What Does the Women’s Coalition Do?
- Provides crisis intervention services and counseling for victims in both English and Spanish.
- Trains volunteers as advocates for victims in crisis.
- Provides a 24-hour, year-round advocate program to assist men, women, and children victims of rape, domestic violence and other violent crimes.
- Conducts self-help support groups for women in the second stage of crisis.
- Provides temporary safe housing, emergency aid, food, and clothing to victims and their children.
- Sensitizes police, hospital and social service personnel to the needs of victims through specialized training seminars.
- Offers referrals, advocacy, and support for victims involved with the hospitals and other community agencies.
- Provides community education and public speakers on the subjects of domestic violence, rape, child molestation, conflict resolution, date rape, and women’s health issues.
- Keeps the public informed via a weekly column in the local newspaper and by its presence at island-wide events, club meetings, and in schools.
- Works closely with the Men’s Coalition by training counselors for batterers.
- Provides child advocacy to promote children’s interests and protects their rights in many different settings, including home, courts, schools, and social agencies.
- Provides school workshops and presentations for kindergarten through higher educations on issues of conflict resolution, violence and sexual abuse prevention at the public and private schools.
- Has a resource library and a service referral data bank available to the community.
- Participates in The Clothesline Project, a national endeavor by women’s rights groups to help victims heal by having them design and create T-shirts which bear witness to the violence against them. These T-shirts are then displayed for public viewing.
- Brings the anti-domestic violence puppet program, entitled “Positively Puppets,” into schools whereby children in grades 1-6 learn about conflict resolution, self esteem, and child abuse prevention through puppet shows which are created by the WCSC counselors.
- Continues to confront the inherent racism existing in our society by actively training volunteer group leaders on the many issues related to racism so that these volunteers can then educate all racial groups in the community on the negative effects these attitudes have. Anti-racism workshops and training may be scheduled by calling the WCSC office.
