Governor Napolitano tasked the Commission to Prevent Violence Against Women with developing legislative and policy recommendations on violence against women, as well as expanding on successful prevention initiatives and coordinating and expanding services for victims of domestic and sexual violence.

Makeup of the Commission
Members of the Commission represent a wide variety of disciplines, regions and cultural perspectives. Commissioners, serving at the pleasure of the Governor, advise the Commission Chair and staff on critical issues across the state and apply their particular expertise to the issues at hand. Each Commissioner is asked to take an active role in at least one subcommittee.

Purpose
The commission seeks to unite and enhance statewide efforts to prevent and end domestic and sexual violence. It serves as a clearinghouse for domestic and sexual violence related work in Arizona, and makes policy and legislative recommendations to the Governor. The role of the Commission will now be to oversee the implementation of those recommendations.

Areas of Focus
The Commission broke down into six subcommittees, and these subcommittees (with input from more than 150 community members) developed recommendations for the State Plan. The six subcommittees were: Prevention/Early Intervention; Victim Services/Crisis Response; Criminal Justice; Offender Treatment and Accountability; Sexual Assault; and Data Collection. Recommendations from each subcommittee addressing the specialized needs of child witnesses to domestic violence were gathered into a seventh area of focus for the State Plan: Child Witnesses to Violence.

The State Plan was completed in 2004. During the past two years, the Commission has worked on implementation strategies for the recommendations. As of April 2007, eighty-one percent of the 57 recommendations in the State Plan have either been completed or have made significant progress.

Contact Information
Maria Elena Ochoa, Director, Division for Women
Office of Children, Youth and Families
1700 West Washington, Suite 101
Phoenix, AZ 85007
(602) 542-5812
mochoa@az.gov