The Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse is a Center within the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota. The Center is directed by Jeffrey L. Edleson, Ph.D. and employs 15 staff members. The Center is located on the Saint Paul campus in Room 140, Peters Hall.

The Minnesota Center Against Violence and Abuse was established in 1994 by the Minnesota State Legislature with a charge "to improve the quality of higher education related to violence." During its first years, the Center's initial and only project was the Violence Education Project. The project included a discipline-specific needs assessment about higher education, a web- based library of educational resources, a grant program to fund the development of new violence-related higher education curricula, higher education conferences, and policy and licensing change.

Through the need assessment, service providers and educators identified a dire need to learn how to respond to intimate partner abuse, violent hate crimes, youth violence, and the long-term consequences of communities living in fear.

MINCAVA has grown since its inception and currently houses four interconnected projects which all support the Center's primary mission of supporting education, research, and access to information about violence.

The Center boasts two of the nation's leading websites about violence:

Child Abuse Prevention Studies (CAPS) is a formal graduate-level certificate program designed for professionals who work with children as educators, social workers, early childhood specialists, nurses, public health professionals, attorneys, advocates, and other related positions. CAPS certifies 30-40 Minnesota professionals annually in child abuse prevention.

The Link Research Project conducts a multi-year research, program demonstration, and information dissemination project. This research project examines the experiences of families in which both mothers and their children have been maltreated. The project seeks to build collaborative relationships between child protection, domestic violence agencies, and court services.

Applied Research Forum of the National Electronic Network on Violence Against Women (VAWnet) brings online research summaries, discussions, and other resources to domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions as well as other allied national organizations throughout the United States.

MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse began as a component of the Violence Education Project, one of the Center's first projects. The Clearinghouse has evolved into one of the most comprehensive, widely used resources for violence related material on the internet today. While the Clearinghouse was originally geared toward higher education professionals, it soon became a primary source of violence related information for all types of users hungry for cutting-edge resources that were easily accessible.

Now, over 800 different users a day log on to the MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse. Hundreds of people interested in violence issues use the research and training resources in order to respond to problems they encounter in their work each day. Tracking over 150,000 hits per month, the user pool stretches far beyond originally intended service providers and educators to encompass faith leaders, business professionals, victims, and concerned citizens form all disciplines and geographic regions around the globe.

MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse provides information to a broad user pool, which includes but is not limited to:

Depending on the user group being served, MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse seeks to:

MINCAVA seeks to meet these goals by providing an accessible, user-friendly website that charges no fee for usage.

MINCAVA staff members produce and solicit content for the site. The site is filled with papers, reports, research findings, syllabi, curricula, presentations, training manuals, referral sources to service providers, links to other sites, and searchable databases of journals, videos, books and other reference material.

Since 1999 the site has grown considerably. The following general statistics table indicates the total monthly and yearly activity for the MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse in 1999. For more current information about the site usage statistics, please review the 2001 Executive Summary.

*** Due to a server crash, all August 1999 data is unavailable.

The following data was gathered from guest book entries on the MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse between January 1, 1998 to December 6, 1999. The guest book offers a place for a user to sign his or her name, provide an email and website address, and offer comments about the site.

Figure 1. User Profile

The MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse receives feedback from site users in a variety of ways.

The following is a sampling of comments users have written in the guest book:

"This is my first visit to your site and I am quite excited not only by the wealth of information, but the potential for interacting with others in the field, sharing resources, and accessing the most current work in the field." -- Social Worker, Idaho

"As Coordinator for a Family Violence Advocacy Group in Guam, this site is extremely helpful. Our small island is very much removed from the mainstream flow of family violence information and this site will greatly assist our organization in providing up-to-date and accurate information for our new advocate training." -- Domestic Violence Program Coordinator, Guam

"I have gotten several queries and references to my c.v. and biography from people who have found it on the MINCAVA web site. Congratulations - it looks like the site is well visited and well respected...Keep up the good work!" -- Assistant Professor, School of Medicine, Massachusetts

"MINCAVA is, frankly, one of the best examples of a truly comprehensive site that is relevant to our profession." -- Director, School of Social Work, Indiana

"Mincava is a great help in my job as a research coordinator of the Women's Crisis Center Philippines and as a masters student in women's studies at the University of the Philippines." -- Research Coordinator, Philippines

"Thank you for this wonderful site. I was referred by Barbara Hart. I work as a Legal Advocate for a women's shelter in Alaska. I plan to hang out at this site regularly; your information is invaluable in helping our clients and in educating our communities!" -- Legal Advocate, Alaska

In March, 1997, the MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse was honored to receive the Victim Assistance Online Award for Excellence. The award recognizes sites for their content, resources, links, design and ease of use to those in the victim-assistance field.

In November 1995, The Electronic Clearinghouse was chosen as "Featured Site of the Week" by the Feminist Majority Online. The Feminist Majority Online created this honor "in an effort to spotlight especially impressive and interesting sites that relate to women's issues." Previous recipients of this recognition include the American Association of University Women, the United Nations: Division for the Advancement of Women, and the Encyclopedia of Women's History.

According to the staff of the Feminist Majority Online: "This well-organized site provides a quick and easy to use access point to the extensive electronic resources on the topic of violence and abuse available through the Internet. The Clearinghouse includes sections on Teaching Resources, Upcoming Conferences, and a listing of newsgroups and mailing lists. The graphical sophistication of the site is most notably observed in a virtual art gallery featuring works created by child witnesses of violence."

The MINCAVA Electronic Clearinghouse is frequently used by media nationally and included as a link for further information about abuse, such as in the Saint Paul Pioneer Press article "Battered moms not only ones with scars--Kids who watch abuse shellshocked, damaged" by Ruben Rosario on December 6, 1999.