| |
Women's Advocacy Program
The Women’s
Advocacy Program provides direct services to survivors who need
immediate assistance with safety. These services include:
crisis intervention, safety planning, assistance obtaining
protective orders and applying for Crime Victim’s Compensation,
court and/or medical accompaniment, one-on-one peer advocacy,
and information and referrals to other community partners and/or
social service agencies. Survivors tend to work through these
services in the initial stages of separating from their abusive
partners and then transition to the ongoing support offered by
the Self-Sufficiency Program.
Self-Sufficiency Program
The
Self-Sufficiency Program (SSP) provides ongoing support to
survivors. Included in this program are support groups (healthy
relationships, self-esteem and other topics of interest to
survivors), assistance obtaining living wage jobs and finding
housing, obtaining income (applications and/or advocacy for TANF
( Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) funds, social
security, Vocational Rehabilitation, housing/rental assistance)
recovery groups, educational groups for returning to school and
finding jobs, rental assistance and supportive services,
parenting groups for survivors (Helping Children Who Have Been
Exposed to Batters – a 16-week curriculum to help identify the
effects of abuse on children and how survivors can help
themselves and their children to heal from the abuse and build
healthy family systems). Depending on the needs of the
individual survivor, participation in the SSP program can span
weeks to years. It is the viewpoint of the Alliance that this
ongoing support, without time restrictions, is what allows
survivors to create and maintain the meaningful and long term
change required to fully intervene in the cyclical nature of
abuse.
The Children's Program
The Children’s
Program is also tailored to address the immediate safety needs
of children and teens and to intervene in the cycle of abuse,
preventing the carrying forward of the effects to future
generations. While children do access direct services with the
children’s advocate, most of the work with children is in groups
and the school setting. In May 2004, the children’s advocate
held two – ten week tracks for children in the elementary school
based on “Group Work for Children of Batterers.” The groups
were well attended and based on feedback from the children,
their parents and school administration, the classes will be
offered year-round starting in the fall of 2005.
Presentations on
dating violence and sexual assault were made to all high school
English classes. This opened the door to place an advocate at
the high school each week, in what the Alliance has called “The
Listening Booth.” This was implemented toward the end of the
school year, but the numbers of high school students accessing
the helping ear of an Alliance Advocate was rising each week.
This service will continue in the new school year.
The Alliance also
provides a co-facilitator for groups of middle school at-risk
girls. The groups are called Passages, and are sponsored by
Family Friends. The children’s advocate presents information on
domestic violence, dating violence and healthy relationships.
Most of the girls live in a home where there either has been or
is violence perpetrated on their mother.
This outreach and
preventive approach seems to be highly effective and is a way to
leverage the limited time that one advocate has available to
work with this young population. Of the 787 survivors served in
the first six months of 2005, 263 were children.
The Children’s
Program is also connected with the childhood development
community: Early Head Start, Head Start, Project Baby Check,
teen pregnancy groups, the Boys and Girls Club, and the faith
community. The advocate also sits on several committees that
focus on children’s issues.
|
|
