PA Stop Violence Against Women and Judicial Training

PCADV provides training and technical assistance to the 46 STOP Grant counties in Pennsylvania. Training topics for STOP team members, consisting of law enforcement, prosecutors and victims services providers, include the Protection From Abuse Act and its recent amendments, stalking, firearms and primary aggressor issues. A STOP Newsletter is published and distributed to STOP grant teams on a quarterly basis.
Training and Technical Assistance is also provided to domestic violence advocates around the Commonwealth. Regularly scheduled Legal Advocacy Committee meetings provide an opportunity for advocates to obtain training and share information and strategies to better assist victims of domestic violence and their children. A weekly electronic update further provides these advocates with current information to support their efforts.

PCADV staff also provides training and technical assistance to judges and court personnel through the STOP Judicial Training Project. Judges and court personnel are invited to contact STOP Judicial Project Staff to receive confidential assistance on issues related to domestic violence law. A Pennsylvania Domestic Violence Benchbook, first published by PCADV in June 2005, has been distributed to all Pennsylvania trial judges. Annual updates to this reference source are also published. A quarterly electronic newsletter, The Jurist, is made available to interested judges with information on statutory and case law updates and topics of current interest to jurists hearing cases involving domestic violence. This project is made possible with Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) funding from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.