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Resources for Audit Coordinators

The Praxis Safety and Accountability Audit Logistics Guide

Introduction
Logistics Guide Section 1: Getting Started
Logistics Guide Section 2: Managing an Interagency Analysis Process
Logistics Guide Section 3: The Complexity of Life Circumstances and Social Standing

Introduction
This Logistics Guide is intended to offer behind-the-scenes planning and organizational support for conducting a successful Safety Audit. While some sections will be of interest to anyone involved in designing an Audit, the primary audience for this Guide is an Audit Coordinator assigned to overseeing the process from start to finish—from obtaining agreements with agencies to gathering information and preparing recommendations. It is intended to help Audit Coordinators manage the details of the operation—the “logistics.”

The Logistics Guide is a companion piece to other materials that help you prepare for your role as an Audit Coordinator:

  • The Story of Rachel (4-minute DVD) dramatically depicts the events set in motion by one battered woman’s call to 911. It helps deepen a Safety Audit team’s understanding of the complex relationship between battered women and the systems they turn to for help. Order Here.
  • The Safety and Accountability Audit Informational Video (14-minute DVD) provides an overview of the Safety Audit method, along with commentary from practitioners around the country who participated in the process. Order Here.
  • The Praxis Safety and Accountability Audit Tool Kit (manual with 4 DVDs) is the basic guide to the Audit method and its process of gathering and analyzing data. The Tool Kit’s templates, illustrations and worksheets outline the Safety Audit’s philosophical underpinnings, clarify the data collection steps and methodologies, and provide a knowledge base for the team’s work. Order Here.
  • Text Analysis as a Tool for Coordinated Community Response:Keeping Safety for Battered Women and Their Children at the Center (manual) guides a coordinated community response team through a process of examining the gaps between the safety needs of battered women and how an institution has organized its workers through “text” to respond to domestic assaults. It provides Safety Audit Coordinators with a more detailed understanding of how to approach text analysis. Order Here.
  • We highly recommend that Audit Coordinators complete Essential Skills in Coordinating Your Community Response to Battering: An E-Learning Course for CCR Coordinators (on-line e-learning course). This course requires approximately sixteen hours to complete and offers critical guidance and strategies for managing and facilitating an interagency team. Order Here.
The most direct, hands-on preparation for an Audit Coordinator is to attend one of the annual week-long Safety Audit Institutes
Event Information. If attending an Institute is not possible, the materials listed above will be essential reading and will help give you a solid footing.

Logistics Guide Section 1: Getting Started
You may be involved in the early planning stages of your community’s decision to conduct a Safety Audit; or, as with many Coordinators, you may come in after many key decisions have been made. Regardless, you should be well-grounded in the methodology and be able to articulate the Safety Audit process to agency administrators, practitioners, and community members. Building buy-in and support will be a big part of your job—early on, and throughout the process.The following tools fit a variety of situations, from writing a grant to fund a Safety Audit to explaining what it is and helping to ground the work in a common philosophy.
Careful planning is critical to a successful Safety Audit. It contributes to a “transparent” process where everyone understands the focus and scope of the project and their respective roles.
A key role of most Safety Audit Coordinators is negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with each participating agency that describes the process and clarifies roles and responsibilities. You will also draft an Audit team confidentiality agreement that sets a framework for how information will be collected, analyzed, and released beyond the team.
Logistics Guide Section 2: Managing an Interagency Analysis Process
A well-balanced, prepared, and organized team is at the center of any successful Safety Audit. The following tools will help you think about how to assemble a team with a solid mix of perspectives and skills.

In recruiting team members, be prepared to answer questions about the Safety Audit Process, as well as what their involvement might look like, and the time required.

It is critical that Audit Team members approach the work with a spirit of curiosity and respect, with a positive “Audit attitude.” Provide a copy to each team member and emphasize proper etiquette throughout your work together.

A key part of preparing the team is making available to them background information about relevant laws and policies, each agency’s case processing flow chart, blank forms, team member name and contact information, agency locations and directions, and schedules. This material is assembled in a “site book” or “briefing book.” The contents vary depending on the Audit scope and question. You will need to identify and collect the laws, policies, forms, and other material for the site book.

The culmination of your team’s work is articulating specific recommendations for improving the way your system responds to victims of violence. No matter the format your final report takes—be it an informal working document or a formal publication—facilitating a process of bringing together everything you have learned requires tact, organization, and attention to detail. These supportive documents are resources for this process.

Logistics Guide Section 3: The Complexity of Life Circumstances and Social Standing
Looking for the gaps between battered women’s lived experiences and what institutions provide is at the core of a Safety and Accountability Audit. Peoples’ lives are complex and the factors that reinforce or diminish safety and risk are also complex. Because there is no single, universal battered woman and no universal batterer, a Safety Audit has to be alert for one-size-fits-all kinds of responses and pay careful attention to the complexity of life circumstances and social standing.

The Story of Rachel DVD is one part of focusing attention on this complexity. Material in the Safety Audit Tool Kit is another piece. As an Audit Coordinator, be very familiar with the introductory section of the Tool Kit and its “foundations.” Make poster-size versions of the following key graphics and use them as reference points in the training and every team debriefing.

Take time to challenge your assumptions about “culture” and the interconnection of aspects of culture,life circumstances and social standing, and institutional response.
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