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Enhancing Court Access
Cultural responsiveness
On Esperanza United’s YouTube channel, we have a playlist of recorded trainings on enhancing cultural Responsiveness in the courts. Here are a few highlights and additional resources:
Enhancing Court Access: Training Curriculum
The Enhancing Court Access to Survivors from Diverse Communities Training is a curriculum to help court personnel and family violence and sexual assault advocates who aim to improve their provision of culturally responsive approaches to domestic and sexual violence victims in the courts.
The primary audience for the training is judges, court administrators, advocates, and lawyers who aim to improve their provision of culturally competent responses to domestic and sexual violence victims in courts and who are interested in enhancing their court’s ability to deliver culturally competent responses in domestic violence and sexual assault cases.
Part 1: Judges’ Roles in Cases of Immigrant Domestic and Sexual Violence Survivors
Hosted by Esperanza United (then Casa de Esperanza) with Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence (API-GBV), this webinar will discuss important issues that arise in family court cases involving immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking and their children.
Hosted by Esperanza United (then Casa de Esperanza) with Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence (API-GBV), this webinar will discuss important issues that arise in family court cases involving immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking and their children. The range of issues that perpetrators raise in custody cases involving battered immigrant parents will be addressed with emphasis providing legally correct information that counters misinformation perpetrators provide about immigration law, immigration status and its relevance in domestic violence custody proceedings. It will also include a discussion about U visa certification by judges, covering the range of family, civil and criminal court cases in which immigrant victims may turn to the courts for help and provide information as victims of qualifying criminal activities from which they have suffered harm and are willing to be helpful to the investigation or prosecution of that crime. Additionally, this webinar with discuss how immigrant youth who are victims of domestic or sexual violence or who are children of battered immigrants may qualify for Special Immigrant Juvenile States and the state court findings that must be obtained before the application for immigration relief can be filed.
Presenters:
Leslye Orloff, Adjunct Professor and Director of the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) at American University Washington College of Law
Judge Mary Weir, 16th Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri
Part 2: Protection for Immigrant Survivors Under VAWA Confidentiality Laws
Hosted by Esperanza United (then Casa de Esperanza) with Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence (API-GBV), this webinar will discuss the special protections for immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking under Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) confidentiality laws and their effect on best practices in court systems, as well as for victim advocacy, legal representation, and safety planning.
Participants will learn about the VAWA confidentiality laws and the: prohibitions that prevent immigration officials from relying on perpetrator provided information to harm victims; immigration case confidentiality rules that limit discovery of information about the existence of, action taken in and the contents of VAWA confidentiality protected immigration case filings; protected locations at which immigration enforcement against immigrant victims cannot occur except in very limited circumstances with high level supervisory approval; and potential protections from removal proceedings.This webinar will also discuss the additional protections available to immigrant victims under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies limiting immigration enforcement at courthouses and sensitive locations.
Presenter: Leslye Orloff, Adjunct Professor and Director of the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) at American University Washington College of Law.
Part 1: Judges’ Roles in Cases of Immigrant Domestic and Sexual Violence Survivors
Hosted by Esperanza United (then Casa de Esperanza) with Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence (API-GBV), this webinar will discuss important issues that arise in family court cases involving immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking and their children. The range of issues that perpetrators raise in custody cases involving battered immigrant parents will be addressed with emphasis providing legally correct information that counters misinformation perpetrators provide about immigration law, immigration status and its relevance in domestic violence custody proceedings. It will also include a discussion about U visa certification by judges, covering the range of family, civil and criminal court cases in which immigrant victims may turn to the courts for help and provide information as victims of qualifying criminal activities from which they have suffered harm and are willing to be helpful to the investigation or prosecution of that crime. Additionally, this webinar with discuss how immigrant youth who are victims of domestic or sexual violence or who are children of battered immigrants may qualify for Special Immigrant Juvenile States and the state court findings that must be obtained before the application for immigration relief can be filed.
Presenters:
Leslye Orloff, Adjunct Professor and Director of the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) at American University Washington College of Law
Judge Mary Weir, 16th Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri
Part 2: Protection for Immigrant Survivors Under VAWA Confidentiality Laws
Hosted by Esperanza United (then Casa de Esperanza) with Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence (API-GBV), this webinar will discuss the special protections for immigrant victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking under Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) confidentiality laws and their effect on best practices in court systems, as well as for victim advocacy, legal representation, and safety planning. Participants will learn about the VAWA confidentiality laws and the: prohibitions that prevent immigration officials from relying on perpetrator provided information to harm victims; immigration case confidentiality rules that limit discovery of information about the existence of, action taken in and the contents of VAWA confidentiality protected immigration case filings; protected locations at which immigration enforcement against immigrant victims cannot occur except in very limited circumstances with high level supervisory approval; and potential protections from removal proceedings.This webinar will also discuss the additional protections available to immigrant victims under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies limiting immigration enforcement at courthouses and sensitive locations.
Presenter: Leslye Orloff, Adjunct Professor and Director of the National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP) at American University Washington College of Law
Impact of Violence at the Intersections of the Margins
Presented by Esperanza United (the Casa de Esperanza), “Impact of violence” is a presentation of a personal experience of domestic and sexual violence and how poverty, language, culture, religious beliefs, and immigration all intertwined to complicate the few potential intervention points that existed.
Presenter:
Olga Trujillo, J.D., Director of Education and Advocacy at Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network
Women’s History Month with Judge Rosa Figarola
Women’s History Month with Judge Rosa Figarola is a podcast by Esperanza United in which we speak with Judge Figarola, who is a graduate from the University of Miami School of Law and serves as a circuit court judge assigned to the Unified Family Division in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Impact of Violence at the Intersections of the Margins
Presented by Esperanza United (the Casa de Esperanza), “Impact of violence” is a presentation of a personal experience of domestic and sexual violence and how poverty, language, culture, religious beliefs, and immigration all intertwined to complicate the few potential intervention points that existed.
Presenter:
Olga Trujillo, J.D., Director of Education and Advocacy at Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network
Women’s History Month with Judge Rosa Figarola
Women’s History Month with Judge Rosa Figarola is a podcast by Esperanza United in which we speak with Judge Figarola, who is a graduate from the University of Miami School of Law and serves as a circuit court judge assigned to the Unified Family Division in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Speaking out in unity: Testimonies from undocumented Latina immigrant women
In this webinar, Miriam Valdovinos, Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut, will share about the one-on-one interviews she conducted with Latina immigrant women living in Washington State that experienced intimate partner violence (IPV).
She investigated how the women’s undocumented immigration status impacted their experiences with help-seeking attempts and behaviors for the IPV.
Court Culture and Access to Justice
Court Culture and Access to Justice is a webinar by the Center for Court Innovation about characteristics of court culture and how they can influence litigants on domestic violence cases. It will explain the concept of court culture and how do courts have their own culture? What are characteristics of court culture?
How can those qualities help or hinder litigants on domestic violence cases, both petitioners and respondents?
Presenters:
Liberty Aldrich, JD, Director of Gender Based Violence Programs, Center for Court Innovation
Rosa C. Figarola, Judge, 11th Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade County
Speaking out in unity: Testimonies from undocumented Latina immigrant women
In this webinar, Miriam Valdovinos, Assistant Professor at the University of Connecticut, will share about the one-on-one interviews she conducted with Latina immigrant women living in Washington State that experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). She investigated how the women’s undocumented immigration status impacted their experiences with help-seeking attempts and behaviors for the IPV.
Court Culture and Access to Justice
Court Culture and Access to Justice is a webinar by the Center for Court Innovation about characteristics of court culture and how they can influence litigants on domestic violence cases. It will explain the concept of court culture and how do courts have their own culture? What are characteristics of court culture? How can those qualities help or hinder litigants on domestic violence cases, both petitioners and respondents?
Presenters:
Liberty Aldrich, JD, Director of Gender Based Violence Programs, Center for Court Innovation
Rosa C. Figarola, Judge, 11th Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade County
Cultural Responsiveness and the Courts
Cultural Responsiveness and the Courts is a webinar by Ujima, the National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community, about the importance of respecting cultural differences among domestic violence survivors to build more justice in the courts.
For a justice system to be truly just, it must be accessible to all individuals. However, survivor litigants may face challenges when courts are not responsive to their cultural identity. For survivors of gender-based violence, these challenges present additional barriers to accessing justice and obtaining fair outcomes. Recognizing and respecting individual cultural differences are important to sensitive and effective work with survivors. In addition, differences in concepts of suffering and healing can influence how individuals may experience the effects of gender-based victimization and interaction with courts.
Presenters
Nida Abbasi, JD, Coordinator, Domestic Violence Programs, Center for Court Innovation
Jose Juan Lara Jr., MS, Project Coordinator, Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network
Court Culture, Access to Justice, and Bias
This segment will identify institutional biases that may be a barrier to access civil and criminal legal systems for survivors of intimate partner violence from diverse communities.
Cultural Responsiveness and the Courts
Cultural Responsiveness and the Courts is a webinar by Ujima, the National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community, about the importance of respecting cultural differences among domestic violence survivors to build more justice in the courts.
For a justice system to be truly just, it must be accessible to all individuals. However, survivor litigants may face challenges when courts are not responsive to their cultural identity. For survivors of gender-based violence, these challenges present additional barriers to accessing justice and obtaining fair outcomes. Recognizing and respecting individual cultural differences are important to sensitive and effective work with survivors. In addition, differences in concepts of suffering and healing can influence how individuals may experience the effects of gender-based victimization and interaction with courts.
Presenters
Nida Abbasi, JD, Coordinator, Domestic Violence Programs, Center for Court Innovation
Jose Juan Lara Jr., MS, Project Coordinator, Casa de Esperanza: National Latin@ Network