Program Goals

1. Ensure the safety of adults and children.
2. Enhance well-being and strengthen families.
3. Prevent homelessness and increase financial independence.
4. Prevent violence among generations.
5. Increase awareness of abuse and improve our community's response to         violence.

Services
We provide a strengths-based continuum of services that enhances immediate and long-term safety and provides opportunities for individuals to overcome barriers to realize lasting change in their lives.

Ensure Safety

• Crisis Intervention: 24-hour crisis line, crisis intervention and counseling, information and referrals within the social, human, legal and medical service systems to ensure the safety of clients.
• Light of Hope Shelter: 24-hour safe shelter to ensure that victims and children will not be forced to return to violent relationships for lack of a secure place to stay, as well as assistance in enrolling children in school, securing community resources and starting anew with their lives.
• Safety Planning: Detailed plans with individuals whose safety is at risk, including safety at home, the workplace, school and throughout the community.
• Advocacy: Assistance in filing for protection orders, links to other agencies, referrals to make law enforcement reports and secure legal representation, support through emergency room exams, health care referrals, and collaboration with child protection.
• Financial Assistance: Assistance in purchasing bus tickets, changing locks and related items.

Enhance Well-Being

• Group Counseling: Group counseling for victims to help them recover from the trauma and live healthy and productive lives.
• Education and Support: Education for clients on the dynamics of violence and supportive services that are conducive to healing from abuse.
• Bright Futures: Individual and group counseling and related support for children (see Prevent Future Violence, below).
• Legal Representation and Support: Services of a staff attorney to provide representation in civil cases involving protection orders, custody and related issues.

Improve Self-Sufficiency

• Career Counseling: Assistance in overcoming barriers to self-sufficiency by providing research into employment opportunities; development of job-seeking skills; career and educational counseling to identify educational and career goals; assistance in pursuing GEDs, making application to institutions of higher learning and for financial aid and completing job applications and resumes; connections with job placement agencies, and development of workplace safety plans.
• Housing Assistance: Assistance in securing affordable housing, signing up for low-income housing or securing other places to live, purchasing food and household items needed to make it on their own and providing extensive referrals.
• Hope Transitional Housing: Rent and support for up to 24 months to assist four single-parent families who are homeless because of violence in attaining self-sufficiency, providing a transition into independent permanent housing. The project addresses issues impacting clients' lives, such as physical and mental health, safety, food and clothing, daily living, transportation, substance abuse, court and legal matters, family communication, childcare, parenting, children's issues, finances, employment, education and housing.

Prevent Future Violence

• Bright Futures: Individual and group counseling involving puppets, art, and nonviolent videos, books and games to help children heal from the devastating effects of domestic violence, learn non-violent ways of relating to others, prevent the intergenerational cycle of violence within families and enjoy more fulfilling lives.
• Education for Parents: Education to assist parents on how to build healthy relationships with children after the crisis of abuse.

Increase Awareness of and Improve our Response to Violence

• Education and Training: Staff participate in community education to enhance awareness of violence and equip professionals to effectively respond to individuals impacted by violence.
• Community Collaboration: Staff participate in major collaborative efforts such as the Coordinated Community Response Project, involving key public and private agencies working together to implement a permanent monitoring system to track domestic violence cases through the system, and approximately 25 local and statewide committees to coordinate services.