UCI Initiative to End Family Violence   

Mission

The mission of the UCI Initiative to End Family Violence is to be the premier site for research, education, clinical care, and community collaboration on family violence prevention and intervention.

Vision

A world in which people of all ages are safe within their families and relationships.

The Problem of Family Violence

Family violence causes untold suffering for millions of people worldwide. Physical, sexual, psychological, or financial abuse and other forms of violence, as well as neglect or abandonment, occur in severe forms at all ages of the lifespan, from infancy through late adulthood. When such violence is perpetrated by family members, intimate partners, or caregivers, it is recurrent in the family context and typically increases in frequency and severity if there is no effective intervention. Despite the attention paid to family violence over the past several decades, it remains a devastating problem that is growing in scope and intensity worldwide. UCI’s Initiative to End Family Violence brings together a broad array of faculty and community partners to address this multifaceted problem that has wide-ranging societal impacts.

Violence Across the Lifespan

Our Initiative promotes studies on violence across the lifespan, including child abuse, children exposed to domestic violence, teen dating violence, intimate partner violence, abuse of people with disabilities of all ages, and elder abuse. In contrast, current study of and response to non-stranger abuse typically segregates child abuse, adult domestic violence, and elder abuse. Responding in silos disregards the intergenerational effect of violence. Research shows that witnessing violence between one’s parents or caretakers is the strongest risk factor of transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next.

Interdisciplinary Approach

The Initiative combines an unprecedented range of disciplines and experts in violence prevention and treatment across the lifespan. Faculty from 20 departments and 10 schools include participants from art, biological and physical sciences, engineering, information and computer science, law, medicine and health sciences, social ecology, social sciences, and other fields. The Initiative is intended to foster innovative forms of collaboration and integration, aiming to produce groundbreaking research that can impact policy, clinical care, social services, and education, from local to global levels.

Research, Policy, and Practice

Our aim is to provide a rigorous scientific approach to a complex topic that is informed by critical theory, the work of practitioners (including the faculty who are doctors, nurses, lawyers, and therapists), and our community partners. We study lifespan manifestations and causes of family violence, socio-cultural factors, preventative measures, and interventions for family violence and the treatment of trauma.

The Initiative to End Family Violence envisions is a world in which people of all ages are safe within their families and relationships.

The Initiative is the first endeavor in the world that works across the lifespan to address family violence (including child abuse, teen dating violence, sexual assault, intimate partner violence, and elder abuse), and is the first to unite such a diverse range of disciplines to engage in groundbreaking research, education, and clinical care that fundamentally transforms the field of family violence. 

We are now accepting donations to support all aspects of our programing including:

• Clinical Care Collaborations: $200+ to engage in interdisciplinary interventions with family violence victims (Ex: art or dance therapy, medical-legal responses) 
• Workshops: $300 to host an on-campus presentation by a local speaker or researcher
• Trainings: $500 to train local advocates, therapists, attorneys, medical professionals, and others
• Curricular or Collaborative-Building Grants: $2,000-6,000 to create new courses or community-partnered projects
• Survivor Series: $3,000 to host a survivor to speak with local audiences about experiences of abuse. This series has been a critical way to help practitioners, scholars, community members, and students understand the complex dynamics of family violence
• Graduate Student Fellows Program: $3,500-5,000 to sponsor a Fellow’s research on family violence
• Distinguished Lectures: $5,000 to host a national or international expert
• Interdisciplinary Research Grants: $25,000 to sponsor an interdisciplinary, groundbreaking research project (Ex: Modeling Brain Trauma in Children) 
• Larger gifts are also sought to fund a Project Coordinator, develop the world’s first minor in Family Violence Prevention and Intervention, and fund a center