Mountain Comprehensive Care Center, KY
Over the course of 4-years, the Family Hope Project has provided behavioral health services to 650 children and their non-offending caregivers, who have experienced or witnessed domestic violence in the rural Big Sandy Region in Eastern Kentucky. Through this grant, our program has provided wraparound services to participants, utilizing clinicians and family support associates. Family Hope has provided access to internal resources, including psychiatric services, primary care physicians, in-home therapy services, case management, school-based therapy, domestic violence advocates and housing assistance. The Family Hope Project, allowed therapists to be trained in special evidence based therapy techniques, such as CPP, CBT and TF-CBT. Family Hope has also offered linkage to external resources, including domestic violence shelters (Turning Point), legal aid with domestic violence specialization (AppalRed), and the local Health Department (HANDs program). The Family Hope project received technical assistance from the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma and Mental Health. Morehead State University completed our evaluation processes. Data analyses focused on 117 children receiving services. Of those, 35 reported no emotional abuse and 82 reported experiencing emotional abuse. Emotional abuse seems to intensify victimization, along with other family experiences among the sample of Kentucky Appalachian children receiving services for exposure to domestic and associated family violence. Even though we ran into some barriers, such as staff turnover, transportation, and family participation. We feel accomplished in the evaluation team’s findings; especially when we saw comments such as: “They just reassure me all the time that, you know, I’m doing great. Look at everything that I’ve already accomplished. They also push me to never stop. They always, you know, wanna go to the next step. That helps me realize that I’ve come this far already as a single parent. Why stop here?”
Project Partners:
Mountain Comprehensive Care Center (MCCC)
Kentucky Coalition Against Domestic Violence (KCADV)
Turning Point Domestic Violence Services (TPDVS)
Kentucky Department for Community Based Services (DCBS)
Big Sandy Area Community Action Program (BSACAP)
Appalachian Research & Defense Fund of KY (AppalReD)
Big Sandy Health Care, Inc. (BSHC)