Children's Services

• Academic growth.  Due to the family’s frequent moves and the effects of trauma, the children in our residences often lag behind their classmates.  Our teachers and tutors work with the kids, their parents and teachers to help bring the children up to grade level.
• Therapeutic curriculum.  Children who are domestic-violence survivors have witnessed and often experienced trauma.  Our professionals in the Afterschool Program teach conflict-resolution skills, anger management, and healthy relationship-building skills to children who are often depressed and anxious and exhibit post-traumatic-stress disorders.
• Trust and connection.  In the Afterschool Program, healing begins by creating a trusting environment where the children feel safe to talk about the vulnerability resulting from homelessness; the loss of friends, familiar routines and belongings; and the absence of the abusing parent.  Healing begins with trust and words.
• Resiliency. Our professional staff seeks to increase children’s coping strategies, improve mother-child relationships, and increase children’s resiliency and self-esteem.
• Fun. Every week the Afterschool Program provides a fun-filled field trip or experience for the children, including swimming at the local YMCA, pumpkin-picking, roller-skating, and excursions to area museums and petting farms.

• Helping survivors, who have often been undermined as parents by their abusers, to gain parenting skills and reclaim their role as adults with authority
• Facilitating enrollment in day care, school, or summer camp
• Identifying and linkage to medical, dental, mental health, or legal professionals
• Providing referrals to meet basic needs, including food, shoes and clothing, and school supplies 
• Locating financial assistance to fund children’s needs
• Helping survivors establish routines for their children, including at bedtime, in the morning, and at meals
• Providing help and information about nutrition, appropriate discipline, and developmental levels

• Provides children with one-on-one relationships with trained and caring young adults
• Exposes children of domestic-violence survivors to what college has to offer and to life on a local college campus
• Offers enrichment activities for children that are planned and carried out with their student mentors