Required Policies and Procedures
More policies and procedures, and descriptions are in chapter 5.
The grant recipient must establish and implement policies and procedures that address the following areas:
- Conflict of interest (see Chapter I. Conflict of Interest)
- Written Language Access Plan (LAP) that outlines the organization's policies and procedures for ensuring victims have access to necessary forms of communication, both written and verbal
- Maintaining a drug-free workplace
- Restriction of lobbying activities as a recipient of federal funds
- Sexual harassment policy with a provision that sexual harassment will not be tolerated
- Whistleblower protection for those that report abuse, fraud or abuse
- Nepotism with regard to hiring and/or supervising relatives of an employee or non-profit board member
- Maintaining a workplace free of violence, threats of violence, harassment, intimidation, and other kinds of disruptive behavior
- On-the-job seat belt and texting while driving policies and programs for its employees, contractors, and subrecipients when operating agency-owned, rented, or personally owned vehicles
- Tracking, retention and depreciation of inventory, equipment, property purchased with grant funds
- Confidentiality and the safeguarding of victim records and other information considered sensitive; maintenance of these records; access to these records; procedure of releasing records with victim’s consent; and retention/destruction of records. Organization must also document their procedure if there has been a breach, or release of confidential, personally identifying victim information. Please refer to Chapter VII. Confidentiality & Informed Consent.
- Grievance procedure for victims, employees and volunteers
- Personnel Policy (See Chapter V. Policies and Procedures, Personnel Policies and Procedures
- Volunteer recruitment, selection, screening; training, confidentiality, work rules, supervision, evaluations, grievance procedures and dismissal
- Governance of Non-Profit Boards that is consistent with Non-Profit Organizations and Board of Director's Responsibilities, (Chapter II Post-Award Requirements, Iowa law and those of ICADV, IowaCASA or IOVA.
- Service Delivery-policies and procedures that outline the guidelines for the delivery of the wide array of services provided to victims and their family members
- Equal Employment Opportunity Plans - Annually all organizations receiving Department of Justice funding are required to complete and file either an EEO Plan and Utilization Report or file the Verification of EEOP Reporting Requirement form using the online EEO Reporting system. For more information on EEOP requirements specific to your organization and to access the reporting tool, go to the Civil Rights EEOP website. Once you have complied with the EEOP requirement, you will need to upload documentation into Iowa GVS. Here are the instructions.
- Civil Rights Training Certification- One person from each grant funded organization (the person who is designated the civil rights liaison or similar) must complete Civil Rights Training each grant cycle. The completed Civil Rights Training Certification form is to be uploaded into Iowa GVS on the organizational details page in the organizational profile. This is the link to the training videos.