President George Bush announced yesterday that Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, has been appointed to a national post within the Department of Justice.

Ms. Buchanan, 43, will serve as the acting director of the Office on Violence Against Women.

She will continue to serve as the U.S. attorney here and will split time between the two posts.

The Washington, D.C., office administers assistance -- both financial and technical -- to communities around the country that are creating programs and policies aimed at ending all forms of domestic violence. Its main mission is to encourage the use of the Violence Against Women Act, which went into effect in 1995.

Next year, Ms. Buchanan will oversee the spending of some $400 million in various program areas in the office.

Some of that will be used to provide legal assistance to victims, to pay for supervised visitation and safe exchanges for children involved in custody disputes, and to provide support for elderly victims, Ms. Buchanan said.

"Issues involving violence against women and families have been one of my most significant interests," she said. "I welcome the opportunity to be effective on a national level in addressing this problem."

She plans to focus on increasing outreach to Native American tribes and on college campuses. In addition, she hopes to target young people to educate them about the damage caused by domestic violence.

"Many of the negative actions that we see are behaviors learned at very early ages," she said.

The Office on Violence Against Women was created under former President Bill Clinton. One of the greatest achievements in its 11-year history is the creation of 15 Family Justice centers.

There, victims of domestic violence will find all of the resources and services they need to recover -- the police officers, lawyers, medical care, forensic services and counseling -- available in one place.

Centers have opened in the past year in Boston, Buffalo, N.Y., St. Louis, Tulsa, Okla., Brooklyn, N.Y., and San Antonio.

In her new role, Ms. Buchanan will travel and speak extensively.

This is Ms. Buchanan's second appointment to a national Justice Department position. She served as director of the Executive Office of United States Attorneys from June 2004 to June 2005.

Ms. Buchanan was appointed U.S. attorney in 2001. She began working in the office as an assistant prosecutor in 1988.