If your organization hasn't already become a member of the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women, we urge you to do so now. Join our network of more than 90 member programs working to promote justice, provide safety, and prevent future harm for all battered women and their children.

MCBW MEMBERSHIP

• MCBW membership keeps you connected with organizaing efforts across the state and throughout the country through networking groups, training, technical assistance, and up to date information and resource materials. Opportunities include:
  • Read weekly MCBW e-mail updates with news, resources, and funding opportunities.
  • Join networks, such as the Women of Color and Native American Women’s Leadership Council, the Domestic Violence Legal Advocacy for Women Committee, the Legislative Advisory Committee, and networking groups focused on prevention and teen leadership.
  • Shape the priorities and activities of MCBW at the Annual Membership Meeting.
  • Participate in e-mail discussion lists with advocates from across the state, including up-to-the-minute news and resources.
  • Participate in MCBW trainings such as Domestic Violence 101, Advanced Legal Advocacy, and Legislative Organizing at reduced rates.
  • Attend free audio/web trainings.
  • Increase your corporate, government and community support through MCBW member mini-grants and travel scholarships.

• MCBW is a recognized leader in raising public awareness of battering, developing materials and coordinating events that increase media attention to help prevent battering and support the needs of battered women and their children.
  • Annual Femicide Report – MCBW publishes an annual Femicide Report, a report on women and children murdered in our state, to educate the public about the lethality of domestic violence and child abuse. We report on the murders of women and children at the hands of abusers to direct attention to the challenges faced by all of the women and children who are living with abuse and as a call to all Minnesotans to come together to promote justice, provide safety, and prevent future harm for all women and children. For the past two year, MCBW has not only compiled the stories of women and children murdered by an intimate partner but have started to analyze the data. By looking at trends in the homicide statistics, the Femicide Report is becoming a tool to assist in the education and prevention of domestic homicides. MCBW has been publishing the Femicide Report since 1989.
  • Clothesline Project – The Minnesota Clothesline Project, which started in 1992, is a memorial to the victims and survivors of domestic violence. The project involves designing shirts to remember the women and children murdered as a result of domestic violence and child abuse. The shirts then are hung on a clothesline and displayed in a public location. The purpose is to create a visual memorial to the casualties and survivors of the war against women. Clotheslines from 1992 to the present honoring the women and children in Minnesota killed as a result of domestic violence are available for exhibit throughout the state to raise public awareness of the prevalence and severity of women abuse and child abuse.

• MCBW is an effective advocate at the Minnesota Legislature, promoting increased funding for battered women’s programs, increased consequences for batterers and better tools for law enforcement and the courts to use in holding batterers accountable.
  • In the past year, MCBW members worked together to ensure continued federal funding through VAWA, FVPSA and VOCA and reduced the proposed state cuts to crime victim service providers from 7% to 3% for the FY10-11 biennium.
  • MCBW successfully opposed child custody bills that would have put some battered women and their children in more danger, and supported prosecutor initiatives to provide greater safety for women. For example, the amount of time police have to make a probable cause arrest in domestic assault cases was extended from 12 hours to 24 hours. This should lead to greater accountability, especially for offenders who try to avoid arrest by fleeing the scene of their crimes before the police arrive.

• MCBW works with member programs to support teen leadership skill development and to promote healthy relationships to prevent teen dating violence.
  • The 2009 Teen Leadership Summit engaged 44 youth and 24 advocates from around the state in peer advocacy training that provided them with the skills and tools necessary to be effective young advocates in their schools and communities. Youth were highly interactive during the survivor stories and relay race and groups developed awareness campaigns utilizing four venues – video, theatre, music/written word and publicity campaigning. MN Lynx donated the Target Center space, beverages, a visit from “Prowl,” pictures on the Target court with Timberwolves player and 150 tickets to the Timberwolves evening game. Both Verizon Wireless and the MN Lynx provided underwriting and travel scholarships for this event and donated gifts for all the participants

• MCBW is a leading training resource, providing accurate and timely training opportunities for new and experienced battered women’s advocates. Trainings include:
  • A bi-annual statewide conference, a two-day basic advocacy training, monthly audio/web conferences and workshops on emerging issues such as stalking and strangulation and the use of new technology to harass, control and endanger women, assuring that Minnesota advocates, attorneys, and court personnel have timely access to information on the most recent legal and policy changes affecting battered women.
  • Quarterly basic training for new advocates has been reformatted and enhanced to not only present on philosophy and the herstory of the movement, but to take those concepts and have participants strategize how they should form and inform their work as advocates. These trainings have been well attended and member programs report that DV101 is an important component in training of new volunteers, staff and board members.
  • An Advanced Order for Protection (OFP) Advocacy training was developed in conjunction with the University of Minnesota Law School which employs a mock “hearing” conducted by a retired judge and in-depth discussion of a variety of scenarios that focus on advocacy skills in OFP evidentiary hearings. A training handbook was also developed for this project and the training has garnered overwhelmingly positive evaluations both in terms of content and format.
  • Training on domestic violence was developed with the State Guardian Ad Litem (GAL). This is a one-day/ 6-hour training that is experiential in nature and addresses areas such as: assessing safety risks and making appropriate recommendations; and dealing with the co-occurrence of child abuse and battering. The training was fine tuned after a pilot conducted with GAL managers and coordinators and has been conducted throughout 2008-2009. MCBW staff is also providing domestic violence training to GALs as part of their initial required 40-hour pre-service training.
  • MCBW also participates in various multi-disciplinary training collaborations. For example, MCBW staff co-presented on order for protection proceedings at the Judicial College Training—a mandatory training program for judges in Minnesota. In addition, MCBW is joined with the MN Office of Justice Programs, member programs Someplace Safe and Range Women’s Advocates, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, MN Sheriff’s Association, MN Chiefs of Police Association, State Court Administration, Minnesota County Attorney’s Association and various other law enforcement agencies to develop and conduct statewide training on strangulation, stalking and effective enforcement of no contact orders.

• MCBW is an expert legal resource on battering for advocates across the state, providing technical assistance and legal support in high-impact cases.
  • MCBW’s legal program focuses on appellate cases as a way to impact policy and has created an effective network with other legal organizations and attorneys through the Domestic Violence Legal Advocacy for Women (DVLAW) committee. The network includes Chrysalis’ Safety Project – Volunteer Attorney Network; the Battered Women’s Justice Project (BWJP), a national training and technical assistance provider; the Battered Women’s Legal Advocacy Project (BWLAP), a statewide project; and several area law school professors and private practitioners as well as legal advocates from member programs. With assistance from this group, MCBW has been involved in a number of appellate level cases.
  • The DVLAW group is convened monthly and an e-mail discussion list of 96 members is maintained for the DVLAW group to communicate about legal trends and problems.

• MCBW works to increase the effectiveness of the system of services and programs that serves Minnesota’s battered women by engaging and seeking leadership by and direction from women of color and Native women across the state.
  • The Women of Color and Native Women (WOCNW) Leadership Project goal is to engage women of color and Native women in identifying patterns of, and proposing solutions to, the problem of inequality in the battered women’s service delivery system as it affects battered women, the individuals who provide services to them and their communities. By bringing women of color who work within the battered women’s movement together, we analyze the system’s strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to serving women and children of color; develop recommendations for change; and promote adoption of these recommendations among member programs. In addition, work-related skill training will be provided, assisting women of color in gaining the necessary administrative, management and communication skills necessary to move into leadership positions within the battered women’s movement.
  • A team of women leaders from around the state have come together to form the WOCNW Leadership Task Force and are providing the guidance and expertise for the development of a two-year action plan for the state of Minnesota that will address such items as public policy issues, the illumination of barriers to resources within systems, leadership development and unleashing the collective gifts that women of color have to offer.

If you would like additional information or would like to request a Membership Packet please contact Leticia Jones, Office Manager at 651-646-6177 - Ext. 14 or email ljones@mcbw.org.