Mission Statement
Domestic Abuse Project provides men, women, and children essential tools needed to transform from crisis to healthy and safe relationships, in order to permanently break the cycle of violence.
Impact and Programs
Accomplishments
Domestic Abuse Project offers free or sliding-scale services for families affected by domestic abuse. We are the only agency in the Twin Cities area that provides wrap-around care (crisis, mid-term, and long range services) to the whole family, that is both trauma and domestic violence-informed so that each member can truly heal and the intergenerational cycle of violence can end.
Women’s Therapy: The Women’s Program offers individual and group therapy that consists of psycho-education and process time. The cornerstone of our program, primary group, addresses safety and stabilization concerns. The group decreases trauma and starts each woman’s journey to self-sufficiency and healing. All women who completed our group program developed a safety plan – a protective factor in keeping women safe from experiencing domestic abuse again. Roughly 175 women are served each year.
Youth Therapy: We know that children who witness or experience domestic violence are much more likely to use violence or be a victim of abuse as adults. Working with these children effectively breaks the cycle of violence. We utilize a mix of individual and group therapy to help children heal and mitigate the risk of lifelong challenges to their physical, psychological, and social development as a result of trauma. Therapy is developmentally targeted and attachment oriented. All children who completed group completed an age appropriate safety plan and learned that abuse is not their fault and they are not alone. Roughly 100 children are served each year, each for about 6-9 months.
Men’s Therapy: DAP’s Men’s Team serves adult male perpetrators of domestic violence. Through education sessions and process sessions, our program combines education with cognitive-behavioral therapy. In the course of the program, men work to accept responsibility for their violent actions and give presentations on their plan for building and maintaining equal and interdependent relationships. We also have a group that is culturally specific for military veterans. Of the men who completed the Men’s Program, over 90% did not reoffend. The men’s program serves over 300 men each year.
Advocacy: Advocates respond to the crisis needs of safety and stability of survivors of domestic abuse. Advocates support survivors of violence in navigating the criminal and civil court system and making critical community referrals. Domestic abuse victims face many barriers in seeking the help they need to escape abuse. But by assisting clients with Orders for Protection, connecting them with community resources, or making sense of the complicated legal systems, Advocates increase positive outcomes for our clients. 96% of clients completed a safety plan. Advocates serve roughly 2500 clients each year.
Current Goals
DAP aims to end abuse by continuing our current services, while expanding in ways that meet key community needs. In FY17 we will expand our case management program so that each distinct population we serve (victim/survivors, child witnesses, and perpetrators) has their own dedicated case manager. Since research has shown that trauma can more deeply impact a child the younger they are, we will expand our youth program by training our therapists to be able to serve children, ages birth to three. Other priorities include, completing our group curriculum revisions to include trauma-informed and anti-racist/anti-oppressive practices, and refreshing all of our evaluation and outcome measures. As funding is available we seek to expand with increased culturally sensitive services, such as a Spanish-speaking therapy group. Another possible expansion is the use of adjunctive treatments for the body, such as yoga, acupuncture, bodywork, etc., to enhance our integrative health work for clients.
Community or Constituency Served
Domestic abuse does not discriminate by families of different races, religions, or class. We serve all domestic violence victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. However, as an agency that does not require insurance and has a sliding fee scale, the overwhelming majority of our clients have low income status.
Geographic Area Served
The majority of our clients reside in the Twin Cities metro area, however, we serve anyone who can come to our offices for programming.
