Alaska Family Services is here to help

If you are in danger, you are not alone. There is help.

If you have left your abuser and returned later, you are not alone. There is help.

If you’ve left and returned two, three, four, five, six times — you are not alone; Alaska Family Services is there to help!

“Women often leave six or seven times before they get help leaving for good”, said AFS Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault program director David Wilson.

It’s always difficult to decide to leave a violent partner, but for women of limited means, the economic realities of leaving complicate an already difficult situation. Women and children who flee domestic violence often lack basic needs like food, clothing and safe shelter. This is where AFS comes in. For the last 35 years AFS has operated an emergency shelter in Palmer. Currently, the facility houses 32-beds and was opened in 2004. The shelter is the only nationally accredited domestic violence/sexual assault program in Alaska.

The shelter is often filled to capacity with women and children who fled violence and are now rebuilding safe, healthy lives. The facility has two common kitchens, children’s play areas, laundry facilities and living rooms. Each residential wing has a bathroom and four sleeping rooms, each utilizing bunk beds for up to 16 people. The facility has two residential wings.

During the day, most of the children are in school and many of the women are at work, attending classes or running errands. In the evenings, residents are invited to attend various life skills classes such as interpersonal communications, financial literacy and domestic violence support classes. None of the groups are mandatory.

Residents at the emergency shelter prepare their own meals using food from the Alaska Food Bank and community donations. On Friday nights, current and past residents come together for a community dinner.

“The emergency shelter is a prime example of AFS’s philosophy,” said Dr. Donn Bennice, Alaska Family Services President and CEO. “Family solutions to individual problems”.

‘How can we help you reach your goals?’

Founded as the Valley Women’s Resource Center in 1979, the organization opened a domestic violence shelter for women and children in 1982. From that start, AFS has grown to an organization of 125 employees and more than 20 programs in 2015. The agency’s primary mission is to assist women and children who are victims of domestic violence. Families struggle with many interrelated issues like substance abuse, mental health, poor parenting skills, and nutritional problems to name a few, but they can find support through Alaska Family Services.

“Each of our programs is designed to help strengthen and support families,” Bennice said.

One of the strengths of AFS’s model is the implementation of a Care Coordination, “no wrong door” approach to case management that allows the agency to efficiently screen and refer clients to appropriate services. This is accomplished by a multi-disciplinary team that treats the client with no pre-conceived assumptions. The individual is then presented with various options and decides which are best for them.

Since deploying the Care Coordination Model, the average length of stay at the shelter has decreased by half. Of the 147 women served in 2014, 73 percent remain safe and with stable housing.

“Getting women and children out of the shelter and safely into their own home requires providing support beyond temporary shelter,” Wilson said.

One of the underlying issues that contribute to domestic violence is substance abuse at the time of the encounter; 58 percent of the men and 53 percent of women involved in violence report using drugs and/or alcohol during the incident.

A 2005 merger at AFS created another option for client support, with the development of an outpatient mental health/substance abuse treatment program. Shortly thereafter the Women’s Residential Reunification and Action Program (WRRAP), was formed. This program helps woman learn new parenting skills, successfully complete treatment, navigate the court and Office of Children’s Services systems to regain custody of their children.

Interpersonal violence

Women connect to Alaska Family Services through a variety of means, such as through their medical providers, friends, law enforcement and a 24-hour crisis line. The Care Coordination Model also means every person doing intakes is trained to connect clients to the community’s safety net of other services.

Clinician and outreach coordinator Jeaninne Milne shared the story of how staff at the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program in Wasilla assisted a nervous woman to the emergency shelter after she admitted she wasn’t safe and needed help.

“When the woman said she wasn’t safe, AFS-WIC staff responded and got her safely to the shelter,” Milne said.

Part of breaking the cycle means intervening with children who witness abuse. Children who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their partners as adults. In a recent study, nearly 25 percent of Mat-Su Borough adults reported seeing a parent hurt by a spouse or partner during their childhood.

Children who witness domestic violence become fearful and anxious and can experience lifelong physical and emotional effects, according to a 2009 report called “Impact of Domestic Violence on Children” by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Children’s Bureau. Even if an abuser in a domestic violence incident doesn’t hit the children, violence still impacts the whole family.

Alaska also has the highest per capita rate of men murdering women and rape in the nation — 2.5 times the national average — according to Domestic Violence Facts aggregated by National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

If you would like to support AFS or simply would like more information please visit AFS online at akafs.org or contact the emergency crisis line at 746-4080.

Heather Resz is a freelance writer from the Mat-Su Valley. This column was provided by Alaska Family Services.