Program to Aid Abuse Victims Is Running Out of Funds : Protection: Case history backgrounds one of the ever-growing numbers of victims who turn to the program for safety.

For Diane Marshall, the day began early with a telephone call that would set in motion proceedings likely to alter the course of her young life.

The call was to her former boyfriend, Karl, the father of her 8-month-old daughter. Two days earlier, she said, he had left a purplish-blue welt on her back with his fist. She would tell him that she would be in court that day to seek a temporary restraining order to prevent him from coming near her. She gave the location of the courthouse and told him that the county clerk could direct him to the exact courtroom if he wished to attend.

“He asked what a restraining order was, what it meant and then just said ‘bye,’ ” the 22-year-old UC Irvine student recalled. (Her name and that of her boyfriend are pseudonyms. She asked that her real identity be concealed.)

The call was prescribed by law. Similar notices are phoned to ex-boyfriends or spouses all the time. Then comes a visit to the cramped offices of Domestic Violence Assistance Services, a program that guides victims through each step necessary to secure protective orders.

With depressing regularity, scores of battered or threatened family members, who include men and a growing number of the elderly, troop to the second floor of the County Courthouse and into the offices of the domestic violence program to tell a tale of love and bonding come undone.

But despite the demonstrated success of helping victims gain relief through the court system and a caseload that has increased more than six-fold in the last eight years, the private, nonprofit program may soon end for lack of funding.

The program was begun in 1982 as part of the state-funded Victim Witness Assistance program. But the state funds could not be used to cover costs of the domestic violence services, which expanded so rapidly that they began to severely limit the program’s ability to help other crime victims, program director Barbara Phillips said.

Directors decided last year to make the court-ordered program a separate entity, but it has had continual problems raising the funds necessary to meet its $120,000 yearly budget, Phillips noted.

“I am greatly worried” that the program might have to end after July, Phillips said. “We are working on a month-to-month basis and that is not advantageous for the community, which has such a great need for these services.”

Phillips can cite alarming statistics: Since 1982, applications for court orders have skyrocketed from 313 that year to nearly 2,400 in the last fiscal year. From July to December, 1989, 1,469 people filed for court protection.

Between 90% and 94% of those seeking protection are women. More than 7% are over the age of 60--both men and women--and the ranks of the elderly who suffer abuse is growing, Phillips pointed out.

But Phillips and others who must deal with those who have been battered or emotionally abused say that statistics alone cannot do justice to the tragic consequences of domestic violence.

While there are no typical cases, experts said, there are many women like Diane Marshall who have suffered abuse at the hands of boyfriends. Unlike many, though, Marshall took quick steps to secure a restraining order.

“Thank God there is this program,” she said. “I’m looking at the restraining order as a positive thing. I realized that the more I try to hide this, to not say anything, the more handicapped I become.”

Marshall began dating Karl, also 22, when she moved to Vienna a couple of years ago to study music. They were physically attracted to each other, but she soon realized that he was “immature, domineering and didn’t know how to treat women.”

She broke up with him shortly after they began dating but discovered that she was pregnant.

Despite her misgivings, she felt he deserved the right to be father to the child. They talked of marriage, and when she moved to Southern California to continue her schooling, Karl followed and was granted a student visa after entering a local community college.

There had always been threats of physical violence, she says. He had raised his guitar over her several times, seemingly ready to bring it crashing down on her. On a few occasions when his temper flared, he had kicked her. She realized that the relationship must end and had asked him to leave the small Irvine apartment that they shared.

But her actions seemed to make him more aggressive. “We seemed to bring out the worst behavior in each other,” she said.

Then about a week ago, Marshall got up to feed the baby at about 4 a.m. She said she nudged the sleeping Karl to ask him to hold the baby so that she could go to the bathroom.

It was then that he swung at her, an arching blow with his fist that landed on her back. Bruised and in pain, she went directly to the student health center for treatment and the next day told Karl again that he must leave. This time, he packed his bags and left, but Marshall says that he returned several times while she was away, once breaking a window.

She had already gotten material from the college counseling office about domestic abuse and knew what a restraining order was when she took the escalator to the domestic violence assistance office.

She sits, dressed in functional college attire of a sweater, jeans, a knapsack and a scarf draped around her neck, filling out myriad sets of forms. She has already fulfilled the first rule by calling Karl that morning. Restraining orders are typically signed at 1:30 p.m. in family court and plaintiffs must give defendants at least four hours’ prior notice.

While the domestic violence specialists assist in filling out forms, they are not attorneys and do not represent plaintiffs in court. That often intimidating task is left to the victims, most of whom cannot afford to hire a private attorney.

Marshall is seeking a restraining order that would prevent Karl from contacting her or coming within 100 yards of her. Additionally, she has asked that only she be allowed to pick up their daughter, who attends a day-care center at the college where Karl is enrolled.

Her actions are complicated by her own conflicting emotions for Karl and about what rights he should retain. There is also the fact that he works part time as an assistant at the same day-care center that his daughter attends.

She has specifically not asked in the court order that he give up visitation rights.

“He has never been abusive with our daughter, and I want to give him visitation,” she says.

Once the forms are completed, applicants must wait for the 1:30 p.m. hearing. As the hour approaches, a cluster of women gather outside the closed courtroom, Department 50 on the third floor. Once inside, they form a line and hand over their papers to the court clerk.

Although Marshall has been told what to expect, the strain is clearly visible. She has not cried, but tears are not far from the surface.

After about half an hour of waiting, Marshall’s name is called and she is asked to approach the bench. In the majority of instances, the judge will sign the court order with no questions asked, but Family Court Commissioner Jane D. Myers appears troubled about something she has read in Marshall’s declaration.

She asks Marshall to relate the instance of abuse that prompted her to seek protection. Later, Marshall explains that the judge had asked her if her daughter were present when she was hit. She said that she was, and the commissioner then asked if she thought that it was safe for Karl to be around the child.

Marshall said the judge expressed concern that Karl would be insensitive to the child’s needs.

Myers grants the restraining order and orders a standard mediation session between the two parties, but she has added these instructions: Karl must stay away from their daughter for a two-week “cooling-off” period. It will almost certainly mean that he will lose his job at the day-care center, something that Marshall does not want.

After the hearing, Marshall and the other women have to endure several more hours of tedious but crucial paper work. In the first-floor clerk’s office, they are assigned a date to return to court, when it will be decided how long the restraining order is to last. If there are children, other issues of child custody and visitation will be made final. An order can last up to three years.

The victims must also get certified copies of the order and other paper work to be given to the police departments that will enforce them (in Marshall’s case, the Irvine Police Department.)

Another copy must be served on the defendant, and here Marshall has run into a problem. She had expected to have a Sheriff’s Department marshal deliver the order but has been told that that is not possible since she has no address for Karl.

A marshal at the information desk tells her that she has the option of having a friend serve the papers or hiring a private process server who could make the delivery at Karl’s workplace.

“I’m feeling kind of sick right now,” she says when leaving the courthouse at about 3:30 p.m. “I feel really bad about him losing his job; he probably won’t be able to get another one, but the judge made the decision, not me.”

She is clearly disturbed at the implications and tries to fend off guilt. But she is also steadfast and determined that, ultimately, she has done the right thing.

“I don’t want my daughter to be a part of an abusive relationship,” she says. And for her own part, “I want to know that I did this by myself, for myself, to take care of myself.”