Area’s Battered Women to Get Agency Help

Armed with a state grant of nearly half a million dollars, a Ventura County nonprofit agency is launching a multi-pronged attack on a multifaceted problem--domestic violence.

Interface Children, Family Services plans to set up two new shelters and a crisis-response team for battered women, and support groups for their children, said Martha Bolton, the agency’s crisis services director.

One of the programs, planned for eastern Ventura County, would provide temporary homes for women trying to assert their independence from an abusive spouse. Another would deal specifically with Latina victims.

For years, the county has lagged behind neighboring Los Angeles County, which already has programs such as these in place, Bolton said. She added, “We’ve wanted these services in the county for so long.”

Many women stay with abusive men far longer than they should, often landing in county-operated and privately run shelters three or four times before they are persuaded to leave their mates, Bolton said.

“So often, women go back because they don’t have jobs and they don’t have any other way to support their children,” she said. “Sometimes they just love [the men] and keep hoping they’ll change. And as [the women] start receiving help through therapy, they realize they’re not going to change him, and he’s not going to change until he gets help.”

Children who grow up around domestic violence suffer too, and some may grow up to settle disputes in the same way--with violence, she said.

“Little boys grow up saying, ‘I’d never do that to my wife,’ ” she said. “But when you don’t grow up with any other way to handle a relationship and that’s what you know . . . it’s a way of life.”

Last week, the California Department of Health Services awarded a $479,000, 25-month grant to Interface under the Battered Women’s Protection Act, passed last summer by the Assembly and signed in September by Gov. Pete Wilson.

Interface, which relies largely on private donations and government contracts, proposes to spend the one-time state grant to:

* Set up an emergency shelter for Latina victims of domestic violence called Puerto de Paz (Port of Peace) at an undisclosed house. Initially, the shelter would house only three women and their children for up to 30 days, but it might be expanded, Bolton said. A live-in manager would run it.

* Set up a transitional home in eastern Ventura County for victims of domestic violence, called Safe Journey. This would allow women and children who are no longer threatened by their abuser to live free for up to a year while the women receive job training, save money and grow emotionally strong enough to live independently.

Space would be limited at first to only two women and their children, but the facility could be expanded to house four women or more, and Interface is considering buying condominiums to accommodate them, Bolton said.

* Establish an emergency response team of about 20 volunteer social workers who would work with police on domestic disturbance calls. A pilot program would send teams of two volunteers to domestic disputes in Fillmore and Santa Paula, though the program could later be stretched to cover the county, Bolton said.

In the most common scenario, the police officer would call in the crisis team after determining there was no imminent danger, said Barbara Marquez O’Neill, a victim advocate who will train the volunteers.

O’Neill said the workers will photograph victims’ injuries and re-interview them, because victims often are reluctant to talk with police. The workers also could drive victims to a hospital if they need treatment.

* Set up support groups at five schools around Ventura County for children whose parents are abusing each other.

“A lot of kids guilt themselves for their parents’ fighting,” Bolton said. “They think, ‘If I was a better kid, if my grades were better, this wouldn’t have happened.’ It’s just like the woman does: ‘If only I had dinner ready on time, if only I wasn’t late, he wouldn’t hit me.’ They’re victims as much as their mothers because they watch this every day.”