Intervention Advocate. They hired a Development Officer. They have a Development Data
Specialist position opening to help run their donor database. They are hiring for a Legal
Advocate that is posted internally. The shelter is full and has a waiting list. 2024 stats:
over 8,000 calls on the helpline. ARPA dollars will end at the end of this year (2025).
Those monies support their community outreach education and training program as well
as their DV Housing First. The Department of Children and Families will not be continuing
the DV Housing First. DCF used ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) dollars to pilot
some DV Housing First projects, including DAiS. DAiS received $100,000 a year for
direct aid for housing for victims of intimate partner violence.
Freeman reported for Adult Protective Services (APS), they are going through many
staffing transitions, they are taking a close look at being out in the community to assist,
do outreach, and education to make sure they have the capacity and staff bandwidth to
continue to do that, reach out and they will figure out if they can meet those needs and if
they can't, they will attempt to refer to someone else in the community. They are posting
for a part-time investigator position, and will have a full-time investigator position posted
on Friday, February 21, 2025. In regards to the federal impact, their DHS partners are not
sure what's going on in the world of Adult Protective Services at the federal level. The
ACL has created federal Adult Protective Services guidelines to create a national
standard of adult protective services work across the nation. That compliance is due in
2028; keeping an eye on whether that process will be impacted. Currently, the state is
working through that. Wisconsin already has some consistency with those guidelines. A
couple of the key areas they shared information about was creating a more standardized
decision or screening guidance for cases and how they're assessed. Changing voluntary
service language. The services are voluntary and limited in terms of what they can do
when things come to the degree that involuntary action might be needed and how they
collaborate with other community partners and support individuals who may touch lots of
parts of their systems and trying to be effective and efficient in working together. The
ARPA monies are done. In the last few years, they have had some Older Americans Act
monies come through to APS, which helped with significant hoarding cleanup. They had
almost $300,000 over the course of ARPA monies having been available and that money
was spent. They do still have some funding for adults at risk or older adults who are in
need of services.
Nela Kalpic reports for Marsy's Law, there is a link to sign up and follow updates as they
relate to the OVW funding. She has been working with Wisconsin National Guard over
the past month and military to look into victim experiences where jurisdictions overlap,
focused mostly on military victims and what that looks like when there is an overlap
between jurisdictions. They are bringing together stakeholders to look into where victims
may be falling through the cracks and how to best collaborate with each other and, and
serve victims of crime along the way. The mapping is on February 28th. They will have
the FBI present and other stakeholders. If anyone is interested in attending, please email
Nela. The cut-off is by Monday, February 24, 2025. There is another victim mapping In
June with the Department of Corrections. Nela has been working with Elizabeth Lucas
and others to create a mapping that will look into victim experiences post-conviction.
Jennifer Ginsburg reports for Safe Harbor, they have a halftime position, and they hired a
full-time position who starts March 10th in their mental health department. They are going
through a training on an evidence-based practice out of Yale called Child and Family
Traumatic Stress Intervention. This is a five to eight session model for what's called the
peritraumatic period for people who have undergone a recent incident. This is for children
ages 7 to 18. This brief intervention model is approved by the National Children's
Alliance. The training process starts in April. They had Representative Tony Kurtz, who's
the Vice Chair of Joint Finance, come to Safe Harbor for a tour and to meet staff. Their
main fundraising event is on Saturday, May 3, 2025, called The Rent Event. It is a live
auction and raffle. It's a costume party, and the theme this year is The Love Boat.
