Esperanza United

Programs: Family advocacy -in fy16, we served a total of 626 latinas and their children with ongoing support--243 women and 383 children. 46 women and 45 children stayed at the refugio; the average stay was 63 days. 96% of participants developed a safety plan and 93% demonstrated implementation of their goal plans. Approximately 300 individuals were served on a walk-in basis at the hennepin county domestic abuse service center (dasc). We have added a second advocate at dasc. We also continued our work with the hennepin county child protection services (psop), the midtown safety center, the minneapolis police department and bridges to safety. The family advocacy staff worked closely with community engagement staff to integrate mind/body mindfulness and self-care practices into daily interactions with participants and between staff. Program staff also assisted with organizing the mujeres latinas expo, a collaboration of casa de esperanza, clues, ucare, brain injury alliance, minneapolis parks and recreation, and community members. In collaboration with community partners, our proyecto navidad project provided holiday gifts for 45 families in the community and at the refugio.

national initiatives -the national latin@ network (nln) for healthy families and communities focuses on policy advocacy, research and training and technical assistance. Casa de esperanza/nln is designated as the national resource on domestic violence and latin@ communities from the department of health and human services. Training and technical assistance (ta): the nln provided 147 training events, including workshops, national conferences, webinars, blog-talk radio segments, etc. A total of approximately 7,500 individuals were trained. The nln hosted 5 conferences that reached 250 individuals; trained 3,850 individuals through 87 in-person trainings; broadcast 45 webinars for 1,134 individuals, and supported 206 individuals through 10 site visits. The nln reached 244 organizations from 26 states, plus washington dc and puerto rico. We also provided services in peru, china, cuba and the dominican republic. Conferences included the national latin@ institute, two regional trainings aimed at supporting community-based and culturally-specific nonprofit organizations build their capacity; and, a new grantee orientation for 20 organizations of the ovw culturally specific services program (cssp). The decimos no ms campaign, launched with a toolkit and campaign materials; coverage on 17 media outlets able to reach a potential audience of more than 19 million people nationally. The nln has 1675 ongoing members, who engage through weekly e-news, monthly webinars, and other training and technical assistance. The nln website had 67,093 unique page views, an increase of 50% from previous year. Public policy: casa de esperanza continues to be an active steering committee member of the national task force to end sexual and domestic violence (ntf); staff co-chairs the immigration committee. The organization is also a member of the national hispanic leadership agenda (nhla), co-chairs the latina task force, and played a critical role in ensuring a strong gender lens in the 2016 nhla public policy agenda. The ceo and public policy staff attended the 21st anniversary of vawa at the vice president's home in washington dc, with the vice president, and other key individuals working on violence against women. Research: the research team hosted a research /evaluation roundtable in austin, tx, with 35 participants, including, research advisory board members, practitioners from across the united states. The purpose was to shape the agenda of our future research and evaluation endeavors with the goal to bring the experience of practitioners and community members in the dv field to the forefront. The "housing needs of latin@s" research study was launched and a number of manuscripts were submitted and published. The research team formed a practitioner/researcher council to guide the research center's work.

community engagement - through our amig@s initiative, 77 amig@s (youth and adults) participated during the year and reached over 3,400 people via their community action projects. The online resource center provided helpful information and resources for latin@s in the twin cities area, with more than 5,700 visits from mobile devices. Key amig@s projects included: a two-day, two-night camp for 30 latina girls; 4th annual latin@ youth conference hosted by the youth amig@s; presenting information/resources at 8 community fairs; and participation in the minnesota women's foundation's young women's listening panel (the girls stories' were used collectively with other girls' stories to support the creation of accessible resources and programs for girls). Other key successes include: leadership training for a new cohort of youth amig@s, training on healthy relationships and dating/domestic violence to youth at 5 schools in dakota county, and working with el colegio charter school to host a series of events, including a day of the dead activity and training.