The video features a Cincy Lifestyle interview highlighting the life-saving mission and community impact of the non-profit organization Women Helping Women.
Mission & Vision: For over 51 years, the core mission of Women Helping Women has been to prevent gender-based violence and empower all survivors.
Public Health Epidemic: Gender-based violence is presented as a public health epidemic with devastating long-term health consequences, ranging from physical trauma like strangulation and brain injuries to severe chronic stress that causes cardiovascular issues, stroke, and mental health challenges.
Regional Impact & Statistics: Operating across five counties, the agency serves thousands of individuals in crisis. In the previous year alone, they served approximately 8,500 survivors, answered their hotline over 20,000 times, and provided roughly 36,000 crisis intervention responses.
Misconceptions & Inclusivity: A common misconception is that the organization only assists female survivors; however, their mission explicitly supports all survivors, including men and individuals of any gender identity.
24/7 Rapid Response Triage: The organization provides round-the-clock emergency assistance, which includes answering the crisis hotline, responding on scene alongside law enforcement during 911 calls, and accompanying survivors at 26 regional hospitals.
Economic Support & Mobilization: To combat the heavy financial burdens forced upon victims by their abusers, the agency rapidly allocated over $900,000 in direct economic aid to cover critical necessities such as lock changes, medical bills, car repairs, child care, utilities, and emergency housing.
Community Strategy: Because perpetrators isolate survivors using power and control, community members are encouraged to act as allies by validating victims with immediate, supportive statements like “I believe you” and “It is not your fault”.
Representatives Named
Kristen Shrimplin – CEO of Women Helping Women, who discusses the public health impacts of violence, current operational statistics, funding challenges, and the organization’s comprehensive response strategies.
In working to continually find better ways to prevent and respond to cases of sexual harassment, assault and misconduct, the University of Cincinnati is adding to the range of options it already offers in the form of advocacy, training, prevention and resources related to
In a new agreement between UCs Division of Student Affairs and Women Helping Women (WHW), the community organization will provide an on-call, confidential campus advocate/response to provide comprehensive support to those who have or are experiencing (or have witnessed) gender-based violence, such as sexual assault, domestic violence or stalking. That 24/7 on-call service begins this week, and will be available to all students, not just women. The service will also be available to all faculty and staff.
WHW will provide confidential services that are focused on the survivor and include individual crisis intervention, hospital accompaniment, campus reporting assistance, accompany students through Title IX and law enforcement or legal processes, assist with campus-based accommodations, provide referrals for health and wellness services, and assist survivors who seek interim measures. Again, while primarily focused on serving students, the advocate will also be available to campus faculty and staff as well.
An on-call campus advocate from Women Helping Women can be reached 24/7 at 513-381-5610, the WHW hotline.
By Oct. 30, a full-time WHW campus advocate will be housed on campus, in an office in the Steger Student Life Center.
With the start of the new school year, UC is also expanding prevention options with new bystander training.
With the start of the new school year, UC has developed a Support Services Coordination Team to bring together all those addressing gender-based violence and sexual assault.
UC has added two Title IX investigators and just hosted (on Aug. 15-16) a level one Title IX investigator training session, led by the Association of Title IX Administrators.
Annually, incoming UC students take ‘Think About It’ online training highlighting the role alcohol often plays in terms of sexual assault. That training also focuses on accountability and consequences, laws and policies governing sexual assault.
The new offerings add to those already available to students, including confidential medical services, UCPDs victim services coordinator, and UCs Counseling and Psychological Services Center 24/7 service to students in crisis due to sexual harassment, misconduct and assault. For a complete list of resources, visit UCs Title IX site.
Our new advocate, to be dedicated to serving the campus community, will provide confidential support for students. We believe survivors, and we support survivors. The advocate’s role is to listen to the survivor, outline options, link survivors to services that they want and to focus on empowerment,” said Kristin Smith Shrimplin, president and CEO of WHW.
According to Debra Merchant, vice president of UCs Division of Student Affairs, students need a variety of support options, and this new partnership with WHW provides another confidential support on campus, in the same way that there are counselors in UCs Counseling and Psychological Services who specifically provide assistance to survivors of sexual assault or harassment.
She stated, this adds to what we can provide to students. Some of the support is what we call confidential (like that offered by a counselor or this advocate). Some of it is what we call non-confidential or of public record, like going to UCPD. In order to provide the best service, it’s important to provide these confidential options as well.
The main responsibilities of the on-call campus advocate are as follows:
Provide direct crisis-intervention services to campus survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking.
Provide telephone and one-on-one crisis intervention, hospital advocacy, civil and criminal court accompaniment, campus-based referrals, and accompaniment to campus hearings.
Assist students with safety planning and provide information and referrals with each student as appropriate.
Accompany clients to proceedings/appointments/meetings as needed to provide information, advocacy, support and safety.
Advocate for survivors based on survivor-defined goals and with the consent of the survivor.
Additional Contacts John Bach | Director of Executive Communications | Marketing + Communications [email protected] | 513-556-2019
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Accessibility Statement
womenhelpingwomen.org
September 11, 2026
Compliance status
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience,
regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level.
These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible
to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific
disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML,
adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Screen-reader and keyboard navigation
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with
screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive
a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements,
alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website.
In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels;
descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups),
and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag
for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology.
To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on
as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
Disability profiles supported in our website
Epilepsy Safe Mode: this profile enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode: this mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Mode: this mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode: this mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
Blindness Mode: this mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments
Font adjustments – users, can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
Color adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over seven different coloring options.
Animations – person with epilepsy can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.
Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.
Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.
Cognitive disorders – we utilize a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.
Browser and assistive technology compatibility
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Notes, comments, and feedback
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to
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