In neighborhoods across Los Angeles County and beyond, 1736 Family Crisis Center's healing influence is felt through life-changing emergency response, training, community education, advocacy, policy development, and research.

Responding effectively to the injuries or emotional distress of domestic violence victims requires more than skilled medical intervention or a caring, listening ear.

Indeed, key to interrupting the cycle of violence that engulfs most women experiencing intimate partner abuse is first identifying them as victims. Then, building on help provided at the scene or the hospital emergency room, the task becomes connecting domestic violence victims with the critical support services they need to achieve long-term safety past their moment of crisis.

Since 1998, this has been the urgent undertaking of 1736 Family Crisis Center’s domestic violence training program for frontline hospital, healthcare, emergency response, and law enforcement personnel. Such individuals are often the first or sole contact of victimized women. Properly equipped, they can ably assess the situation of hurting women and offer informed care, counsel, and referrals to help relieve and prevent the recurrence of their suffering.

A key component of training activity has been to help develop and put into place domestic violence screening protocols for hospital use. 1736 Family Crisis Center case managers also provide 24-hour emergency response to the California Hospital Medical Center near downtown Los Angeles. This urban facility handles 40,000 emergency room cases each year.

We are working, too, to help create a community-wide domestic violence safety net in Los Angeles County’s South Bay region through participation in the CAVA (Collaborative for Alternatives to Violence and Abuse) project. The CAVA project, helmed by Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, unites six area hospitals, several local police departments, and a number of social service agencies to provide screening and alternatives for local domestic violence victims and education for hospital personnel and the community at large.

To help ensure the success of this landmark project, 1736 Family Crisis Center is providing expert 24-hour in-person and telephone counseling, advocacy services, and training, as needed. This includes referrals to our shelters for domestic violence victims and their children and community counseling programs.

Training and other activities to improve emergency response to domestic violence victims throughout Los Angeles County remains an urgent need. In 2002, a staggering 56,452 calls reporting domestic violence incidents were made to Los Angeles County-area law enforcement agencies — 71% of which involved a weapon. However, many women still do not report their abuse or self-identify as victims from fear or a lack of knowledge.

Getting the word out on domestic violence, why teens hit the streets, and other issues that threaten personal and family stability can save, or dramatically improve, lives. Toward this end, 1736 Family Crisis Center offers onsite training and other community supports to extend the reach of the vivid and informative community education materials we have installed at our Los Angeles community service center.

Domestic violence training for hospital, healthcare, and emergency response professionals helps ensure injured or suffering individuals crucial immediate help. For more information, click here. We also equip school counselors, mental health workers, and others in the community to recognize the signs of abuse and gather the information they need to guide people experiencing violence at home to shelter, counseling, or other aid.

1736 Family Crisis Center staff and volunteers make presentations at schools, churches, other service providers, service clubs, community fairs, and other community venues to educate the public about domestic violence, child abuse, teen runaway issues, and related problems and to convey the community resources available to address these difficulties, including those of the Center's.

1736 Family Crisis Center also offers "individual time" in our school outreach efforts, so that students may speak privately with staff following presentations. This has become particularly important due to child abuse, rape, and other disclosures that are made to our staff in the school setting. Individual time enables proper reporting and service referrals.

You can schedule a training session or a speaker for your Los Angeles County-area group or event by calling (323) 797-3900, Ext. 237.

You can arrange a tour of the community education installation at our Los Angeles community service center by calling (323) 737-3900, Ext. 237.
 

1736 Family Crisis Center provides intensive workplace consulting services that help employers learn how to identify the telltale signs of domestic violence, as well as understand how domestic violence can affect employees, business productivity, and the office environment.

For more information, call (323) 737-3900, Ext. 237.

1736 Family Crisis Center and its public advocacy stance stem from the philosophy that every child, teen, and adult deserves:

• A safe home free of violence
• Psychological assistance to work through past exposures to horrific violence against themselves and/or family members
• Effective and loving caregivers
• Good nutrition, clothes, and shoes that fit and are appropriate to weather and other needs
• The opportunity to express themselves through language/art/poetry/play
• Friends and fun experiences
• Frequent opportunities to build self-esteem that, in many cases, has been non-existent or destroyed

To help make this a reality, 1736 Family Crisis Center actively participates in a variety of collaborative efforts aimed at reducing domestic violence and homelessness.

1736 Family Crisis Center CEO and Executive Director Carol Adelkoff recently concluded six years' service as the elected chair of the City of Los Angeles Domestic Violence Task Force, an advisory group comprised of individuals working in a variety of local public and private agencies. This group was established through the passage in 1994 of a Los Angeles City Council motion which provided for annual funding to sustain or create domestic violence programs.

Task Force members advise the Mayor and City Council members on domestic violence issues and work together to ensure well-funded, coordinated services for children, teens, and adults who are struggling to survive violence at home. One landmark achievement on this front has been the group's development of the City of Los Angeles' first domestic violence workplace policy, which is being instituted in every City department.

Other 1736 Family Crisis Center staff participate in the Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council and are also active in a variety of other strategic local and regional policy-making and professional associations.

In the area of research, we have conducted "best practices" studies in collaboration with the USC School of Social Work (funded by the State of California) to examine the effect of shelter program design in order to yield information for possible replication in other agencies.