COLUMBUS, Ohio -- New data is highlighting the need to strengthen programs that help prevent and respond to domestic violence. An annual report from the Ohio Domestic Violence Network reveals 109 Ohioans died as the result of domestic violence in the year ending June 30 2020 - a 35% increase from the year before.

During the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic-violence fatalities were 14% higher than during the same period in 2019. Jo Simonsen, family systems advocacy director with ODVN, said this comes as a primary source of funding for domestic-violence programs, the federal Crime Victims Fund, was cut by one-third statewide.

"While the need is still there and we're actually seeing sort of increases in severity in some of the cases we've heard about most recently, the dollars have dropped off, and that's going to be significant for our program," Simonsen said. "We're still encouraging victims or survivors to reach out to us."

State funding for domestic-violence programs in Ohio is $1 million annually, compared with $5 million in Indiana, $6.7 million in Kentucky and nearly $16 million in Pennsylvania. Simonsen said ODVN is calling for $5 million in general fund support to provide prevention services, victim advocacy support and permanent housing assistance.

The domestic-violence deaths in the report include four children and one police officer responding to a call. At least 70% of the fatalities were caused by a gun and, Simonsen added, 40% involved a homicide-suicide case.

"That's an important number to think about. You know, what does mental health mean in this case when people are pushed to the point of making a tragic decision to harm their partner, ex-partner or children and then take their own life?" She said. "So what can be done to prevent those kinds of cases?"

She said the data is extremely useful to help domestic-violence organizations and law enforcement evaluate interventions such as protection orders and identify ways to prevent intimate-partner violence fatalities.

"Risk-reduction opportunities or building protective factors, building the resiliency of children that witness domestic violence; accounting for hyper-masculinity and dangerous social norms, that kind of support perpetration of domestic violence," she said.

More than 200 people are expected to attend ODVN's annual Domestic Violence Awareness Month event today, which will be held virtually for the first time.

An initiative at one Ohio nonprofit is taking on the topic of men and sexual violence.

There is a false notion men are not experiencing sexual violence or are only perpetrators of it, but a 2015 study indicated nearly one quarter of men experience sexual violence in their lifetime. At the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, the "Engaging Men" initiative is trying to bring men into the conversation.

Jayvon Howard, Engaging Men coordinator for the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence, hosts a monthly Instagram live event he calls "Q and A with Jay," the second Wednesday of every month at noon. He said breaking through preexisting beliefs is a big part of the project.

"This issue of sexual violence, especially around male survivorship and male victimization, we don't culturally think that it's real, that it's something that ever happens, and men feel that for themselves as well, or about other men," Howard explained.

Howard emphasized the event offers a safe space for both men and women to learn about resources for survivors and anti-violence strategies. Most questions come from women, and he is hoping to get more men involved.

"It helps kind of uplift and change the narrative a bit that 'OK, maybe this space is for me to be a part of, maybe I can ask questions, maybe it's OK for me to explore this topic safely,' " Howard pointed out.

A new Minnesota law has gone into effect this week involving a program that keeps address information confidential for victims of domestic abuse.

Minnesota's Safe at Home initiative assigns participants a post office box to use as their legal address, to help as they escape an abusive situation or a stalker. It also details how state and local agencies have to respond to data requests without disclosing the person's location. Among the changes is clarification of the requirement that a landlord cannot display a person's name who's in the Safe at Home program.

Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, a main sponsor of the bill, said no major issues prompted the updates, but they're still important.

"As technology changes, too," she said, "that we're sort of making sure that what is in statute matches with the reality of what it's like to live as someone who lives in fear for their safety."

Another change expands the definition of "real property records" that are prohibited from disclosure. Becker-Finn said they had long pushed for these updates, but general political gridlock proved to be an obstacle.

In broader efforts to help abuse and assault victims, Becker-Finn said she would like to see agencies be more responsive and sensitive to those reporting an incident. In many communities, she said, the way survivors are treated can make it harder for them to even file a report.

"I think we do have a ways to go when it comes to that side of things and actually holding people accountable," she said.

Advocacy groups have said Minnesota also must take steps such as committing to testing its backlog of rape kits to better support victims. Recent reforms largely addressed future kits.

Last year, the state did remove a statute of limitations on reporting sexual assault, with the goal of giving survivors more time to decide when to pursue charges.

New work is being done in Ohio to help free people who are caught in the complex web of domestic violence, addiction and mental health.

Cheryl Stahl, who is heading the Ohio Domestic Violence Network's new Substance Use Mental Health Project, said most survivors who seek services are facing multiple traumas and concerns.

"You're working with women who - say, from childhood - have had sexual-abuse experiences and then date people who are abusive," she said "Those people perhaps are using drugs. They get introduced to drugs; they may have mental-health concerns that are being masked by the trauma."

Research indicates that between 47% and 90% of women who seek substance-use disorder treatment say they've experienced domestic violence. Stahl said the project is teaching advocates at shelters about addiction and mental health, and how they can better assist people who struggle with these challenges.

Stahl said domestic-violence survivors can be reluctant to leave because of mental-health and substance-use coercion, when an abuser uses tactics to undermine their sanity and sobriety.

"The abusers will often use substance use particularly as a way of threatening to take custody of children," she said. "You may have the abuser as the person who is providing the drugs and sort of in control of when they get them and when they don't."

Stahl said the training will teach shelter staff how to talk about addiction in ways that encourage change and can connect survivors with peer-support services, and provide help for people who are actively using but not ready to enter treatment.

"Survivors aren't going to shelter necessarily to get off of drugs, that's not what they're seeking that service for," she said. "So, introducing some harm-reduction strategies - safety planning with people on how to hopefully prevent overdose."

Stahl said some of the work will focus on identifying brain injury as it pertains to substance use and mental health. The three-year project is starting in seven counties and Stahl said she hopes to expand it to 30 shelters.