Genesis Emergency Shelter Program https://grants.dudleytdoughertyfoundation.org/proposals-2015/genesis-emergency-shelter-program https://grants.dudleytdoughertyfoundation.org/@@site-logo/sitelogo-75x75.png

Genesis Emergency Shelter Program

Additional Information
Used for	On behalf of the women and children at Genesis Women’s Shelter & Support please accept this request for $10,000.00 from the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation in support of Genesis’ Emergency Shelter. Funding will support occupancy costs to ensure our lights stay on and our doors stay open for the hundreds of women and children who turn to Genesis this year seeking safety from violent homes. Women and children often arrive at our doors with nothing but the clothes on their backs; Genesis’ Emergency Shelter is often the first step in ending the nightmare and beginning the journey to an abuse-free life.
Benefits	The money will benefit the world because our unique interventions and services break the cycle of domestic violence for generations to come. When families arrive at our Emergency Shelter, we embrace them with a complete wrap-around program of care, including individual and group counseling, legal assistance, case management, children’s therapy, on-site childcare, and on-site schools. Each client is evaluated and a plan is implemented throughout their six-week stay to help them heal from the trauma they have experienced and create the bright future they deserve.
Proposal Description	Genesis’ mission is to end the epidemic of domestic violence against women and children by stopping individual victimization and reducing the devastating impact of family violence through safety, shelter, and expert services to battered women and their children. We are committed to preventing violence by raising the level of community awareness regarding the pervasiveness and effects of domestic violence. 30 years ago, a brave woman made a decision to take her children and leave her violent home knowing she would become homeless. A group of caring citizens found it unacceptable that this woman and her children were sleeping in a car because it was unsafe to be in her own home. This group of citizens created a shelter to embrace women and children fleeing violent homes—a place they called Genesis Women’s Shelter. A woman’s journey to an abuse-free life begins the minute she comes to Genesis. She learns to recognize signs of abuse and ways to keep herself and her children safe. She begins to understand abuse is not her fault, and no matter how much her abuser isolated her, she is not alone. She discovers her voice and regains the freedom to make decisions. We help her erase emotional scars and heal traumatic wounds. She gains the skills to become employed. She builds her own savings account, establishes credit, and manages her own financial resources. She learns how to model healthy relationships for her children, and develops the confidence and resources to provide for her family. At Genesis, children play peacefully and sleep soundly. They learn to recognize abuse and what a healthy relationship looks like. They repair the broken connections with their mom and develop the resiliency to heal their wounds and rebuild their lives. Children shed their anxiety and relax for the first time in a long time. They too discover their voice and know they are now heard. At Genesis, we break the cycle of violence, providing hope for each child that they have the right to an abuse-free life. When families arrive at our Emergency Shelter, they are embraced with a complete wrap-around program of care, including individual counseling, weekly group counseling, on-site legal assistance, case management, children’s play therapy, on-site day care, after school care, an on-site preschool, and an on-site K-12 school. Each woman and child is evaluated and a personalized plan is put into action throughout their six-week stay to help them heal from the trauma they have experienced and create the bright futures they deserve. Once families have completed our Shelter Program, they have the option to utilize our Transitional Living Program: Annie’s House. Families are able to live rent-free for 12 months in their own private apartments. The mother is required to work, saving one-third of her income, so she will have the financial means to be self-sufficient upon completion of her family’s time at Annie’s House. Here, families are can bond and establish homes filled with love and respect. At Genesis, we also recognize 85% of women who will know domestic violence will not seek the safety of an Emergency Shelter. The Genesis non-residential Outreach Counseling Center exists to meet the needs of this group, extending to them the same group, individual, and children’s counseling services and education our residential clients receive. Our clinical counseling program uses a trauma-informed response by incorporating Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). This cutting-edge therapeutic is a type of therapy used to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but has proven effective in treating victims of domestic violence as well as a variety of other psychological conditions. Each counselor at Genesis is certified in this trauma therapy and, in combination with other types of therapy we provide such as group, filial, and play therapy, allows counselors to create individualized plans to heal the psychological wounds that remain long after bruises and broken bones have healed. We monitor our clients’ success based on their own goals and definition of success. Success may be a woman creating a safety plan, securing employment, or something else. Counseling goals include identifying red-flags in relationships, understanding abuse is unacceptable, and arming clients to make the safest choices for themselves and their children. To measure clinical success, we use the Transtheoretical Model of Change. This model allows us to track a client's growth through the five stages of change women experience as they leave a violent relationship, and are typical of many life changes: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Adult clients at Genesis are exclusively female and range in age from 18 to 72. We serve both male and female children, aged 0 to 17. Clients are approximately 50% Hispanic, 23% African-American, 20% Caucasian and 7% other. Our clients come from every zip-code, ethnic group, religious affiliation, and education level. We hope the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation will stand with us this year—with your support of occupancy expenses at Genesis’ Emergency Shelter, we will break the cycle of violence for future generations. By creating safer homes, we create safer neighborhoods and, ultimately, a safer world.