Community Engagement
-
Bystander Ads - Overview
These ads use photos of community members with their messages of support. Most people are asked to be in ads because they are well regarded in their community. Ideally, anyone who is in an ad goes through a training to ensure a basic understanding of domestic violence and knowledge of local resources so they respond effectively if someone approaches them after seeing them in an ad.
Using community members in ads creates community ownership, generates important conversations, and builds healthy norms around non-acceptance of violence. We’ve noticed ads also stay posted longer when they include photos of familiar faces.
-
Community Videos - Overview
Videos highlight community voices, faces, writings, and art, and are distributed via social media, town websites, etc. They are another strategy for lifting up local voices and creating community ownership of efforts to end violence and abuse.
Task forces try to create a variety of ways community members can participate so that as many people as possible are involved. Videos, along with the art and messages within them, create one more option for people who want to be part of the solution.
-
Letters to the Editor/Letters to Parents/Opinion Pieces - Overview
Letters to the editor and parent letters are written and signed by up to a dozen task force members, emphasizing members who live in the community so that people see names they recognize. A task force coordinator or member might draft a letter, get edits from task force members, and then email it to task force members to see who wants to sign. A relationship with a local paper helps ensure letters get printed.
Parent/guardian letters go out through local schools and are also signed by up to a dozen task force members. Letters go out via school newsletters from the superintendent, principal, school nurse - or in some cases all three. This strategy requires collaboration and good relations with local schools, and ideally a school liaison to the task force.
Opinion pieces are often written and signed by one or two task force members or allies.
All writings are also shared on social media.
-
Ware River Valley DV Awareness Walks - Overview
In 2025, the Ware River Valley will hold its 10th Annual DV Awareness Walk. This Walk is emceed and led by students from the Ware High School Domestic Violence Task Force. It was started by a community member who went to a DV Walk sponsored by the Tri-town Domestic Violence Task Force in Holland in 2014. The Holland Walk moved her, and she wanted something like it in her community.
The Walk involves speakers, music, food, art activities, and a short walk through downtown Ware. The Ware High School Domestic Violence Task Force is led by two volunteer teachers and involves up to 30 students.
Purple Light Campaign - Overview
This campaign started with the Palmer Domestic Violence Task Force and spread to Gardner and Ware. Local businesses and residents put out purple lights, provided by the Task Force, in their windows for the month of October.
It generates great conversations and creates openings for parents to talk to children when they ask about the lights. It gives business leaders and residents a way to be part of their task force - and we are always looking for ways that make it easy for people to participate. It shows survivors their community supports them.
Kitchen Table - Community Conversations - Overview
These are meetings with community groups (not trainings) - 20 minutes to an hour and a half - to have conversations about domestic violence. They give people a chance to connect, talk about what they see and think about domestic violence in the community, and offer ideas to the Task Force. The Task Force also asks community members to learn about local services and be ready to reach out and educate people about help that is available. We ask them to be Task Force allies.
One or two task force members facilitate these conversations - which might take place with a select board, a local support group, a civic group, a business group, with community members at a housing village, etc.
Task force members who participate attend training beforehand to practice how to have constructive conversations and what to do when misperceptions about domestic violence come up. For more information on preparing for these conversations contact ruralnedv.org.
Local Outreach Materials and Getting Them Out
Here are a few tips on outreach materials for task forces:
Some of our towns agree to mail our outreach flyers out with town mailings, such as tax or water bills. This saves on postage, shows the Town supports our efforts, and creates a norm that the community has a role in addressing domestic violence. This strategy won’t reach renters, so we use different strategies for that, but it is a great way to reach thousands of residents.
It helps to focus on the positive in rural outreach. It is one thing to have a difficult statistic or photo of a bruised survivor in a national campaign or urban area. But in our experience this doesn’t work well in small towns. Negative outreach materials get taken down quickly. But a message like “This community cares about domestic violence” or “Everyone deserves a healthy relationship” might stay up for years.
Outreach materials don’t have to be fancy or polished - sometimes that even turns people off. A simple message printed out on card stock can save time and money - something many people in rural communities appreciate.
Many survivors don’t leave, at least not quickly. We always highlight that whether people stay or leave - there is help. We don’t want to tell anyone what to do. We do want to create a community that makes it easier for people to leave safely when and if they choose to.
-