The Military Advocacy Resource Network is a project funded by the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) to provide technical assistance, resources, and support for all advocates, military and civilian, who serve military and veteran families and work with victims of domestic violence/sexual assault/stalking and dating violence perpetrated by military personnel or veterans.

BWJP is developing a blueprint for an effective community response to the co-occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and intimate partner violence (IPV). With the increase in military members returning from service in combat zones, many communities are seeking guidance on how to handle military-related cases involving the co-occurrence of PTSD and IPV. Funded by OVW, the Battered Women’s Justice Project (BWJP) will be working with many community stakeholders to identify an appropriate criminal justice response to these incidents. An effective response will require that all intervening service providers are cross-trained on the issues of IPV and PTSD and that communication and coordination between agencies is initiated and institutionalized. 

For the Military/Civilian Coordinated Response to Domestic Violence Demonstration Site Project, BWJP was responsible for providing project oversight and implementation for this OVW-funded initiative which created a model process and guidelines for coordinating the response of civilian and military agencies to domestic violence cases involving military personnel in two communities. This multi-year project has been operating in Jacksonville, Florida, in cooperation with nearby United States Navy bases, and in the communities of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and Clarksville, Tennessee, in cooperation with Ft. Campbell, a United States Army installation.

The lessons learned from this project are summarized in Collaborating for Safety: Coordinating the Military and Civilian Response to Domestic Violence which is available now by clicking here.

[To access all of BWJP's publications on the military, please click here or browse to: RESOURCES (top navigation), scroll down, and choose the "Military" category.]

BWJP is funded by OVW to provide technical assistance on military/civilian collaborations to build capacity in civilian jurisdictions to coordinate with military installations in responding to military-related domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence. Technical assistance provides coordinated community response approaches (developed by the OVW-funded Military/Civilian Coordinated Response to Domestic Violence Demonstration Site Project) to other communities and military installations. 

BWJP is available for trainings and consultation for both military and civilian communities on strategic planning and assessment, collaboration, outreach and victim services, and readiness to work with the specific issues of military-related victims. BWJP has a group of staff and consultants with extensive experience working with the military and surrounding civilian communities and veterans services on domestic violence. Our experience with training military communities has taught us that it’s important for a community to adopt a consistent approach to cases that is reinforced by each intervener in the chain of institutional response and that the appropriate linkages are established to promote victim safety and offender accountability.

For further information, please contact:

Glenna Tinney
Military Advocacy Program Coordinator
Battered Women's Justice Project
gtinney@bwjp.org
1-703-822-8118 or 1-800-903-0111 ext. 1, then ext. 258