Shelter Seeks to Heal Unseen Victims of Violence

By the time a battered woman seeks help, experts say, she is usually so traumatized that she is unable to help the other victims of her abusive partner: her children.

That is where the professionals and volunteers at Sojourn Services for Battered Women and Their Children come in.

“We try to do very therapeutic and healing programs,” said Erika Stewart, assistant director of Sojourn, which is based in Santa Monica. “We teach children how to play in ways where everybody wins.”

Children who have witnessed violence show many of the same symptoms as those who were abused, Stewart said. They have difficulty concentrating, negotiating and trusting. They are easily startled and often have no sense of safe boundaries with strangers.

A key goal of Sojourn is to persuade children who have seen violence at home not to resort to violence when conflicts arise.

“What we try to do at Sojourn is give the children the skills needed to go out into the world and become problem solvers,” said Roxann Smith, director of development for the Ocean Park Community Center, an umbrella organization for Sojourn and five other projects serving low-income and homeless individuals.

In 1999, the most recent year for which data are available, Los Angeles County accounted for nearly a third of the 186,000 calls statewide for assistance related to domestic violence.

According to federal data, more than half of female victims of such violence live in households with children younger than 12.

“In other shelters, the mom is the primary client,” Stewart said. “Sojourn always had an amazing awareness that children were our clients too.”

Ocean Park Community Center has received a $15,000 grant from the Los Angeles Times Holiday Campaign, an annual fund-raising drive that aids organizations serving children and families in Southern California. The center plans to use the money for children’s programs at Sojourn’s two shelters.

One is a crisis shelter with 15 beds and two cribs that has operated for 25 years, taking in battered women and their offspring for six weeks at a time.

The other is a new 18-bed transitional shelter designed to serve 36 women and children annually, each for six months.

The children’s programs, intended to stimulate as well as soothe, include play areas with jungle gyms, bikes, trucks, blocks, puzzles, art supplies, books and other items for nonviolent activities.

Last year’s Times Holiday Campaign raised $653,000, which was distributed to more than 50 charitable organizations in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The Times and the McCormick Tribune Foundation absorb all administrative costs.

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