Fresh Start for Families Surviving Domestic Violence

Did You Know That…?

• 50% of homeless women and children are fleeing abuse.
• 92% of homeless women experience severe physical or sexual assault at some point in their adult lives.
• The higher rates of mental and behavioral disorders found in homeless children may largely be due to their exposure to domestic violence.
• 20-30% of women receiving welfare benefits (homeless or not) are current victims of domestic violence. Even more strikingly, the same studies have shown that two thirds of all welfare caseloads consist of past victims.
• Domestic violence survivors face particularly difficult challenges obtaining and maintaining employment, challenges that are compounded by being homeless.

Program Description
Fresh Start for Families Surviving Domestic Violence is another Center collaboration with HELP USA, one of the nation’s largest providers of shelter and services to the homeless It began in 1999 as a replication and extension of the original Fresh Start program at another HELP shelter. The Project is a shelter-based program designed to support women survivors of domestic violence and their children as the women attempt to gain employment and stable housing—crucial steps to avoiding returning to an abusive partner.

Utilizing the collaborative family program development model pioneered in the original Fresh Start, the program was created based on in-depth interviews with women about their challenges, coping approaches, and what they desire in a program to support them. The group program is now linked to HELP USA’s job readiness and placement program. The effectiveness of the program was assessed in a pre/post/6-month follow-up design akin to that of the Fresh Start for Families with Teens project.

In March 2006, two new groups—one for kids ages 6-11 years, and another for pre-teens and teens—were started to address the emotional and behavioral effects of domestic violence and shelter life. Also, a new women’s group started April 2006 for women whose primary language is Spanish.

Recent CWF Research Findings
Through the work of this project and the programs implemented, CTWF has been able to obtaint the following research findings on the large number of challenges that women survivors of domestic violence face, including:

• experiences of relational trauma, including rupture of trust of the former, abusive partner and of his family of origin;
• isolation from own family of origin;
• symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder;
• sense of being re-traumatized or disempowered at times by insensitive interactions with workers from welfare, child protection, and homelessness agencies, and by strictness of shelter rules;
• difficulty managing children’s disruptive, emotionally-dysregulated behavior, which is often the result of witnessing or directly experiencing the violence;
• multiple fears about moving into the workforce, including finding safe, reliable and affordable childcare, and the potential for abusive partner to find her at workplace.

CTWF has also found that women faced with such challenges mobilize a number of practical, psychological, and relational coping strategies including:

• Being proactive, taking initiative to ensure that welfare and ACS cases are in good status;
• Obtaining orders of protection for herself and children;
• Participating in job training/education programs or enrolling in school;
• Looking for temp work;
• Developing future work goals;
• Utilizing shelter-based support programs;
• Fantasizing about a better future;
• Engaging in variety of self-soothing and nourishingactivities including exercising, maintaining spiritual and religious practices, and using creative activities of self expression such as writing poems and keeping a journal.