Intimate Partner Violence Implementation Toolkit

Cultivate & Build Community Partnerships

Community partnerships are not optional infrastructure; they are the core of an effective IPV response system. A referral without a destination is not a referral. MCPs must build, sustain, and continuously evaluate a network of CBO partners capable of serving members across diverse geographies, languages, and identities.

Partnership Selection Criteria

Use the Community Asset Mapping Tool to systematically inventory, evaluate, and strengthen your IPV provider network. Evaluate prospective partners across the following criteria:

  • Survivor-centered practice: Organizational values align with autonomy, safety, and dignity
  • Cultural and linguistic responsiveness: Serves the languages and communities in your member population
  • Capacity and geographic coverage: Can serve members across your service area, including rural regions
  • Legal confidentiality infrastructure: Understands DV privilege protections (Evidence Code §1037) and ACP
  • Data-sharing readiness: Willing to engage in closed-loop referral reporting within appropriate privacy limits
  • CalAIM alignment: Capacity to serve as ECM, Community Supports, or CHW-linked partner

Leveraging CalAIM

The CalAIM initiative is a natural landing point to integrate IPV-informed care. In the January 2026 Policy guidance, DHCS added DV providers as priority partners for the ECM provider network. Additionally, the population of focus for unhoused adults, families, and youth includes criteria for fleeing domestic violence.1 MCPs are encouraged to build a CalAIM IPV integration. Here are two potentials starting points:

Existing Provider Network

  • Contractor Requirements: Create training opportunities. Conduct a provider network CUES webinar, embed CUES training for all providers, and include in audit checklists.
  • Non-Specialty Mental Health Services (NSMHS): Develop an explicit referral pathway from IPV screening to NSMHS. Train care managers on this pathway.
  • ECM and Community Supports Integration: Add IPV as an ECM-explicit CUES entry point. ECM lead care managers must identify and address IPV as a social driver of health and document referral outcomes in care plans.
  • CHW, Doula, and Dyadic Care: Build or adapt IPV/CUES modules into CHW and doula onboarding. Partner with doula organizations to integrate safety planning into home visit protocols.

Expanding the Provider Network

  • Include IPV in the required policy and procedures upon new provider certifications.
  • Actively engage DV providers for potential partnerships and CalAIM contracts like ECM.

Resources: Building Capacity

Partnering with DV providers is key to success. Enhanced Care Management (ECM) may be a natural starting point to build capacity. Evaluate your current provider network to establish potential partners with existing expertise in IPV. As you continue to build the provider network, actively seek new partners specializing in IPV response. DV providers seeking to engage in CalAIM & ECM can reference this toolkit for step-by-step guidance.

CalAIM Toolkit for Domestic Violence Providers – Developed by Integrated Human Service Group, Inc

Implementation Tip: Relational Before Transactional

Partnerships that begin with a referral contract—without first investing in relationships and trust—are fragile. Start with listening: What does the CBO need from a health plan partner? Build from there before formalizing agreements. Many DV organizations and CBOs are not accustomed to MCP contracts or claims infrastructure. A strong provider relations team and strategy will set the partnership up for success.

Start here with a sample partnership MOU template.

  1. 25 CalAIM Enhanced Care Management Policy Guidance, January 2026. https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/CalAIM-ECM-Policy-Guide.pdf ↩︎
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