Artemis Center
Dayton, Ohio

Artemis Center

310 West Monument Avenue
Dayton, OH 45402

Focus:

Young children and their mothers who witness or experience domestic violence

Age range:

0–3

Maggie doesn't feel safe in her own home.

She's spent the past three weeks in a domestic violence shelter to escape her abusive husband, Dwayne. Now that she has obtained a protection order forbidding Dwayne from further contact, she and her infant daughter, Lucille, have returned home. But Maggie's still scared.

With a baby to worry about, Maggie wants to move forward with divorce proceedings. But she doesn't know how Dwayne will react to the news, and even worse, he has keys to the apartment. Add to that her concerns over money with limited job prospects and she can't afford childcare.

Maggie is a participant of the Brighter Futures Family Partnership in Dayton, Ohio. This home visitation program works to prevent child abuse and neglect. To obtain specialized services for exposure to violence for Maggie and Lucille, the nurse home visitor refers her to the Safe Start program at the Artemis Center. By agreeing to participate, Maggie gets one step closer to the safety and security she and her daughter need, without setting foot out of her apartment.

A client advocate and a therapist from Safe Start visit Maggie and Lucille at home. For an hour, the Safe Start team sits at the kitchen table and listens as Maggie describes her situation. The advocate suggests Maggie ask her landlord about changing the locks and also recommends several community groups that can help with childcare, employment, and legal services.

The therapist asks Maggie questions about her goals as a parent, laying the foundation for a trusting and committed relationship. Over the next 10 months, she will help Maggie identify potential problems in her relationship with Lucille, as well as effective ways to address them. Their sessions together will give Maggie the knowledge and confidence she needs to raise a healthy child in a loving, safe, and secure home.

With the locks changed and her life changing, too, Maggie isn't fearful anymore.

Interventions:

Home visitation: The Artemis Center for Alternatives to Domestic Violence provides ongoing training on domestic violence to nurses who provide home visits. This training aims to build the nurses' capacity to identify, assess, and respond to the needs of young mothers of children from birth to 3 years of age who are at risk of or have been exposed to domestic violence. During home visits, the nurses place special emphasis on attaining and maintaining safety and advocacy, as well as on assessing the progress of both parent and child.

Case management: The program provides intensive case management in the home through a personal family advocate. This case management emphasizes supports and linkages with community resources.

Child Parent Psychotherapy: In addition to the traditional home visiting services, the program offers weekly in-home dyadic therapy that focuses on the relationship between mother and child.