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Victim Services
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Kentucky Women's Crisis CenterVICTIM SERVICESRESIDENTIAL SHELTER PROGRAM Currently, Women's Crisis Center is the only shelter for battered women and their children in the eight county Northern Kentucky Area Development District. However, the agency works closely with the Northern Kentucky Area Development District to ensure that all community services for battered women and their children are coordinated with the efforts of other social services providers. Partner abuse survivors in the residential shelter program receive services from the professional staff that includes individual counseling, advocacy, and referrals to other service providers. Referrals are made in such areas as employment, housing, literacy, and GED training. Women's Crisis Center is extremely active in the referral of client's to other assistive agencies; agency advocacy is available to victims of domestic violence, in or out of the shelter. Women's Crisis Center has an established referral network with local hospitals, private physicians, therapists, long-term counseling agencies, police departments, and the court systems. The agency developed and maintains a resource manual available to all counselors and advocates that is color-coded, listing many of the other agencies that can be utilized as resources for assistance by spouse abuse survivors. These listings include such things as AIDS Services, Substance Abuse Services, Daycare Services, Educational Assistance/Employment Services, Elderly Services, Handicapped Services, Health Services, Homeless providers, Housing assistance, and Men's Services. Groups for shelter residents cover such issues as domestic violence, self-esteem, and coping with /managing stress and depression. Those residents interested in the employment referrals are eligible to work with the Job Readiness Program, which helps clients acquire the necessary skills to conduct a job search and secure a position. These clients receive individual counseling, support, and attend groups covering job seeking skills and employment issues, including how to maintain employment. When clients enter Crossroads Shelter they will receive help from staff for finding effective ways to facilitate the intervention, evaluation, and delivery of services, beginning with immediate crisis intervention which removes an endangered woman or family from the threatening environment. This is followed by an evaluation of the most urgent needs of the client, for example access to prescription medicines or emergency medical care or evaluation of the most urgent needs of the client's children, for example warm clothing or baby formula. This evaluation is followed by the delivery of needed items or services to clients and children of their most pressing emergency needs. The Shelter staff assists clients in the completion of a goal plan shortly after arrival at the shelter. This goal plan aids in the in-depth evaluation of the client's situation and helps her feel empowered about making her own decisions relating to short-term goals, such as filing for an Emergency Protective Order, or obtaining clothing, documents, glasses, car keys, or other personal items from the last place of residence. A major component of the goal plan is the goal of being ready to leave shelter; for some this involves returning to a former residence, with or without the abuser present. For others, it involves freedom and independence. The problem facing many clients is fear of repeat domestic violence with a new abuser. While in shelter, clients will have participated in various workshops designed to help her establish herself emotionally; for example, learning how to spot a potential new abuser, and how to establish positive new relationships. While these conditions are being explored with the client, children are assessed and given services by the Children's Advocate, who supplies them with age-appropriate information about domestic violence. One of the main conditions affecting the victims and survivors of domestic violence is that to escape the unsafe environment they are usually going to have to leave the environment. It is therefore necessary to help the survivor think of terms of self-sufficiency and the establishment of a new living situation. Counseling and services relating to intermediate needs must hence focus on self-sufficiency issues of the client, such as locating new housing, finding a job, entering a career training program, or obtaining a GED. A Career Exploration Inventory is offered to all clients as well as counseling and services relating to the ability of the client to leave the shelter, either returning to a former residence if she chooses, or exiting shelter to establish a new residence; clients are assisted to do such things as gather furniture, create a budget, enroll children in schools, etc. On exit from Crossroads, clients will have had the opportunity to experience protection from abuse and will have been given information about domestic violence. Clients leave shelter with increased ability to behave and react in new ways that are reflective of what they have learned while in shelter. A safety plan that can be followed in case of further personal violence, either at home or at work will have been created, reminding survivors of several specific things that can be done when they are threatened with violence. Statistically researchers see that survivors return to abusers as often as seven times before finally gaining the momentum to make the final break; however, each time there is contact with a domestic violence program she gains in confidence and broadens her information base about the options she can pursue. Children also leave shelter knowing that the incidents of violence and abuse have not been their fault; they have been begun to understand how implement their own personal safety plans and are aware of choices they can make when confronted by domestic violence.
last updated by David Clarke on 20 Jan 2001 |