Initiatives

MCEDV regularly engages in collaborative initiatives that further our mission and address the root causes of abuse.

Examples of these initiatives include:

Expert Witness Project 

If you are an attorney looking to make a request to the Expert Witness Project, please click on this link for more information and to submit a request form.

The Domestic Violence-Child Protective Services Program

For 20 years, MCEDV has partnered with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to place specially trained domestic violence advocates in child welfare offices across the state. When the program started, survivors of domestic abuse involved with Child Protective Services were often held responsible by the system for the harm their partners had inflicted upon their children. Meanwhile, the actions of the perpetrators of domestic violence went unrecognized and unchecked.

The program was developed in response to these experiences. It grew from the recognition that we can support children’s well-being and achieve more safety for entire families by supporting protective parents. Today, thanks to decades of advocacy and partnership, survivors involved in the child welfare system are met with a dramatically different response.

All child welfare caseworkers have received in-depth training about domestic abuse and the impact of trauma. They benefit from policies and protocols detailing best practice responses for supporting protective parents. All DV-related cases are referred to the DV-CPS Liaisons from the beginning, seeking to address safety for the family as a whole and hold the person harming accountable for their actions.

The DV-CPS Liaisons work out of child welfare offices. However, they are employed by their local domestic violence resource center. They are experts in the complex cases that wind up at CPS’s door.

These initiatives are supported through funding from the Office on Violence Against Women’s Rural Grant Program and Maine DHHS. MCEDV provides full-time coordination of the program from our Coalition office, coordinating the Liaisons’ work across the state and partnering closely with DHHS to train child welfare workers and address gaps and emerging issues within the system. 

Economic Abuse Collaboration with New Ventures Maine

In 2017, MCEDV was awarded an Allstate Foundation Purple Purse Grant, allowing us to enhance the support, advocacy, and policy work being done in Maine to respond to abusive people’s economic and financial tactics against their partners. The project formalized our longstanding partnership with New Ventures, Maine.

Together, we instituted pilot initiatives at three of our member resource centers, where New Ventures workers provide financial empowerment education to survivors on-site. We have also implemented a tiered matched savings plan through New Ventures, allowing survivors to receive financial literacy education while working on their savings goals. We’ve developed a set of response protocols to integrate into the core domestic violence advocacy work done throughout the state.

The second year of the project will focus on expanding the pilots to additional centers throughout Maine. We’ve heard from survivors that they often leave abusive relationships with damaged credit, without a pathway to repair. To respond to the need, we are working to integrate a credit repair program into the program as we move forward. 

This grant work’s impetus came from proposed legislation to address financial abuse during the 2017 legislative session. While the bill did not pass, the Judiciary Committee requested that a study be conducted to evaluate the use of financial tactics against survivors. MCEDV will conduct the study and provide the report in 2018. The report offers an opportunity to strengthen support for survivors who’ve experienced this facet of abuse and raise awareness about this tactic’s severity and frequency.

Trafficking Safe House

According to the Maine Sex Trafficking and Exploitation Network, approximately 200-300 victims of human trafficking seek services in Maine each year. For many victims, emergency shelter is a high-ranking need. In response to this immense need, MCEDV opened the only emergency shelter specifically for victims of sex trafficking and exploitation, supported in part by a contract with the Maine Department of Health & Human Services in 2018.

The shelter, located in Western Maine, has the capacity to house up to six people and features 24-hour staffing on-site. The house’s management is a fully collaborative effort, involving our local member, Safe Voices, a Lewiston-based sexual assault agency, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Services, Survivors Speak USA, a Portland-based, survivor-led, anti-trafficking and sex exploitation organization, and Lewiston-based survivors of sex trafficking. The Maine Coalition Against Sexual Assault has provided support for the project.

In our planning for this shelter and associated programming, MCEDV and our collaborators engaged both community partners and sex trafficking survivors through a series of focus groups and one-on-one conversations. As we continue moving forward with these new shelter initiatives, we will continue to work collaboratively with organizations doing anti-trafficking work in the state while privileging the voices, knowledge, and experience of survivors.

Take Action Maine

In 2016, Daughters of Change, a Portland-based cause marketing company, approached MCEDV about creating a televised public awareness campaign about domestic abuse and violence in Maine. The result was a collaborative campaign that has aired throughout the state, highlighting the availability of support for Mainers impacted by abuse and the need for men to get involved in ending abuse. Sponsored by First National Bank and Hardy, Wolf, and Downing, and supported by WGME, WABI, and WAGM.

The campaign resulted in an average 35% increase in calls to the statewide domestic violence helpline in its first year. In 2017, Take Action Maine was recognized with the First Place Creative Award for Public Service – Sponsored TV at the annual Maine Association of Broadcasters (MAB) News and Creative Awards. That same year, it was adopted by MCEDV’s membership as the statewide theme for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.