VENTURA COUNTY — The California Office of Emergency Services awarded the Coalition for Family Harmony a $150,000 grant to provide empirically-based domestic violence prevention support programming to couples from Latinx/Spanish-speaking populations in Ventura County.
“The Domestic Violence Prevention grant is in line with our mission to prevent the cycle of violence occurring in future generations,” says Dr. Caroline Prijatel-Sutton, Coalition For Family Harmony executive director.
The grant will enable the Coalition to offer a Spanish-language couple’s group curriculum called “Prevention and Relationship Education Program” (PREP). The program includes 16 weekly group sessions that will provide couples with communication-strengthening, conflict management and stress reduction tools. Coalition staff will go through training in the PREP curriculum prior to the start of the program.
“Our goal with this program is to make an impact on future generations by offering family and couple support before violence occurs in the relationship,” says Noel Stalcup, the Coalition’s director of operations “We know that children living in violent homes are at a much higher risk of becoming a victim of an abusive relationship or being the aggressor themselves. Not only would couples leave the program with a number of tools to maintain healthy and happier relationships, but they will learn methods of non-violent conflict resolution and stress reduction to make a lasting impression on the next generation. This is even more crucial now as families, especially those from the Latinx/immigrant populations, are living under the enormous pressures of social distancing, financial downturn, at-home schooling responsibilities and unemployment.”
Each participating couple will receive books and other materials. If groups cannot meet in person due to COVID-19 health and safety issues, sessions will be held over electronic platforms. The program is scheduled to begin in fall but will depend on whether facilitator training can take place as planned.
In addition to group counseling, the Coalition runs a shelter for domestic violence victims and the only Rape Crisis Center and 24-hour rape crisis hotline in Ventura County. The Coalition’s bilingual hotline number is 800-300-2181 and is available for domestic violence and rape crisis advocacy and support. It receives over 10,000 calls annually.
For questions regarding Coalition services, call 805-983-6014 or visit www.TheCoalition.org