marsha Ashe developed a draft General Order for SFPD about stalking, and it is currently going through internal departmental review.
d. Training
Training issues beyond cross-training collaborative that need to be addressed (very criminal justice focused); trainings should be well coordinated; mechanism to insure that training persists even without outside funding needs to be implemented (eg. bring you own lunch, half-day training); training a HUGE priority (echoed by several people)!; grant writers are currently identifying potential funders for the cross-training; trainings should be institutionalized because some departments cannot afford to have staff people take off to go to trainings, also saves city $$$ (eg. 9-1-1);
e. Briefing sessions should be implemented to increase communication between departments (eg. between Police Department and Adult Probation); Police Department sometimes ignores DV complaints in which women do not show obvious signs of abuse; often women are being threatened and are afraid because of their citizenship status.
f. Jim Rowland – we need to get other agencies to collaborate. Other agencies and departments need to train with each other. It would help to know what Housing Authority does. We should ask: What do you do on a daily basis that could help us? The more agencies that can help each other out, the better it is for domestic violence survivors. There needs to be more talking, more sharing.
g. Ken Theisen – we need more people from the Courts to be here at the J & C meetings and a part of Domestic violence cross-training. Not so much the Judges, but the frontline staff who come in contact with the clients.
h. Cedric Akbar – need training where we deal with families on a daily basis. There are a lot of people who need to be held accountable. There are safety issues that should be taken into account. We don’t want to put people at risk, but we do want to increase the opportunities to get the help that they need. By the time we set up a protocol to do something, the incident has already happened. Even if you have communication between agencies, you don’t have communication with the families. There is not enough urgency.
i. Carolyn Akbar – agrees that the public housing problem must be addressed. DV specialists who make house calls don’t find that progress has been made. Houses are empty that should be filled. If there are waitlists, why are no families in that home? Why are people living next door to the perpetrator without anywhere else to go?
Beverly Upton - Goal should be to get a DV housing authority person back, as there was in the past. We had someone within the Housing Authority who was designated as the person responsible for domestic violence related issues..
Ken Theisen– We need to push for Housing Authority. Bay Area Legal Aid has been suing them every year for 40 years and nothing is getting done.
Jill Tregor– expectations are low, but we could still get a lot done.
Beverly Upton – It seems that people at the Housing Authority think that changes are going to be done at the next election.
V. 11:38am - Battery Accountability issue
a. What is the right role for Justice & Courage?
Jill Tregor- Adult Probation’s Batterer Intervention Program-Community Advisory Committee has been restarted. DV consortium and Family Violence Council also have interest in trying to find ways to hold batterers more accountable but we must also increase opportunities for working with batterers outside the criminal justice system. Sending guys to an intervention program isn’t doing much to help families be safe.
Art Faro – A batterer’s time is finite. He will only have a few months in jail. For the offenders, you are talking about resources for them. Need to provide a collaborate process that works better. Need more resources. The needs of resources need to be more extensive – legal issues, employment, immigration, housing issues. Probation doesn’t have the answer. Where are they supposed to go after probation?
Cedric Akbar – Batterers need to be watched for a long time. Even if they make all the changes in their life, they need to be monitored. Money needs to go to the people, and not the agency. At Positive Directions, batterers who are full of problems with no money or job or housing, get put into the No Violence Alliance Program of the Sheriff’s Department (NOVA). Batterers need to be monitored and they need to be helped until they have housing, employment, and even after that. It is cost effective in the long run. Batterers need to be in a program. As far as accountability goes, there are holes in the system. Batterers only need to do the program 2 hours a week – but what are they doing the rest of their time? They need to have resources.
Emily Murase– where do we want to be on Batterer Intervention in 5 years? We need 1) a program that works and 2) we need the programs to be funded. The future direction of batterers needs to be looked at, and the financial component needs to be looked at.
Beverly Upton – we need financial support.
Jill Tregor– We know that every batterer’s needs are different, and that different interventions work for different kinds of batterers. The resources we have aren’t expansive enough.
Art Faro – we need referrals
Ken Theisen– Each department doesn’t see every batterer. For example, batterers aren’t always in the criminal justice system. We are limited by knowing who is out there, because we don’t all work together.
Cedric Akbar – we need more training (for facilitators?)! J & C, can you help with that?
Molly Pengel – We need to implement an evaluation process. We can’t just decide to make a goal and then never look back on it. We need to come back together and discuss the changes that were made. Did we do what we wanted to do?
Beverly Upton – Harm Reduction Model.
Art Faro– people will still get together even after we do something to help them. We need to do something about that.
VII. Top 5 Issues that we should concentrate our goals on:
- Batterers accountability
- Housing
- Training
- Language Access
- Stalking
1. Batterer Accountability
- Batterer intervention issues are going well, but need to be refocused. Within the batter accountability committee, there is discussion about what it takes for someone not to be a batterer.
- Art Faro: We need to research into how Batterer Accountability issues can be more accessible and practical.
- Jill Tregor: County and state cooperation is important. At the county level, who is certified to do this work? Maybe we should look into that……
- Ken Theisen: Reviewing the goals from year One: everyone seems to agree that the goals were accomplished
- Look at year two: Goal D, section c,d,e,f,g – what are the ways that these areas can become more effective?
- c-“Explore best practices and implement oversight mecha isms to insure that batterers are held accountable.
- d-“Work with APD to strengthen BIP certification process”
- e-“Review the literature on BIP effectiveness and best practices in batterer intervention/treatment.”
- f-“ Work with APD to dedicate a full-time officer within APD to certify and oversee BIPs Literature on BIPs.
· Tina Gilbert: Officers are responsible to go out into programs and monitor the counseling sessions. The programs in place are revisited quarterly. People who attend: Batterers and counselors. Officers and supervisors make sure all info is kept and is consistent. People who fail to appear in Court are immediately bench warranted. There is lots of communication and this area is doing well.
- Ken Theisen – is area f being accomplished (“Work with APD to dedicate a full-time officer within APD to certify and oversee BIPs”)? Concern over this area…..
- Beverly Upton – Training is needed.
- Art Faro – Programs in BIP are being stuck to???
- Molly Pengel – we need to look at probation statistics and track how well they are doing. We need to track what people are doing and where they go after the 52 week program. Research needs to be done in this area. Does it take 52 weeks and then everything is ok? Not usually. Everyone knows the hardest part is the first 2 years of separation. We need to monitor this more carefully and see what people are doing.
- Jill Tregor – who should be the one to do the research and analysis?
- Tina Gilbert– at the end of three months, we have the stats on everyone. We should take these numbers and discuss what needs to be done
- Jill Tregor – Completion rate? Bench warrant rates? Stay away orders? Are these things all being tracked and reported?
- Dorka Keehn – what about issues around paying?
- Ken Theisen– problem is in family law courts.
- Art Faro– agrees. Many batterers are non-criminal justice clients. This is a problem, because they are not in the system. How can we offer help before they get into the system? Non-criminal justice clients often don’t make it to the 52 weeks program. So is it working? Those people have an even greater reason to do the program, even though they haven’t been through the system.
- Ken Theisen – we need to have more communication with the Unified Family Court.
- Jill Tregor – through the Greenbook Project, we know the Unified Family Court has an interest in improving their work with families where there is domestic violence. But their focus is not on DV. A model was never produced
- Kathy Black – How can we have neutrality from a “safety first” perspective (in family courts)?
- Dorka Keehn – Do we need to look at county augmentation? (everyone nods…..)??
- Addition to the penal codes
- Emily Murase – minority families (i.e, Japanese) don’t report DV. What do we do about that?
2. HOUSING
- Women in DV need to be on top of the list
- We need to establish more meetings with and about Housing
3. TRAINING
- How can we get more grants?
- What do we do when there are no signs of physical violence?
- Jill Tregor – we need to address a way to given in-depth information??
- Laura Marshall – The Domestic Violence Cross-Training Institute focus was not just on DV, it was on Criminal Justice and domestic violence. Including non-criminal justice agencies would change the whole structure of the training.
4. LANGUAGE ACCESS
- Pilot Project?????
- Jill Tregor – do we need to be have a lead role in this area? (Probably not….)
5. STALKING
- Need to address child-involved stalking
- DV stalking at shelters
- Emily Murase – let’s get the brochure out!! Who can take it out on pro-bono?
- Year 2 and 3 – could we hold a roundtable on stalking??
Judicial Participation
- Regular quarterly meetings. Are we meeting our objectives?
- We have not addressed issue G, section 1d (“Research marriage license fee legislation and other possible sources of income, such as the Real Estate Fraud Fund.”). Keep it in though and it will be addressed later.
