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Crisis Support Services
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1208 N. Douty St. |
Crisis Support Services at Kings Community Action is a department that is comprised of three essential programs to Kings County residents who may find themselves in need of immediate intervention and support to assist them in dealing with past abuse, stopping current abuse and preventing future abuse.
Crisis Support Services provides services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as families at risk of child abuse as identified by agencies such as the courts, school districts and Child Protective Services.
Crisis Support Services team staff members are all fluent in delivering services based on the Family Unity model with recognizes strengths over deficits in crisis situations. As such, programs are operated with an emphasis on personal empowerment through the use of existing personal strengths and resources as well as acquiring additional information and skills.
All services are free of charge.
The Facts
- Between 1 and 4 million women experience serious assault by an intimate partner each year.
(Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Redesigned Survey (NCJ-154348) 8/1995 p.3) (American Psychological Association: Violence and the Family: Report of the American Psychological Task Force on Violence and the Family (1996) p.10)
- According to the 1999 National Crime Victimization survey by the Department of Justice, every 90 seconds a person over the age of 12 is sexually assaulted. That translates to 40 and hour, 960 per day, 350,000 per year.
- In 1999, over 1400 children died of abuse and neglect in the United States — nearly 4 child deaths each day. 4 out of 5 of these children were under the age of 5 years; 2 out of 5 were under 1 year old.
(National Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research, Current Trends in Child Abuse Prevention, Reporting on Fatalities; the 1999 Fifty Sate Survey. Working papers No. 808, 4/2002; Nancy Peddle PhD., Ching-Tung Wnag, PhD.)
Child Abuse Prevention Parent Support Program
The Parent Support Program is a child abuse prevention program which provides direct services to adults, children and families in crisis. The focus of the program is to ensure that needy and vulnerable families are served, aided and protected in ways that strengthen and preserve the family unit, encourage responsibility, and foster independence.
Family Case Managers work with families in their homes by providing the following services:
- Intense In-home Case Management
- One-on-one and Group Parenting Courses
- In-home Childcare and Out-of-home Childcare placement
- Money Management Assistance
- Home Maintenance Assistance
- Education & Job Assistance
- Emergency Transportation
- Resource & Referral
- Child Abuse Prevention Education Presentations
Domestic Violence Prevention & Intervention Program
What is Domestic Violence?
Domestic violence is a pattern of behavior that one intimate partner or spouse exerts over another as a means of control. Domestic violence may include physical violence, coercion, threats, intimidation, and emotional, sexual or economic abuse.
Domestic violence is not defined solely by specific physical acts, but by a combination of psychological, social, and familial factors. In some families, perpetrators of domestic violence may routinely beat their spouses until they require medical attention. In other families, the physical violence may have occurred in the past; perpetrators may currently exert power and control over their partners simply by looking at them a certain way or reminding them of prior episodes. In still other families, the violence may be sporadic, but may have the effect of controlling the abused partner.
Services Available:
- 24-hour Toll-Free Crisis Line: 1-877-727-3225
- Temporary Shelter
- Legal Advocacy: Assistance with restraining orders
- Peer Counseling & Case Management
- Information & Referral
- Prevention Presentations
Sexual Assault Prevention & Intervention Program
The Victim: Rape and Sexual Assault are violent crimes and they can happen to anyone. They are not motivated by sexual desire and do not happen because the victim somehow "asked for it."
Victims can be working women, homemakers, students, grandmothers, children, the rich, the poor, and even men.
The Situation: Sexual assault can happen anywhere at anytime. Although some situations may be more high risk than others, there is no prescribed setting where an assault might occur. The fact is that most sexual assaults take place in a person's own home.
The perpetrator: Perpetrators of this type of crime, be they rapist or pedophiles, do not often look or act differently than other people, and they are not usually strangers. They are often acquaintances of friends, relatives, neighbors, or other familiar people in our lives.
Sexual Assault Prevention & Intervention Program provides the following:
- 24-hour Toll-Free Crisis Line: 1-877-727-3225
- Case Management and Information & Referral Services
- Hospital/Court/Law Enforcement Accompaniment & Advocacy
- Peer & Professional Counseling
- Community Prevention Education & Assertiveness Training
- Yearly Volunteer Advocacy Training
Prevention is Key
In addition to providing crisis intervention services, the Crisis Support Services Department also provides Kings County residents with prevention education.
- Child Abuse Prevention
- Child Sexual Abuse: What it is, identifying factors, and how to deal with it
- Sexual Assault/Rape Education
- Date Rape Drug Information
- Self-Defense/Assertiveness
- Domestic Violence: The Cycle of Violence
If you have a group which is interested in receiving one of the above mentioned presentations or a general presentation about services, please contact us at (559) 585-1018.