Events

Let’s visit!
This Office Hours will feature STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center and StrongHearts Native Helpline. We invite you to join us for coffee and conversation in this virtual space to learn more about these resources for Native domestic violence survivors and domestic violence/sexual assault programs and for Q & A. 

April, 19, 2024 at 12 p.m. (MST)

No need to register!
Join via Zoom.

STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center - Director Caroline LaPorte and Senior Housing Specialist Gwen Packard will join to talk about The Capacity Building Consortium Project, a new resource crafted by STTARS in a comprehensive guide called Sample COVID Shelter Policies and Recommendations. STTARS is hopeful that participants during the Coffee and Conversation will provide their feedback on this document and share their experiences in addressing safety and shelter as we continue to navigate the challenges of COVID-19.

StrongHearts Native Helpline - Chief Executive Officer Lori Jump joining us to highlight the services of the organization's real-time data on what our relatives are experiencing. In this presentation, StrongHearts will share data for FY23.
You are also welcome to discuss:

• How you are successfully utilizing FVPSA and ARP monies to support survivors.
• Housing options for survivors in your communities.
• Challenges in spending or managing FVPSA funds.
• How data collected from calls could inform the type of services being provided within your communities.

We are excited, and we look forward to seeing you all there!!

Additional Information About the Speakers and the Organizations Being Featured About the Capacity Building Consortium (CBC)
The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center (NIWRC), and the Alliance of Tribal Coalitions to End Violence (ATCEV) have joined together as a consortium to work in collaboration with the Office of Family Violence Prevention Services (OFVPS) Formula Grantees Capacity Building Consortium (CBC) Project.
Through the CBC Project, NNEDV, ATCEV, and NIWRC work together, drawing on one another’s collective experience and expertise to provide direct training and TA to build the capacity of OFVPS State Administrators, State Domestic Violence Coalitions (SDVCs), and Tribal grantees to successfully manage their formula grants and meet the goals of OFVPS.
The CBC is here to support you in your work and we are available to help answer questions and provide guidance as needed. Please reach out anytime and we are happy to schedule a meeting with you! You can reach all three CBC partners by emailing us at: capacity_consortium@nnedv.org.

About the STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center (Safety, Training, Technical Assistance, Resources and Support)
The mission of the STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center (STTARS) is to advocate for safe housing for all our relatives. We do this work through centering Indigeneity, acknowledging our relationship to Earth Mother, building on each other’s gifts, resisting oppression and erasure, and acting upon the prayers of our ancestors to honor diversity and create belonging for us all. Our vision is “safe housing for all our relatives.”
STTARS is a training and technical assistance provider, funded by the Family and Youth Services Bureau, that works to address survivor-faced homelessness/ housing insecurity and shelter access in on and off-reservation communities. If you would like to request any technical assistance or training related to the many intersections impacting safe housing and shelter for Indigenous survivors of gender-based violence, please visit our website at www.niwrc.org/housing and sign up for our listserv here. If you are interested in having STTARS come to you for a site visit or a listening session, please contact us at housing@niwrc.org.

About StrongHearts Native Helpline
StrongHearts Native Helpline is a national anonymous and confidential helpline for AI/AN persons impacted by domestic and/or sexual violence. StrongHearts advocates offer peer support, safety planning, education, and information and referral services. With a native-centered database, we offer warm hand-offs to community-based resources for ongoing support.
 

About the Presenters

Caroline LaPorte (immediate descendant of the Little River Band Of Ottawa Indians) is the Director of the STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center after previously serving as NIWRC's Senior Native Affairs Policy Advisor. She graduated from the University of Miami School of Law, where she was named a Henry Bandier Fellow, and received the Natasha Pettigrew Memorial Award for her time as a fellow in the Children and Youth Law Clinic. She currently serves as an Associate Judge for the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. Caroline's work focuses primarily on housing, human rights, children, firearms, and criminal justice focused within the gender-based violence framework. She serves on the American Bar Associations Victim’s Rights Task Force, chairs the Victim’s Committee for the Criminal Justice Section of the ABA, was elected a fellow of the American Bar Foundation, is a member of the Lenape Center’s MMIW Task Force, and is the chair of the the Board of Directors for StrongHearts StrongHearts Native Helpline.


Gwendolyn Packard (Ihanktonwan Dakota), Senior Housing Specialist, National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, has worked for many years in Indian country, both at the national and tribal levels. She has served as editor for six national Indian publications. In 1990 she was instrumental in founding the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS). She served as Executive Director for Morning Star House, an advocacy program that works with off-reservation Indian women and children who are victims/survivors of domestic and sexual violence. She also served as Executive Director of the NM Suicide Prevention Coalition and is the founder and Co-Chair of Rain Cloud, the off-reservation behavioral health collaborative in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is a survivor of domestic violence, a writer, a grassroots organizer, an advocate, and a community activist. She has made a commitment to social change by working to address social, environmental, and economic justice issues that affect the health and well-being of Indian people as documented in her work experience.


Lori Jump, a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is the Chief Executive Officer of the StrongHearts Native Helpline. Her love of family and community is central to the work she chooses as is her belief that we have responsibilities to those who came before us and those who will follow. Her most important roles are those of Mom, Gma, Sister, Daughter, Auntie. Lori brings a wealth of tribal advocacy experience to StrongHearts having worked for 25+ years in her tribal community, working with tribal, state, and federal jurisdictions. She continued her work in the field of violence against women as a founding member and former Executive Director of Uniting Three Fires Against Violence, Michigan’s tribal coalition. Lori continues to serve her tribal nation as an Appellate Court Judge for the Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa Tribal Court.