The following true stories are examples of how the Family Violence Prevention Fund – with your help – continues to end abuse in our homes and neighborhoods.
Joan, 37, had been kept a virtual prisoner by her abusive husband of 10 years. In the Laundromat one day, she finds the Family Violence Prevention Fund's "Victim Safety Card." The card shows her how to develop a safety plan to escape and gives her the toll-free number of the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Today Joan lives with her three children, violence-free in their new home. That card started her on the road to a new life.
Ann, 29, and her children have been battered by her live-in boyfriend for the past six years, but she has never told anyone. Through the Family Violence Prevention Fund's public education campaign, a neighbor recognizes the signs that Ann is being beaten and offers her support and help. Slowly, Ann begins to open up.
As FVPF's "Neighbor to Neighbor" pamphlet suggests, Ann leaves a small suitcase of clothes at her neighbor's house in case she needs to escape. Another neighbor takes care of her two small children when Ann goes to court to get a restraining order that will make her boyfriend stay away from her.
Today because of FVPF's campaign, Ann and her children are safe in their home and the boyfriend is gone. Ann has new friends on the block, and her children get a little extra attention from the neighbors.
View FVPF Community Organizing Tools.
A woman and her boyfriend go to the Emergency Room. Pale and trembling, the woman holds her arm gingerly, her forehead is bleeding profusely, her eye is swollen shut and her face is bruised. Although she says she has taken a fall, the receptionist recognizes signs of abuse, because of a training she received from the Family Violence Prevention Fund.
The receptionist places a special sticker, which she received at the training, on the woman's file which suggests the nurse or physician find out whether abuse could be the cause of the injuries, and to separate the woman from her boyfriend so she can speak freely. The physician also has been trained by FVPF in how and what to ask during the medical exam.
Even though she's frightened about talking, the woman tells the physician of years of growing violence, mounting terror, and lonely isolation. She has never told anyone about the beatings. She and the doctor begin to make plans to get her away from her violent boyfriend.
The woman's first steps towards freedom are taken that day, thanks to FVPF's training and an alert and compassionate hospital staff.
View FVPF Health Practitioner Tools.
Judge Peterson doesn't understand "why women stay" with men who batter them and he thinks that prosecutors exaggerate the problems. He often merely gives abusive men in his court a reprimand.
He recently attended a domestic violence training for judges created by the Family Violence Prevention Fund. He hears from domestic violence experts about the real danger to women when they try to leave. He also learns how dangerous, and sometimes lethal, family violence can be, and how severely it affects the children.
After the workshop, a domestic violence case comes before his court. This time, he orders the husband to leave the home and stay away from his wife, attend a batterers' treatment program, and appear in court every month to report his progress. The judge tells him that he will go to jail immediately if he does not do these things. The judge also grants the woman a restraining order.
Now, because Judge Peterson has learned more about domestic violence from FVPF training, women who come to his court feel they are being taken seriously and that court will help them to be safe. Their husbands know they will have to change their behavior or go to jail.
View FVPF Judicial and Children's Program Tools.
Join the movement to end abuse by making a tax-deductible donation to the Family Violence Prevention Fund today!