The Collaboration between Welfare and Advocacy Organizations: Learning from the Experiences of Domestic Violence Survivors

The intertwined relationship between poverty and violence, especially in the lives of women on welfare, has been receiving critical attention since welfare reform. The Family Violence Option (FVO), an amendment to the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996, gives states the flexibility to offer more time for battered women to seek safety. Kansas created the Orientation, Assessment, Referral, and Safety (OARS) program, in which the state's welfare system contracts services with advocacy organizations that provide on-site services for women who qualify to participate under the FVO. This study explored the interagency collaboration model used in Kansas by talking directly with domestic violence survivors about their experiences. The results from this study challenge practitioners to think differently about collaboration to meet the needs of domestic violence survivors on welfare.