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Program & Services

Our Approach and Model

The Women’s Safe House is a woman-defined advocacy environment. A woman-defined advocacy agency provides the opportunity for individual woman-defined advocacy to occur and does its own business in a way that is woman-defined. Our agency approach in working with battered women is to acknowledge and build on the woman’s perspectives and their responses to their partner’s power and control. The woman-defined advocacy environment does not clearly align with our foundational concepts of safety and empowerment. It does not ensure that battered women or their children are safe, but rather seeks to design alternatives that will enhance women’s safety, given the reality facing each battered woman. We offer the best community resources and options and attempt to partner and collaborate with the women in our program in making an informed decision, but ultimately – she decides.

There are two systems for classifying a public health prevention strategy,

  1. the point in time when the intervention is implemented relative to when the problem occurs;
  2. according to the population being designated for the intervention or, the targeted population approach. The Women’s Safe House utilizes a multi-level prevention strategy that attempts to address more than one level of prevention that intervenes for domestic violence survivors at different stages.

The Women’s Safe House incorporates a public health strategy of violence prevention and intervention that focuses on ending violence through social change:

  1. Primary Prevention – Activities that take place before violence has occurred to prevent or reduce the possibility of an initial perpetration of victimization.
  2. Secondary Prevention – Immediate responses after violence has occurred to address the short-term consequences of violence and to decrease the prevalence after early signs of the problem.
  3. Tertiary Prevention – Long-term responses after violence has occurred to deal with the lasting consequences of violence.

The Women’s Safe House’ Continuum of Care utilizes all three ranges of prevention and intervention strategies in its five programs:

Crisis Intervention Hotline

The Women’s Safe House has trained employees and volunteers answer the crisis intervention hotline 24/7 with compassion and care — assessing a woman’s safety, conducting crisis intake assessments, developing personalized safety plans, and providing community referrals.

To get assistance call 314-772-4535.

Residential Program

The Women’s Safe House provides emergency safe shelter, advocacy and support to women and children fleeing domestic violence —typically over the course of 6-8 weeks. While enrolled in the Residential Program, women and children attend group and individual support sessions, team up with case managers to develop individual and family goals, receive health screenings and education, legal advocacy, financial literacy workshops, transportation assistance, job placement guidance, assistance in securing new safe housing, and a wide variety of community referrals and linkages to social service resources. Meals and personal hygiene items are also provided free of charge.

Youth Development Program

The Women’s Safe House offers a state-of-the art Children’s Program – providing a nurturing environment where children can take part in a variety of structured activities. Since children are secondary and tertiary victims of domestic violence, our Child Parent Advocates work diligently to assess each child’s needs, especially children who display a level of aggressive behavior. Advocates strive to help each child reach his or her potential by building their self-esteem, developing their character, and instilling respect for themselves and others through various school aged and prevention based curriculum.

S.T.E.P.S. AfterCare Program

The Women’s Safe House is the only domestic violence shelter within the state of Missouri to offer a 12-month+ AfterCare Program. The S.T.E.P.S. (Successful Transitions by Empowering People with Services) AfterCare Program provides women who have completed the terms of the Residential Program with continued advocacy, case management, transportation assistance, and emergency financial assistance for one year. S.T.E.P.S. AfterCare is offered to residents to help prevent homelessness and eliminate the woman’s return to the abuser while in the process of rebuilding her life and attaining an accomplish-able level of security and independence.

Community Education

We strive to educate women, men, & children about dynamics of domestic violence in hopes of changing community norms that allow violence to occur. Our presentations reach faith-based groups, businesses, schools, healthcare providers, and more. Learn More…