Syracuse, NY -- Vera House presented the 21st annual Report to the Community Wednesday afternoon to more than 100 community members, police officers and survivors of domestic and sexual violence gathered at the National Grid Auditorium in Syracuse. This year’s statistics have influenced Vera House, an agency that works to combat domestic and sexual violence, to look at how...
View full sizeKaren Hargrave (center), of Baldwinsville, reads the program notes at the Vera House campaign event, held Wednesday at the Nation Grid auditorium. Syracuse, NY -- Vera House presented the 21st annual Report to the Community Wednesday afternoon to more than 100 community members, police officers and survivors of domestic and sexual violence gathered at the National Grid Auditorium in Syracuse.
This year’s statistics have influenced Vera House, an agency that works to combat domestic and sexual violence, to look at how accessible the organization is to communities such as the deaf, disabled and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning community, said Colleen O’Brien, program services coordinator for Vera House.
“Through consultation with some of our community partners ... we’re doing a self-assessment,” said O’Brien, who has worked with her staff to change the type of questions asked over the crisis phone line and during intake.
This self-assessment will help improve existing services and encourage people in these communities to reach out, said Loren Cunningham, education director for Vera House.
“It’s really about making sure that the services are culturally relevant and appropriate for people before you go and say, ‘Call our hot line,’ and then somebody calls and has a bad experience,” Cunningham said.
As part of this effort to be more accessible, Cunningham worked with Project EMERGE, a collaboration between Vera House and ARISE, an agency that serves people with disabilities, to create videos on healthy relationships, domestic violence and sexual assault. Each video is narrated by voice, American Sign Language and text.
After the report was presented Wednesday, Vera House sponsored a program in which attorney Amy Schwartz discussed the legal obstacles faced by the LGBTQ community, O’Brien said.
For more information on Vera House, call 425-0818 or visit www.verahouse.org.
Contact Fernando Alfonso at falfonso@syracuse.com.