As of this writing, Nashville has recorded close to 2,500 domestic volence (DV) victims in 2025 so far, with more than 660 children present during those incidents. More than 261 victims and 144 children were taken to safe places as a result of a domestic violence incident just this year.
Victim advocacy organizations have been fighting for additional funding from the state. Gov. Bill Lee revised his budget request and included $20 million in state dollars for agencies serving victims of IPV and sexual assault.
According to an article by Anita Wadhwani published in the Tennessee Lookout on March 31, 2025, “the governor’s funding — $10 million in grants for each of the next two years — fell short of the request for $25 million in recurring state funding a coalition of state nonprofits say they need to preserve current services.
“Sexual assault centers, domestic violence shelters and child abuse counseling agencies — many serving key roles in working with law enforcement to bring perpetrators to justice — have seen their share of federal Victims of Crime Act funding dwindle from a peak of $68 million in 2018 to $16 million last year,” Wadhwani wrote.
Diane Lance, director of the Metro Office of Family Safety explained that the federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding stems from federal fees and fines, which have been decreasing. While the Office of Family Safety is certainly affected by the loss of VOCA dollars, the vast majority of the office is funded by Metro.
The Office of Family Safety, which was created as its own Metro department in 2015, is a crucial piece in improving victim services in Nashville and oversees two family safety centers — the Family Safety Center on Murfreesboro Pike, adjacent to, but separate from the Metro police headquarters, and the Jean Crowe Advocacy Center located in the Davidson County Courthouse on James Robertson Parkway.
The Family Safety centers serve victims of interpersonal violence, which includes domestic violence/intimate partner violence (DV/IPV), sexual assault, human trafficking, stalking, elder and vulnerable adult abuse and child abuse.
Lance said that when people come in with one presenting problem, there are often more victimizations behind the initial issue once her team pulls back the layers. This is called polyvictimization.
Lance gave the following example to explain what polyvictimization looks like: “One of the big drivers to come here is to get an order of protection,” she said.
During the visit, the team may conduct a danger assessment, safety planning and other services with the client who came to get help with an order of protection.
“[Through the assessments] we may start to uncover that there are a lot of firearms in that house,” Lance said. “We learn that this offender is gang-involved, and this is also queuing us up to wonder if there is any sex trafficking going on. [We may find] there [have] been sexual assaults in the past by other people. It also looks like [the victim]struggled with homelessness and was sexually assaulted during that time. Then child abuse growing up was there as well. So, what is presented at the door can be just the first layer of abuse.”
In 2023, the Office of Family Safety’s crisis advocacy programs served more than 5,000 individual IPV clients, which received 1,132 orders of protection, 3,770 safety plans and 1,429 danger assessments. In addition to the victims, the Office of Family Services supported 367 witnesses, 393 children, and 1,177 support people in both of their family safety centers.
The vast majority of clients identify domestic violence as their primary cause for victimization. In 2023, that made up 94 percent of the cases with an additional 5 percent identifying primarily as victims of stalking, and 1 percent as victims of sexual assault.
Most adult victims, according to MNPD’s data dashboard, are between the ages of 20 and 40. But victims can be as young as zero to four years of age, and a significant percentage are 65 years and older.
While the overall goal is to reduce victimization, the data may be harder to evaluate because high numbers may mean higher reporting of domestic violence and intimate partner violence — which is a good thing.
The Office of Family Safety is paying close attention to the rate of homicides related to domestic violence. A Domestic Abuse Death Review Team (DADRT) takes a deep dive into one or two domestic violence homicides each year to learn how response teams and victim services can improve.
Lance explained the presence of a firearm or strangulation are two of the indicators that a victim is at extremely high risk of death. The Family Safety Center will explain to a victim what those high risks entail and what options they have to protect themselves and their children.
One of the things that surprises many people is that strangulation can have long-term consequences, which can include death months after the actual incident. Crisis advocates at the Family Safety Center will make sure a client’s medical provider is informed. They even have handouts for the medical provider to help them understand the situation and what to look for.
About two years ago, the Violence Policy Center conducted a 25-year review of femicides in the United States. According to that review, Tennessee had ranked in the top 10 states for femicides due to domestic violence for 20 of the previous 25 years.
The 2022 Annual Report of the Domestic Violence Homicide in Nashville reported that nearly 20 percent of Tennessee’s domestic violence homicides occurred in Davidson County. In 2022, 20 DV homicides were reported in Davidson County, and 15 percent of the victims were children under the age of 18.
On a recent tour of the Family Safety Center, it became very clear to me how intentionally the space was created. The colors are calming, and the space reminds folks entering of a comfortable living room.
Private interview rooms are set up to ensure victims feel safe. If victims have children, they can choose to send them to a supervised play area, and a TV monitor in the interview room will allow them to keep a watch over what their children are doing in that play area.
In those situations, where victims do not want to separate from their child, the Family Safety Center offers private rooms with an adjacent small play area. That play area has a glass door that can be closed so that children will not hear the conversation of the parent with the advocacy team member or counselor.
The Office of Family Safety is a collaborative effort with multiple agencies and nonprofit organizations throughout the city. While it is located next to the Metro police headquarters, the entrance is completely separate, and it is a victim’s choice if or when they want to include police.
A friend of mine from the DV arena once told me that the coordination among Nashville agencies completely changed with the creation of the Office of Family Safety to help with planning and coordination. In addition, the two Family Safety Centers have vastly expanded the ability for victims of domestic violence to meet with partner agencies and receive warm hand-offs between different organizations that can help them.
The annual, multi-disciplinary deep dive into a specific domestic violence homicide by the DADRT left a huge impression on me because it aims to continually learn and improve how victims of violence can be served better. This constant review process allows for accountability and avoids that process becoming increasingly burdensome for the people we all want to help, as is naturally the case in many areas of the human services sector.
The 2022 report I reviewed included the following quote I want to leave you with as it applies to all of us. I hope it inspires us all to speak up when we see wrongdoing.
“When traumatic events are of human design, those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. They appeal to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.” — Judith Lewis Herman.