Raising the Awareness of Wife Battering in Rural Black Areas of Central Virginia: A Community Outreach Approach (From Violence in the Black Family, P 121-131, 1987, Robert L Hampton, ed. -- See NCJ-108575)

• NCJ Number: 108583
• Author(s): M N Wilson; D D Cobb; R T Dolan
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 11 pages
• Sale Source: Lexington Books
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The Shelter for Help in Emergency in Charlottesville, Va., has developed an outreach strategy to serve battered women in rural and black communities in the surrounding five-county area.

Abstract

The program rests on the view that wife battering is an act of oppression. Efforts to establish it initially encountered resistance from rural communities and existing institutions, which both denied the problem and did not view it as a crime. Geographic isolation of rural communities and the further isolation of black rural communities were further barriers. After establishing its emergency relief services in 1979, the shelter began to focus on its role as the community advocate for the rights of battered women. In January 1982, it started a project aimed to increase the shelter's visibility in rural and black areas and to increase the sensitivity of rural communities and institutions to the problem of domestic violence. The visibility activities included personal and informal contacts, public service announcements, and media advertising. Sensitivity activities included instructional presentations by coordinators and volunteers selected who lived in the area's served. The project has resulted in a steady increase in admissions of rural black and nonblack women to the shelters. Use of indigenous coordinators has been crucial to the project's success. 15 references.