TC-TAT was created in 1997 to advance new practices, learning, and the skill development necessary to prevent violence against women. A division of Marin Abused Women’s Services (MAWS) in San Rafael, California, TC-TAT’s vision is to strengthen the collective efforts of domestic violence, sexual assault and allied organizations to ameliorate the effects of violence against women (VAW) and to prevent such violence.

TC-TAT fosters effective social change through: 

• Collaboration – bringing together people from differing viewpoints and backgrounds to work towards the common goal of violence against women prevention.

• Learning communities – facilitating peer learning groups of practitioners who share their methods, strategies, successes and challenges through trainings, conference calls, and in-person meetings, thereby fostering new thinking and understanding in the field.

• Policy advocacy and systems change work – advancing a prevention agenda with a range of decision-makers on local, state, and national levels.

• Trainings, publications, research & evaluation, and hands-on support – addressing the emerging needs of the violence prevention field. TC-TAT’s trainings are geared to meet the needs of the diverse populations and primarily follow a “Training of Trainers” model.

• Accessible and competent services – responding to the geographic, cultural, linguistic, and economic diversity of organizations doing this work. TC-TAT also recognizes diversity based on agencies’ size, their experience with violence against women issues, and roles within the organizations’ structure.

Some of TC-TAT’s accomplishments and ongoing work includes:

• Conducting fourteen Learning and Training Immersion Institutes for hundreds of prevention advocates and dozens of organizations.

• Providing training and support to over 750 faith leaders and domestic violence advocates from more than 30 different faith groups and religions.

• Working to combine and move forward the work of two previous faith leaders and doemestic violence prevention projects, training trainers throughout the state of California to carry this work out to communities.

• Developing, testing and administering the Prevention of Violence Against Women with Disabilities Training Project throughout California.

• Developing dozens of professional training materials related to prevention.

• Operating a resource center with hundreds of prevention-related products such as videos and study guides, manuals, online tools, social marketing materials, and organizing kits. For more information on products recommended by TC-TAT, free downloadable flyers and tools, links to other prevention websites, as well as products available for purchase, visit www.transformcommunities.

• Establishing an award-winning, five-year demonstration project in Marin County using the Community Action Team model to address and prevent VAW and girls.

For information, please contact: info@transformcommunities.org

Appendix H: Erratum

In the April 2002 issue (Volume 8, No. 4), the article by Kathryn Andersen Clark, “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994,” contained inaccurate data. The final line of the abstract should read, “VAWA-I saved $12.6 billion” rather than $14.8 billion. In the results section, the net benefit of VAWA-I should read, “The net benefit of VAWA-I is estimated to be $14.2 billion. Because the cost of the VAWA-I is only $1.6 billion, $12.6 billion in averted victimization costs would be saved after implementation of VAWA-I. On the individual level, VAWA-I is estimated to cost $15.50 per U.S. woman and would be expected to save $123 per U.S. woman in averted costs of criminal victimization. This suggests that VAWA-I is a fiscally efficient social program.” Numbers contained in the Total row of Table 2 should read “3,311,828 (Fatal Crime), 97,803 (Rape and Sexual Assault), and 27,362 (Nonfatal Assault).”

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, Vol. 9 No.1, January 2003, 136 Copyright 2003 Sage Publications, 136