Cincinnati City Council will give a quarter-million dollars to a nonprofit that works alongside the police to help survivors of domestic violence – a crime that has spiraled in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Council unanimously voted Wednesday to approve the $250,000 in funding to Women Helping Women to use for the Domestic Violence Enhanced Response Team (DVERT).
Calls about partner violence are up, and more of the violence is life-threatening, said Kristin Shrimplin, the agency’s president and chief executive officer.
“It is staggering,” said Greg Landsman, the council member who proposed giving the financial help to the organization for the DVERT program.
Here’s how DVERT works: When Cincinnati police officers arrive at a domestic violence scene, they secure the scene, do a brief assessment and then call a DVERT advocate. The advocates, Women Helping Women employees who ensure the agency is staffed 24-7, have trauma-informed training. They help survivors get resources they need to be safe. They may go to a hospital with someone who’s hurt, provide shelter, get them legal help and sit in court with the survivor as the case moves forward.
“Most of these survivors have children, and they are survivors too,” Landsman said. “If a survivor has a DVERT advocate there on the scene with our police … it makes an enormous difference in them getting support that they need.”
Calls to a Women Helping Women hotline jumped 53% this year in a 14-week period from March 16-June 30 compared to the same weeks in 2019, an analysis by the nonprofit shows. That came despite the difficulty that those experiencing partner violence had in making phone calls while their partner was in the same home, said Shrimplin said. The agency developed a texting method during this period to help keep callers safe.
Shrimplin said that, with the uncertainty that the pandemic causes, she fully anticipates a continuation of climbing calls. “This is not letting up.”
Women Helping Women advocates have seen more strangulation, more threatened gun use and more gun violence in their response to survivors, Shrimplin said.
Cincinnati in general has seen a rise in violence in general against women this year.
Early this month, the city reached a new high in homicides of women: By Sept. 9, more women had been killed in the city than in any other year since at least 2000.
Not all of the killings were domestic violence related, police said. But an Enquirer analysis of data from last year shows women killed in Cincinnati are more likely to be killed in partner violence or child abuse situations than any other reason.
Women Helping Women had a fundraising gap this year of $250,000, due to the pandemic, officials said. Yet the agency’s caseload of survivors has increased by 25%, its analysis shows.
Landsman said the DVERT program has proven to be helpful to mothers and children victimized by domestic assault.
“I think it’s up to us to invest in what we know is working,” he said, “and ensure that we are expanding that work so that no one in the city is left behind.”
Terry DeMio
