CLEVELAND — While domestic violence awareness month is over, the support of women and men here in Northeast Ohio remains crucial. Local groups are still overwhelmed with demand heightened by the pandemic, including the Journey Center for Safety and Healing.
“There's been prolonged extreme trauma and violence. Survivors are coming to us with much more severe injuries, physical injuries, and emotional and psychological scars,” CEO Melissa Graves said.
The Journey Center reports one in four women and one in seven men across the U.S. will experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. In addition, at least one in seven children experienced child abuse and neglect in the last year.
“The biggest challenge is that we still don't talk about domestic violence a lot, even though it is the number one reason that women are murdered in our community, there's a stigma. So, survivors are less comfortable coming forward and letting people know that something's going on. So, we really need to talk about it. We really need to understand what's going on.”
Currently, there are about 30 people on the Journey Center’s therapy waitlist. Graves says her team is desperately trying to fill internal positions as quickly as possible so they can get that list down. In the meantime, their staff currently doing all they can to meet the growing need in our area.
When asked how staffing shortages impact the vulnerable work her team does for victims, Graves said, “our staff is incredibly stressed, they're incredibly tired. They're worried about the people that they're working with. And it's a really stressful, difficult, challenging job.”
Despite it all, the Journey Center maintains its mission to meet the growing need in Northeast Ohio and the community can help. The center currently has an Amazon Wish List and a Holiday Wish List consisting of items to gift survivors as they begin to set up their own households.
For more information on the Amazon Wish List, click here.
For more information on the Holiday Wish List, click here.
For monetary donations and more information on the Journey Center, click here.
