programs : DELTA
The Montana DELTA Project
In September 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Injury Prevention (CDC) selected MCADSV as one of the original 9 state coalitions to participate in the new Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancement and Leadership Through Alliances, or DELTA program. In February 2003, it was expanded to include 5 more states. Montana’s selection represents a promise of over $600,000 over a three-year period to support this work. The majority of the funding will be passed to Montana's five local community partners.
What is DELTA?
like the Greek delta symbol, the DELTA project is all about CHANGE. How that change will occur wil be as individual as the communitites who undertake it.
The Project itself has three primary elements that make it a unique and exciting approach to the prevention of intimate partnew violence (IPV). Those elements are:
- DELTA’s focus is on prevention
- DELTA is a collaborative process
- DELTA employs a multi-level approach, attempting to influence change at various levels of the community.
In addition to the close work with the five local community partners, Montana’s DELTA project provides technical assistance on Coordinated Community Response Team development and the primary prevention of Intimate partner violence (IPV) to any MCADSV members in Montana.
Prevention Focus
Up to now, most of the focus of CCRs has been on intervention activities that try to provide for victim safety and batterer accountability. Much effort has been invested in coordinating the services and responses to incidents and the aftermath of domestic violence. This has naturally included the judicial system, law enforcement, and shelter services.
DELTA, instead, seeks to add a prevention focus to the existing CCR activities. Preventing violence requires changing attitudes and beliefs about what it means to be male or female in our society. Boys and girls learn how to interact with each other, respect differences and solve conflicts in the context of their communities and society as a whole. They pay attention to how adults behave toward one another and to the messages they see in movies, TV, magazines, and video games. It's not enough to tell children to behave one way and then - in our homes, schools, city halls, and stores - treat one another in a coercive, violent, or disrespectful manner. Violence prevention is the responsibility of the entire community, not just the responsibility of an individual or family.
Collaborative Process
DELTA has been a collaborative process from the start with 14 state domestic violence and sexual violence coalitions working with the CDC to define DELTA's parameters and focus.
In some ways, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) prevention work is new territory and so, this collaboration is both exciting and daunting and requires creativity, research, and careful assessments. Much more is known about the occurrence of IPV, but how to stop it is more of a mystery. What is clear, however, is that violence is learned and that it can either be unlearned or not taught in the first place. The messages needed to engage in IPV prevention will vary from community to community.
This is not your typical government program; the work and its direction is really being done more at the local level with support from the state and national levels in the form of resources and technical assistance.
DELTA’s Multi-Level Approach
Because Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is so pervasive in our culture, it is necessary to approach prevention in a multi-faceted manner. CCRs engaging in IPV prevention need to involve people from throughout the community so that the work incorporates the beliefs, attitudes, resources, and skills that are truly representative of the local community. The CCR itself must expand so that its membership includes a broader cross-section of the community to include schools, neighborhoods, businesses, youth groups and clergy, ranching association.
Although only five communities will have the advantage of the additional funding for engaging in this prevention work, Montana’s other CCRs and communities will have access to training and technical assistance in the development of their local CCR’s prevention focus (or in adding a prevention focus.)
For more information on Missoula's DELTA project, please contact Michelle Stacer at mstacer@ywcaofmissoula.org or 543-6691.
For more information on positive youth development, link to www.missoulaforum.org.