Common Acronyms + Terms

Oregon Alliance to End Gender-based Violence. This is the grassroots advocacy steering committee that comprises representation from community-based domestic and sexual violence programs, the Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force, and the Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. This group advocates for the needs of survivors with the Oregon legislature by introducing legislation, supporting legislation that supports survivors, and funding opportunities to support programs serving survivors.

Assigned Female at Birth

Assigned Male at Birth

American Rescue Plan Act. These funds, originating during the Covid-relief packages of 2021, were distributed to state representatives to support community rebuilding efforts during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Senator Wagner (OR, D) allocated his ARPA funding to Oregon SATF/OCADSV to create prevention funding for grantee programs across the state.

Current Service Level = a term that refers to what is needed to maintain the current level of services offered/provided. Most often used in budget or legislative conversations to refer to funding that is needed to ensure victim and survivor services are maintained at the current level being offered.

Crime Victim + Survivor Services Division. This department of the Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ) is responsible for coordinating funding for advocacy work at the state level. They grant federal and state funds to programs, including SATF. Some of these funding programs include VOCA, SHF, CVC and other similar funding streams.

Crime Victims Compensation Fund. Oregon Crime Victims’ Compensation (CVC) Program was created to assist victims of violent crime with expenses associated with the crime. This includes domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, robbery, assault, homicide, or other compensable crime resulting in a physical or psychological injury. This program is administered by CVSSD.

District Attorney

District Attorney’s Victim Assistance Program

Oregon Department of Human Services.

The U.S. Department of Education promotes student achievement by administering federal funding for education, establishing policies, and ensuring equal access to educational opportunities. It does this by providing federal financial aid like grants and loans for college, supporting K-12 schools and students with disabilities, collecting data on education, and enforcing anti-discrimination laws.

Department of Justice.

Domestic Violence / Sexual Assault. This acronym is commonly used to refer to any forms of gender-based and intimate partner violence that fall under the umbrella of domestic violence and sexual assault, including stalking, dating violence, domestic violence, rape, harassment, etc.

Executive Director

Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA) funds the federal response system to ensure vital crisis services and shelters are available to individuals experiencing domestic violence, dating violence, and family violence and their dependents.

Gender-based Violence

Higher Education Coordinating Commission. This state department coordinates many activities and reporting requirements related to Oregon’s 45+ institutions of higher education.

HB = House Bill | SB= Senate Bill. These acronyms are used as short-hand to identify bills in the Oregon legislature, and are followed by a series of numbers that identify the bill numbers. For example: SB 400 = Senate Bill 400. These numbers may be reused during each legislative session, so you may see “SB 400 (2018)” to distinguish what session the bill was introduced.

Legislative Concept

Law Enforcement

Oregon Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. OCADSV supports all community-based advocacy programs in the state of Oregon.

Oregon Department of Education

Oregon Domestic + Sexual Violence Services Fund This fund provides funding through Crime Victim and Survivor Services division of Oregon DOJ to fund community-based advocacy Domestic and Sexual Violence programs across the state. Click here to learn more about OCADSV on their website.

Oregon Health Authority. This state department has many branches. Oregon SATF receives RPE (Rape Prevention + Education) grant funds from OHA.

Oregon Law Center. A non-profit organization that provides free legal help to people struggling to make ends meet. The mission of the Oregon Law Center is to achieve justice for the low-income communities of Oregon by providing a full range of the highest quality civil legal services. Click here to learn more about OLC.

Oregon Legislative Information System This is the online portal and information system used by the state of Oregon to share information about bills, testimony, legislators, and schedules related to the legislature. Click here to visit OLIS.

The Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force / Oregon Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force.

Office for Victims of Crime is a part of the U.S. Department of Justice, and facilitates and monitors programs and grants for service providers and other professionals who assist victims of crime.

Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) provides federal leadership in developing the nation's capacity to reduce violence against women.

Personally identifying information refers to any data that can be used to identify an individual, including names, addresses, contact information, Social Security numbers, and information like date of birth or ethnic background. VAWA includes strong confidentiality provisions that protect survivors by preventing the disclosure of their PII without their informed, written consent. This protection is designed to safeguard victims from their abusers and includes information like their physical location. 

Release of Information is a written, informed, and time-limited consent that allows a victim service provider to share a survivor's personally identifying information with a third party. This release is voluntary and cannot be a condition for receiving services. To be VAWA-compliant, the release must be signed by the survivor and detail exactly what information can be shared, with whom, and for how long. 

Rape Prevention + Education grant program. This grant program originates with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which then gets distributed to state health authorities (in Oregon, that is OHA). This funding supports violence prevention work at community programs.

OHA receives these funds, then distributes them to Oregon SATF to distribute to current grantees (community programs).

Rapid SAVE Investigation: Rapid Sexual Assault Victim Exam (SAVE) Investigation, LLC is a SANE nurse agency committed to providing the industry standard in sexual assault patient care and forensic evidence collection. Learn more

Sexual Assault Forensic Exam is a medical exam conducted by a trained medical provider (SANE/SAE) that can provide post-assault medical care (including injury care, STI/STD treatment and prophylaxis, pregnancy prophylaxis, etc.), a physical examination to collect evidence from a survivor’s body and clothes after a sexual assault, assist in connecting to support resources, reporting to law enforcement, and advocacy services.

The Sexual Assault Management System, or SAMS, is a set of apps and other programs that track sexual assault kits and inform survivors of their kit's progress. Click here to learn more.

Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner/Sexual Assault Examiner.

SANEs are nurses who have received special training to conduct sexual assault evidentiary exams for rape victims in the United States. SANE nurses are specially trained in the medical, psychological, and forensic examination of a sexual assault victim.

SAEs are other medical staff (doctors, physician assistants, etc.) that have received the same training and provide many of the same services as SANEs, but are not registered nurses.

Sexual Assault Response Team. A SART is a specific intervention model focused on immediate and consistent response to sexual assault victims with the goal of implementing and maintaining a comprehensive, coordinated, trauma-informed and victim-centered system of intervention and care, with a commitment to systems change and continuous improvement. The core membership of a SART includes law enforcement, medical providers, and community-based victim advocates. Additional essential members include prosecutors, campus professionals, systems-based victim advocates, mental health services, and other allied professionals.

A session, in this context, is the period of time in which a legislature is convened for lawmaking.

The Oregon Legislature has both short and long sessions. Long sessions (160 days) happen on odd years and begin in January and short sessions (35 days) happen on even years and begin in February.

Example: 2023 is a long session, and 2024 will be a short session.

SB= Senate Bill | HB = House Bill These acronyms are used as short-hand to identify bills in the Oregon legislature, and are followed by a series of numbers that identify the bill numbers. For example: SB 400 = Senate Bill 400. These numbers may be reused during each legislative session, so you may see “SB 400 (2018)” to distinguish what session the bill was introduced.

Survivor Housing Fund. This funding stream (distributed through CVSSD/Oregon DOJ) provides funding for survivors seeking safe housing.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) provides a monthly cash benefit to families with children who meet income limits. This program provides cash that families can use to pay for things they need while they work toward supporting themselves. These funds are distributed by Oregon DHS.

Title IX (Education Act Amendments of 1972). This federal law requires any school receiving federal funding (pre-k through higher education) to ensure that students, faculty, and staff are able to learn and work in environments free from sexual harassment. This includes sexual assault, stalking, dating and domestic violence. Click here to visit Oregon SATF’s Campus Reporting Options website and learn more.

The Violence Against Women Act (1994). VAWA creates and supports comprehensive, cost-effective responses to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. VAWA is administered by the U.S. Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS), and supports federal, tribal, state, and local responses to these crimes.

Victims of Crime Act (1984). In 1984, Congress passed the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) which established the Crime Victim’s Fund ("the fund"). The fund, which is administered by the Office for Victims of Crime, provides financial assistance to victims of crime through state-based compensation programs, as well indirectly through state grants that help finance state victim service organizations. In Oregon, CVSSD administers these grant funds.