Improving Training in Your Court and Community
Training is a critical component of every Justice for Families project, which focuses on improving civil justice system responses for families experiencing domestic and sexual violence.
One of the most common requests the Center for Court Innovation receives from Justice for Families grantees involves support with designing and delivering consistent, high-quality training programs. Oftentimes sites face hurdles with the training process, such as adequately assessing training needs, drafting learning objectives, applying appropriate adult learning methods, engaging stakeholders, and logistical coordination.
Sites interested in improving their training programs can contact the Center’s Gender & Family Justice team at dvinfo@courtinnovation.org.
Train-the-Trainer Resources
Needs Assessments
Sometimes trainings miss the mark. They may fail to address priority topics, offer content irrelevant to participants' roles, or lack sufficient practical strategies, which is why it’s critical to learn as much as possible about the current system's response to domestic violence. Conducting a needs assessment is a critical step in evaluating your site’s training needs and priorities.
Watch this short video to learn more about the role needs assessments play in training design.
Learning Activities
How do you make sure your training is interactive and engages participants with a variety of learning styles? How do you decide which learning activities are the most appropriate?
This short video provides more information on how learners learn best.
Engaging Stakeholders
Engaging stakeholders is a critical yet often overlooked element of delivering effective training programs. The more comprehensive your stakeholder outreach, the better you’ll be able to address gaps in your community’s response to domestic violence through training. What does that look like?
This tipsheet will help guide you through the process of stakeholder collaboration in your next domestic violence training.
Learning Objectives
Establishing training goals and learning objectives is a key step in developing a successful training program. They help keep trainings focused and allow sites to measure progress.
This Learning Objectives Webinar identifies the elements of effective learning objectives, including the SMART method of design.
Practice Guide
For a more detailed look at designing and delivering training programs, check out the Center’s publication Planning Domestic Violence Training Programs for Your Community. This comprehensive guide contains ideas and recommendations developed to assist courts and communities in all phases of developing and implementing domestic violence training programs that specifically target adult learners.
Podcast Series: Facilitating Complex Topics with Complex Audiences
Anyone who has led or even attended a training has likely witnessed challenging moments between facilitators and participants. When facilitating conversations around intimate partner violence, these challenges can range from hostile audiences, victim-blaming language, stereotyping, and more. Preparing yourself and your co-facilitators beforehand is key to maintaining a safe and productive space for learning.
Hosted by the Center for Court Innovation and Futures Without Violence, this podcast series examines common facilitation challenges when engaging participants on intimate partner violence. You’ll hear strategies to collaborate with judges and court staff, prepare yourself for complex topics, and safely approach intimate partner violence in adult education.
Training Videos: Helping Court Staff Understand Domestic Violence Cases
Courts across the country are seeking ways to improve how their staff responds to domestic violence. The Center for Court Innovation recently developed three short videos to answer common questions from court staff about domestic violence. These videos can be used to help onboard new staff or as training tools for a larger discussion. For more information or assistance, please contact us at dvinfo@courtinnovation.org.