Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2022, $400,000)
Enhancing Access to Victim Services
O-OVC-2022-171328 (Category 1: Direct Services)
AccessJax Community Collaboration Project
City of Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida
Application for Funding
Project Abstract
This application is for funding for AccessJax (an acronym for Advocating and Collaborating for Change through Empowerment, Safety, and Self-Determination in Jacksonville), a community collaboration originally established through funding from the Office on Violence Against Women Disability Grant program. The primary purpose of previous OVW funding was to build capacity and commitment of the partner agencies to serve victims with disabilities and Deaf victims of domestic violence.
The proposed project will enhance and build upon the activities undertaken by the partners City of Jacksonville, primary grantee; the Center for Independent Living Jacksonville, a nonprofit organization serving persons with disabilities and Deaf individuals; the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office; and Hubbard House, Inc., a non-profit certified domestic violence center serving victims of domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, sexual assault, and human trafficking. The service area is Jacksonville/Duval County, Florida, a community with a population of nearly 1,000,000 people.
Under the OVW grants, AccessJax created a community collaboration that has focused on organizational change in partner agencies Center for Independent Living Jacksonville, Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, and Hubbard House to maximize accessibility, safety, and elimination of barriers, in accordance with trauma-informed principles for victims of domestic violence. With the completion of this work anticipated to be in September 2022, the partners now wish to build on this foundation of achievements by creating a new iteration of the collaboration that will be devoted primarily to direct services to victims of all types of crime who have a disability and Deaf victims, while continuing to build capacity among the partner agencies and in the community.
AccessJax will provide targeted victim advocacy services by experienced advocates located within the victim advocacy programs of the Center for Independent Living Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. In addition, partner Hubbard House will coordinate the partners’ focus on strengthening referral and cooperative work protocols; training of staff of the partner agencies; training of other service providers in the community; and comprehensive outreach activities.
The AccessJax partners intend for this project to be the basis for a permanent and sustained systemic approach in the community for addressing victimization of individuals with disabilities and Deaf individuals.