Provided by YWCA Greater Cincinnati
YWCA Greater Cincinnati, together with collaborative partners Legal Aid Society, Colerain Township Trustees, Colerain Police Department, and Santa Maria Community Services, has received federal funding from the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice, to open and operate a Family Justice Center (FJC) in Cincinnati. Center locations will open in Colerain Township and in Price Hill, Cincinnati in June/July 2017.
The Family Justice Center is a collaboration of multiple partner agencies, addressing the unique needs of immigrant survivors of domestic violence through a coordinated community response. The FJC currently offers safe and welcoming locations in Colerain Township and Price Hill, both focused on the long-term safety of immigrant survivors through the reduction of homicide, domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking incidences. Based on domestic violence prevention and intervention best practice research, the FJC provides immediate, comprehensive and tailored services. These onsite and referral services include: advocacy, safety planning, crisis intervention, lethality and risk assessment, access to shelter, language access and interpretation, community resources, medical and mental health services, and legal counseling and immigration remedy assistance, among many others.
The mission of the Family Justice Center is to increase victim safety, increase autonomy and empowerment for victims; reduce fear and anxiety for victims and their children; reduce recantation and minimization of victims; increase efficiency in collaborative services to victims; increase prosecution of offenders; and finally to dramatically increase community support for services to victims.
The Family Justice Center model is recognized by the Department of Justice as a “best practice” in the field of domestic violence prevention and intervention, and has been hugely successful in producing major drops in domestic violence related homicides, reductions in recidivism by offenders, and increased safety and empowerment for victims and their children.