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Shelter: The Tompkins County Task Force for Battered Women By Anne Bacon Perhaps the greatest drawback to a county such as ours is that an opportunity to understand every incredible agency that exists within simply does not exist. Even so, with this article I hope to expose to you one such agency which is dedicated to creating inner strength in order to prevent and someday eradicate violence against women and youth. Before I introduce the team, let me provide the foundation from which the agency builds it's home. Look around you: of the five women nearest you (include yourself if you are a woman), one has been, is, or will be a victim of domestic abuse in her lifetime; think of three young girls you may know or see: of those three, one will be sexually abused before she blows out eighteen candles on her birthday cake; one in five boys face the same painful fate. Often it is the shadows we don't see in our neighbors that most define them. Imagine if this were your invisible truth: perhaps it is. Here is where the Tompkins County Task Force for Battered Women (TCTFBW) and Child Sexual Abuse Project (CSAP) find their mission. Founded in 1977, TCTFBW/CSAP is a non-profit organization based in Ithaca that has served the needs of women and children throughout Tompkins County who have been or are victims of sexual and domestic abuse for twenty-two years. The services provided are enormous and every one of them free of charge and completely confidential. Aside from short term counseling and community educucation, the TFBW/CSAP provides a 24 hour hotline (277-5000), crisis intervention, a shelter, legal advocacy (as well as other types of advocacy), accompaniment to courts, hospitals, police stations, or anywhere else a victim may be kept from in fear, professional training, consultations and a lending library, where community members are encouraged to borrow literature to awaken their knowledge of domestic and child sexual abuse in Tompkins County and beyond. The services of TCTFBW are open to any woman who has been or is a victim of domestic abuse, and those of CSAP are provided for male and female children and teenagers up to age 18 who have been sexually abused, sexually harassed and/or raped. It also provides services for their families and for adult survivors of child sexual abuse. TCTFBW offers one particular service which, in my opinion, proves it's dedication beyond usual support. That service is the community education program, which facilitates two courses. The first is known as Knowledge is Power (KIP). It is a twelve session course that allows women to understand their journey from pain to healing. It deals with issues of family violence, the effects of violence on children, communication and dealing with anger. It's focus is on movement towards healthy living. 'Bridging' is a program of Action for Personal Choice, and is based on the theory that a person must acknowledge and deal with personal issues before she can offer her gifts to anyone or for any cause. Women taking part in this course have an opportunity to begin a four-step process towards life-long healing: Awareness, Understanding, Acceptance and Change. The main mission of these courses is to impress upon these victims that 'Abuse is always wrong, (and) Abuse is never the victims fault.' A powerful statement, which aside from being true, also helps lighten the guilt most victims feel after being abused. I'll mention again here that these services are completely free of charge and confidential. Within CSAP, there are also a few projects which affirm the devotion of the agency to their cause. Both are community education programs. The first is known as CAP (Child Abuse Prevention) Project. CAP is a national and international program in personal safety designed to involve children in grades K-5. The program is age appropriate and completely interactive. Role plays and group discussions facilitated by CSAP's Community Educator, Jamie Carpenter, and CAP volunteers, allow children to explore their own preventative powers and to be able to discern what sorts of encounters are acceptable and which are not. The program is especially helpful for elementary teachers in New York State who are mandated by NY State law to discuss issues of personal safety with their students, as not all are prepared or comfortable discussing such issues. The other community educative program that CSAP offers is an interactive theatre troupe composed entirely of teen peer-educators from local middle and high schools, and facilitated by CSAP's Education Director. It is known as Teen RAVE (Rape, Abuse, and Violence Education) and it offers a young perspective on these issues to classrooms around the county. There is a new service being added to TCTFBW/CSAP. It involves one half-time counselor who will offer support and counseling for children who have witnessed domestic violence. There is no doubt that such an experience can affect a child's well-being. Often, abusers were themselves abused or witness to domestic abuse as children. Offering such a service is an attempt to prevent future abuse. Suprisingly, it will be the first and only such service offered in Ithaca. TCTFBW/CSAP is guided by strong and consistent leaders who keep the vision of the agency thriving and keep the staff (which experiences a large amount of turn-over) focused and enthusiastic. (Executive Director Joanne Farber has been with the Task Force for approximately fifteen years and CSAP Program Director has been with the agency for nearly twenty.) woman with an incredible spirit, inspiring strength, and my source for this article. A '98 graduate of Wells College, Jamie joined the TCTFBW/SCAP almost immediately upon moving to Ithaca. Now the head of the CAP project, Jamie also coordinates the agencies lending library and public information table and the enormous amount of literature the agency provides for the public. Jamie has tremendous passion and dedication to her work, yet maintains that it "makes (her) sad that (her) job exists; that there is a need for (her) role." One of her goals as a community educator is to raise awareness in Tompkins County, and in human beings themselves, that issues of domestic violence and sexual abuse exist "and exist very much" within the confines of this community. The misconceptions she witnesses stem mostly from the plethora of myths which cloud definitions of abuse from every aspect. It is most important that each of us are aware of our own behavior as potential abusers or abuse victims. There is a story Jamie shared with me to explain her commitment to her position: At the end of a particular CAP program, a teacher completed the same evaluation as each of her students. Her language was intelligent and neatly composed. However, on the reverse of the evaluation, in childish penmanship, was scratched the question "Where were you when I was eight years old?" As my heart aches with the pain of those words, Jamie tells me "They'll never have to say to me, as a ghost, 'where were you?' because we were there." Indeed this incredible agency is there, and is eager to aid you or your friends dealing with issues of domestic violence, or sexual abuse. The agency is also eager for volunteers, both male and female of varying time commitments. For more information contact the office at 277-3203. Also, don't be afraid to utilize the 24-hour hotline: 277-5000. These women want to, and can help you. Anne Bacon is a junior politics major at Ithaca College. |
