On Sept. 21, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a $607,630 three-year grant for the Spirit Lake tribe through the Office on Violence Against Women, which will be implemented by the tribe's Victims Assistance Program. The 2020 grant is about $200,000 less than the last time the tribe received the grant in 2017, said McKay, the director of Spirit Lake Planning and Grants.
"That's an incredible loss, because we don't have the resources to be teaching those values and to be teaching those ways of healthy lives," she said. "That's most important part of the piece. We could do all the other things , but those are semantics. We need to work with the person."
The Victims Assistance Program operates on a budget of about $850,000 to $900,000 every three years, U.S. Department of Justice Office of Violence Against Women grant makes up the lion's share of the funding. As dollars to those programs get cut, the effects trickle down to grant recipients who rely on the money, such as the Victims Assistance Program, according to McKay.
Spirit Lake is not the only recipient of Office on Violence Against Women grant money this year. Other recipients in the area include the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, which will use its $767,780 grant to support its Hearts of Hope Domestic Violence Shelter, and the Community Violence Intervention Center in Grand Forks, which will use $500,000 to offer legal support to victims of domestic violence.
On the Spirit Lake reservation, the Victims Assistance Program, in collaboration with the First Nations Women's Alliance, will use the money to provide at least one training to tribal law enforcement and court officials on the dynamics of sexual and domestic violence and support two full-time victim advocates. Assistance also will be provided to victims of sexual and domestic violence by participating on the Multi-Disciplinary Team of the Lake Region Social Services Coalition.
Last year, McKay estimates the Victims Assistance Program helped 100 to 200 women. When women flee domestic violence situations, often with children in tow, they frequently bring little more than the clothes on their backs. The Victims Assistance Program gives them legal assistance, transportation to a safe place and whatever other items the victims might need.
But with nearly $200,000 less in funding this year, McKay said the Victims Assistance Program will have to cut budget items across the board -- and when that happens, the cultural aspects of victims assistance, such as healing ceremonies and work with spiritual leaders, are often one of the first things to go.
"The importance of that cultural component is that it gives us a belief, a way of life in that belief, and going back to our traditional values and how we treat one another, in terms of respect and humility and honesty, and all those values," McKay said.
That ties into the program's goal of not only providing emergency assistance to people in need, but to create long-term change on the reservation by strengthening families and avoiding adverse childhood experiences.
Despite the cut in funding, McKay said she remains optimistic about the future.
"One has to be, in order to survive domestic violence in and of itself," she said.
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Spirit Lake Victims Assistance Program plans to make it work despite cut in federal funding - Grand Forks Herald
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