Farías asks panel for successful programs to expand

If there are programs that you've seen really great success at in your organization, can you share what those are and what it would take to expand it and or advance that said program?

Yeah, I'll discuss our work with young boys and teens, that when Liz talks about prevention,

the need to send the message when kids are young and that resolving issues should not be with the use of force or control.

And we have a program for young boys and adolescents, as well as a camp that we send kids to that is not funded by any government funding.

Five days in upstate New York, it's called Camp Hope.

It's a national model, and it brings young people together to address their trauma, but also build resilience and hope.

Thank you.

Be quick.

New Destiny ran an aftercare program alongside our housing navigation services for emergency housing vouchers, and this was privately funded.

But we found through this that survivors need a lot more support than is given right now by the city when they are given a housing voucher because it's so much to juggle,

you know, the housing search, moving cost, child care, everything that comes along with housing.

So we are big supporters of housing navigation, especially, you know, we specialize in domestic violence survivors, but for everyone, but especially for DV survivors, whether that be like through the match pilot program.

So we are big advocates of making that permanent.

And in VIP, one of the things I had mentioned in my testimony was about our restorative justice program.

We developed that program because many of our survivors I had mentioned before are afraid to go to the police, and they don't really have a lot of trust in the authorities, basically.

So one of the things that we started to do was to survey clients and our survivors specifically on what would be an optional sort of an alternative path.

And so we talked a lot about restorative justice and what that would look like in terms of community circles.

And many of our survivors were in.

They really wanted to be able to come to.

some kind of resolution when it came to a person who was causing harm, and even just resolutions within their own family, right?

Because that's not just happening with the person who's causing harm as well.

So we've been very successful in the past two years being able to do circles and be able to really hone down and help the survivor heal in a different way without necessarily having them become part of a system.

So we're continuing to do that work.

Of course, funding is a big issue as always, and we would love to be able to have the opportunity to expand that and do much more work around that, around restorative justice.

But of course, funding is a big thing.

Thank you.

I'm going to go back to CVAP for a moment since I ran out of time.

Having advocates in the precincts is a critical way that the city engages survivors of all forms of violence, abuse, and exploitation.

It allows us to connect with folks who would not necessarily reach out to the hotline or reach out to a community-based provider, and we hear that all the time.

Our clients have a 95% satisfaction rate with the services that they receive from CVAP in its current form.

And so I want to reiterate that it's a mistake to pull resources out of the precincts.

At Safe Horizon, we deeply support investments in community-based and culturally specific organizations.

I think what needs to happen is to expand the pie, not to damage a successful and effective program in order to make those investments.

Because when it was fully funded, CVAP was able to reach 53,000 survivors a year.

It's already been reduced, and this RFP will reduce it further.

So I'll stop there.

I appreciate the responses today.

Thank you so much.

Seeing no other questions.

The panels.

Oh, are you?

Yeah, you know, you are happy to share.

Sorry.

Sorry.

I wanted to talk about our embodiment programming.

So what we call our pathways to healing programming.

A lot of the work that gender based violence.

involves a lot of trauma work, right?

And trauma work in working with individuals who either speak English or don't speak English, talking about my experiences can be very, very difficult.

And a lot of the times, embodiment practices allows me to better understand what has happened in my life.

Our practice, Pathways to Healing program, brings in practitioners from all over.

The country talking about different modalities that our communities have already historically and ancestrally used to help in healing practices.

And we would love more funding to broaden the range of modalities we offer to really focus the energy on what does healing look like after I've experienced any form of gender-based violence.

I appreciate the responses so much, and please share each of these programs and the requests as we move forward towards budget season with my office.