(Published 2024 May)
The Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance Is a Powerful Domestic and Sexual Violence Services Teammate
Billed as Virginia’s leading voice on sexual and intimate partner violence, the Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance is comprised of a diverse group of individuals and organizations that believe all people have the right to a life free of sexual and domestic violence. The organization uses its collective voice to create a Virginia free from interpersonal violence while inspiring others to join and support values of equality, respect, and shared power.
Volunteer Voices recently sat down with Jonathan Yglesias, director of mission advancement, to talk about the partnership between the Action Alliance and Domestic and Sexual Violence Services. This is an excerpt of that conversation.
Volunteer Voices: What is Action Alliance’s mission? What do y’all do? How long has the Alliance been around?
Jonathan Yglesias: We are the state anti-violence coalition operating on behalf of Virginia’s 71 sexual and domestic violence agencies statewide. As a coalition, we’re built out of local agencies that always have been the foundation of the work. Part of that work has been local work in every community--connecting them to policy work, training needs, best practices. We serve as a resource hub, a statewide systems navigator, filtering up the collective voice of survivors and communities around the state. We sometimes get to say things local agencies don’t always have the ability to say. We also serve as that voice in those spaces local communities can’t occupy. And we are deeply connected to communities around the state.
1981 was the year two organizations—Virginians Aligned Against Sexual Assault and Virginians Against Domestic Violence—came into being. We were not too far behind the state’s first battered women’s shelter and rape crisis center. As soon as these agencies started popping up around the state, [it became clear there was] a need for this. It was activists coming together and creating a board and scrambling together a few funds for one staff member. They shared an office in the basement of a church, and they shared a salary. They had one chair that was volunteered from the church. Very scrappy. Now we’re in a much different place, thankfully.
The two organizations merged in 2004, becoming the Action Alliance, which transformed into a dual sexual violence/domestic violence agency.
How long have you collaborated with DSVS?
As long as we’ve both been in existence! Fairfax County is unique in that there are so many diverse needs in terms of the experiences of survivors. We’ve often looked to Fairfax to do some of the cutting-edge, best-practices work, and then we take that to other communities. And you’ve taught us a thing or two about the work culturally specific agencies, like the Korean Community Service Center and Tahirih [Justice Center], do around survivor wellness and advocacy.
What’s great about the collaboration?
It is often true that nonprofits can be a bit more nimble in the work they’re able to do in communities. That’s not the case in Fairfax County. The city and government and county are very progressive and very cutting edge, constantly looking to best practices, and DSVS has the support of different partners. The infrastructure you’ve built serves as a blueprint for what can exist in other communities. Look at the work of the Council to End Domestic Violence and its Accountability Workgroup—that’s not something that’s happening in other communities. It’s a partnership and a vision that’s pretty cutting edge.
Some other work, the firearms relinquishment protocol, for instance, showcases some of the best practices in the work y’all have done with your judges and some of the practitioners in the system serves as a model for and is included in our statewide best practices toolkit.
There’s not much we as an organization have done, where we want to talk about an issue, where Fairfax wasn’t at the table doing something cool. And we think, “We need to learn from them, and other folks need to learn something, too.” Your knowledge building and resource sharing has created an invaluable community of practice for us.
Any challenges to the partnership?
We’ve had moments where agencies like those in City of Alexandria and Fairfax—those sitting under governmental umbrella agencies--can’t do some policy advocacy in the same way other agencies can. But that hasn’t stopped the good work. The good work is able to be incorporated into the work I do in Richmond, where advocates can reach out to legislators. I wouldn’t even call it a challenge. It’s a limitation.
What else should we know about the ways the Action Alliance supports victims of interpersonal violence?
Everyone rags on VAdata, the data collection system that came out in the late ‘90s. The state was able to coordinate it because local practitioners and advocates came together and said we need a system to hold all of this (advocacy work, survivor stories, grant information). It needs to belong to advocates and survivors. It can’t belong to policymakers and others. VAdata has an unsexy, utilitarian vibe about it, but it is an incredibly helpful tool at the statewide level to talk about what’s happening in the state and what common trends and experiences we can pull that we’re seeing across the state. And it honors the experiences of victims and the work of advocates.
This article posting is part of the Domestic and Sexual Violence Services' Volunteer Voices monthly newsletter for current and potential volunteers. If you're not already a volunteer, learn how to get involved. Find out about upcoming trainings, volunteer trainings, happenings around the DSVS office and information about articles, books, media recommendations and more.
Learn more about the Domestic and Sexual Violence Services (DSVS).