Professor of English and Director of Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies
Elizabeth Gregory, Taylor Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies and Professor of English, directs the WGSS Program and the UH Institute for Research on Women, Gender & Sexuality. She writes on Marianne Moore’s poetry and women’s work and fertility. Read more about her here.
UH Institute for Research on Women, Gender & Sexuality
Report to the Community
February 2023
Houston Area Domestic Violence Providers Study
+ Initial Local DV Data Aggregation
This report shares the results of UH-IRWGS’s study of regional Domestic Violence [DV] Service Providers, based on interviews and group discussions with leaders of 12 local DV shelters and nonresidential agencies. It recommends significant community investment in expanded DV infrastructure coordination and staffing, to move from the current model of limited response to overwhelming demand to a model that allows the community to not only address DV cases more effectively but to analyze and address causes as well.
In addition, the report contains an initial aggregation of regional DV data – including data from some shelters, law enforcement, and nonresidential service providers (see Supplement). Future reports will provide more detail and include data from more sources.<p/p>
Houston has a major problem with Domestic Violence assaults and homicides: Calls for Shelter and Calls for Service from the police are high, and IPV homicides doubled between 2019 and 2022, rising from 32 to 64 across the two largest police departments in Harris County (HPD and HCSO).
Newly Aggregated DV Data
Additional Findings
Professor of English and Director of Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies
Elizabeth Gregory, Taylor Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies and Professor of English, directs the WGSS Program and the UH Institute for Research on Women, Gender & Sexuality. She writes on Marianne Moore’s poetry and women’s work and fertility. Read more about her here.
Desiré Martinez, LCSW-S is a Lead Trauma Support Partner for HCDVCC.
Imagine having an abusive parent in a third world country with no viable option for kinship adoption. Now imagine a hostile government takeover swept your city and violently ended the lives of your entire family. This is the reality for thousands of people around the world, many of which are children who are forced to escape to the US.
The St. Jerome Emiliani Foster Care Program provides a nurturing home environment for unaccompanied refugee children and teenagers, many of whom have escaped devastating situations in their native lands. They may have been trafficked here, escorted by a coyote, or traveled overseas, enduring a long journey to make it to a place of refuge. Due to these adverse experiences, the youth may have trauma, be grieving, and exhibit complex behaviors. Our program is the only International Foster Care available in the greater Houston area, so we offer a niche way to help youth in need that differs from domestic foster care, who works with CPS.
Our youth are temporarily held in shelters or refugee camps while they wait to be referred to us by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Once accepted into the St Jerome program, we pick them up from the airport and place them in licensed foster homes. Foster parents play a critical role in providing a stable family: issuing food, clothing, shelter, love, protection, and guidance to the youth in their care to help them become self-sufficient young adults. The end goal is to ensure the foster youth have their needs met in a safe, therapeutic, and caring way.
The St. Jerome Program, with assistance from other programs at Catholic Charities, provides financial support, case management services, independent living skills training, education/English as a Second Language (ESL, mentoring, job skills training, legal assistance, cultural activities, clinical services, and ongoing family tracing). We work as a well-rounded team to offer full support to all our families and take great pride in how we advocate for both the youth and the foster parents when issues arise. We ensure all sides are heard so we can come up with a proper solution.
Every year we see youth from different countries depending on the current political climate. This year, we anticipate the bulk of our referrals to come from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Due to these stats, we are hoping to bring on some Spanish speaking foster families, particularly from Central America, and African foster parents, to provide a good cultural match for these youth.
Potential foster parents go through many steps to become licensed with our program, including an orientation, trainings, documentation, home study, and observation hours in other foster homes. We work with our potentials to help guide them through the process and make sure our program is a good fit. If you are interested in making a difference in the lives of these youth, please scan the QR code to fill out our questionnaire and sign up for an orientation to learn more today!
1 in 3 teens will experience some form of physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse by a dating partner and approximately 8.5 million women experienced sexual assault before the age of 18. Teen dating violence, a form of intimate partner violence, is the most prevalent form of youth violence – affecting youth regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status.
Just a couple months ago I was invited out to Austin, Texas to conduct a training for a group of young college-aged women. I began my presentation with the same eye-opening activity I always use – “Close your eyes and take a deep breath. Now, raise your hand if you either have experienced or know someone who has experienced some form of intimate partner violence. Now open your eyes and look around.” There was not a single hand in the room that was not raised…
After concluding my presentation with the young women, a few came up to me to express how they wished they had the opportunity to learn about healthy relationships before they had started dating. So, here is where you come in – preventing teen dating violence requires a broad coalition of parents, schools, and community organizations to join forces to start having conversations about healthy relationships at an early age.
Here are a few steps you can take to help prevent teen dating violence:
Effective prevention and action has been seen to significantly decrease cases of intimate partner violence in teens. If you are interested in learning more about healthy relationships or wanting to set up a healthy relationships training, please email tishya@dayahouston.org.
Let’s do our part to decrease the number of hands that go up when asked “raise your hand if you either have experienced or know someone who has experienced some form of intimate partner violence.”
Tishya Bedi is the Director of Outreach and Education at Daya Houston.
Honoring Crime Victims Rights’ Week
The 1970’s were a volatile time in America. The Vietnam War was still raging with constant protests and the Equal Rights Amendment was struggling to get ratified (and is still not ratified to date). In the meantime, victims of crime had very few if any rights. In 1972, the first three victim assistance programs were created in St. Louis, San Francisco and Washington, DC to begin to address the unique needs of crime victims. In 1976, Harris County District Attorney Carol S. Vance was serving as President of the National District Attorneys Association when he heard about a program in California to help victims through the difficult experience of the criminal justice process. He decided that Harris County needed a similar program, so he tasked Suzanne McDaniel to establish the first such program in Texas. In 1977 the Harris County District Attorney’s Office Victim Witness Division was created to provide information, assistance, and support for victims of crime in Harris County.
Harris County was ahead of the times because it was not until 1982, that President Ronald Reagan created the President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime. The report from the Task Forces had sixty-eight recommendations in five different areas including proposed Executive and Legislative action at both the Federal and State levels, proposed Federal action, proposed action for criminal justice system agencies, proposed actions for organizations and a proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution. As a result, the United States Congress passed the Federal Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982. This act changed the status of a crime victim from a person who merely identifies the perpetrator and testifies in court to the role of an active participant in the criminal justice process. Victims were allowed to provide victim impact statements to the court describing their experiences and costs of being a crime victim and guaranteeing the right to claim restitution. Two years later the US Congress enacted the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) that created a matching grant program to encourage states to create victim compensation funds and local programs to assist crime victims. Even though the Victim Witness Division had been established in 1977, it was not until the 69th Texas Legislature in 1985 passed HB 235 adding Chapter 56 to the Code of Criminal Procedure, Rights of Crime Victims. And in 1989 Texans voted to add the Victims Bill of Rights to the Texas Constitution (Article 1, Section 30). Over the years the Division has grown and changed its name to the Victim Services Division. In 2017, the Division applied for and received a grant to go from six Victim Assistance Coordinators to twenty-one! Their expansion continued and they now have twenty-five Victim Assistance Coordinators who reach out to over 20,000 victims of crime each year! How the Victim Services Division helps crime victims in Harris County: Basic ServicesWritten by:
Amy Smith, Senior Director of Communications and Operations for HCDVCC
and
Colleen Jordan, Assistant Director for the HCDA Victim Services Division
Shining a Light on Sexual Assault: Empowering Survivors and Promoting Healing
with Texas Forensic Nurse Examiners: Forensic Center of Excellence (TXFNE)
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), a time to unite as a community to raise awareness about sexual assault, advocate for survivors, and talk about prevention.
One organization working on the frontlines to support survivors of sexual assault are the forensic nurses, advocates, and staff at Texas Forensic Nurse Examiners: Forensic Center of Excellence (TXFNE).
TXFNE opened its doors in Houston 2019, challenged to aid in closing the gap in medical forensic services for victims of sexual violence. The issue? Sexual assault victims sometimes had to go from hospital to hospital to receive an exam, or wait for hours, or find out they could not be treated at all.
Now in its fourth year, TXFNE operates as a 24/7 community-based victim service center that provides medical forensic exams, dispatching specially trained forensic nurses to 55 partner hospitals and clinics throughout the Houston area. Nurses arrive within 90 minutes of receiving a call a victim is in need of a medical forensic exam.
TXFNE has also expanded services to include adult forensic interviews, counseling and advocacy, and legal support to all survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, human trafficking, child abuse and elder maltreatment. All services are confidential and free of charge.
For more information, visit TXFNE’s website.
Understanding Sexual Assault
Sexual assault refers to any unwanted sexual act, including rape, attempted rape, and other non-consensual sexual contacts (RAINN, 2021). It is a pervasive problem affecting millions worldwide, regardless of age, gender, race, or socioeconomic status. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), one in five women and one in 71 men will experience sexual assault at some point in their lives (NSVRC, 2021).
Preventing Sexual Assault
Prevention efforts should be multifaceted and involve individuals, communities, and institutions. Here are some strategies to consider:
Education: Comprehensive sex education that includes lessons on consent, healthy relationships, and bystander intervention can help create a culture that discourages sexual violence (CDC, 2019).
Bystander intervention: Encouraging individuals to safely intervene when they witness potential incidents of sexual assault can help prevent violence from occurring (Banyard, 2011).
Social norms change: Promoting healthy, respectful relationships and challenging harmful beliefs about gender and sexuality can create environments where sexual assault is less likely to occur (Heise, 2011).
Institutional policies: Strengthening policies and procedures that protect survivors and hold perpetrators accountable is essential in preventing sexual assault (NSVRC, 2015).
Supporting Survivors
Survivors of sexual assault may experience a range of physical, emotional, and psychological effects. It is crucial that they receive appropriate support and resources to facilitate healing. TXFNE plays a vital role in providing this support through its forensic nursing, advocacy, and counseling services.
Ways to help:
By educating ourselves and our communities about the impact of sexual assault, by advocating for survivors, and by working together to prevent future incidents, we can make a meaningful difference in combatting sexual violence.
The Texas Forensic Nurse Examiners (TXFNE) plays an essential role in the movement to end sexual violence by providing expert forensic nursing services, advocacy, counseling, and legal support, working toward comprehensive solutions for victim services. Together with organizations like TXFNE, we can empower victims, promote healing and create a safer environment for everyone.
References
This month and throughout the year, we all need to take part in protecting children and making Harris County a safer and better place for children to grow and thrive.
Last year, more than 56,000 children in Texas were victims of abuse or neglect. We often see a rise in incidents of child abuse and neglect during stressful times. The loss of employment, isolation, lack of housing, money and resources are just some of the risk factors that can reduce a parent’s ability to cope effectively with the day-to-day stressors of raising a child. The good news is that child abuse is preventable. The best way to prevent child abuse is to support families and provide parents with the skills and resources they need. Families are better able to deal with life stressors when they have the support and the resources they need.
For more than half a century, Harris County Resources for Children and Adults has been providing services to strengthen families and to help vulnerable children and adults in our community. We provide services to abused and neglected children with services such as:
We provide community and school-based prevention and early intervention services to divert youth from involvement with child protective services and the juvenile justice systems. Some of our services include:
In addition, we provide services to vulnerable adults and senior victims of crime. These services include:
All our services are voluntary and at no cost to families.
For more information visit resources.harriscountytx.gov or call our 24-hour number 713-295-2600.
