AVA Connect – Follow up Clarification on Questions
IN AVA’s most recent AVA Connect Conversation, there was healthy discussion about a few key VAWA issues that everyone on the call wanted more information about.
One of the Administrators participating in the AVA Connect Conversation, reached out to their OVW Program Manager for guidance.
The administrator shared the responses that their OVW Program Manager provided. It seems very likely that you too may find the OVW guidance to be very timely and useful.
Here are the questions from the Administrator and the responses from their OVW Program Manager:
Q. Do Implementation Plan amendments need to be sent to IP Planning team members for approval before submitting to OVW?
A. For these amendments, OVW does not require states to obtain approval before submitting, but states/territories may choose to do so.
Q. Additionally, do those Implementation Plan amendments just need to be submitted in JustGrants or do they need to be sent directly to our OVW Program Manager?
A. Per the STOP solicitation, Implementation Plan amendments need to be submitted with the application which is uploaded into JustGrants.
Q. Is providing funding to agencies who offer services to sexually trafficked victims an allowable use of VAWA funding? After hearing some comments from other state administrators, I think there is some confusion about if/how this fits within the Federal VAWA STOP Program Priorities.
A. The focus of VAWA and STOP is on the four crimes of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking, so the focus of the projects funded with STOP grants needs to be on those crimes. If a state/territory wants to address other things such as sex trafficking it has to be within the specific context of these four crimes. We know there is an intersection sex trafficking and the VAWA crimes- but that doesn’t matter under the STOP statute. If a state/territory wants to fund projects with STOP to serve victims of trafficking, it has to be on a case by case basis in which they are addressing the intersection of the four crimes and not trafficking generically.
Take care,
Barry