Our determination to provide safety and healing to survivors never wavered over this past year, even as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to pose unique challenges. Our clients provide us with extraordinary inspiration everyday as they each navigate their journey towards safety and hope.
In the past year, we reached more than 10,000 individuals across Westchester County with critical services, education, and training. We bolstered pathways to support with targeted outreach to youth and adult influencers, healthcare providers, law enforcement, faith-based organizations, and community groups.
MSP SERVED:
- 4,100 plus hotline callers with crisis support and resources
- almost 1,000 adults and children with counseling services
- 160 survivors and their children with safe shelter and transitional housing
- more than 70 human trafficking survivors with case management and advocacy
- close to 2,500 middle and high school student athletes with healthy leadership education through our Giant Steps program
- over 1,300 individuals who received educational domestic violence and human trafficking trainings
- close to 750 individuals with legal advice and representation in family and immigration law
Throughout the year, MSP staff provided hundreds of thousands of supportive interactions to the individuals who reached out to us for assistance.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS:
During this last year, MSP strengthened our virtual tools to keep us connected to individuals and families in need. We enhanced our 24/7 Hotline with the addition of Text/Chatline features, creating additional choices for callers in crisis to receive support and resources discretely and safely, without the risk of being overheard. These options were critical during a time when so many survivors have been stuck at home – sometimes with their abusers – making it difficult to reach out for help.
MSP formally and proudly launched our Survivor Advisory Group, Survivors Inspiring Action (SIA). SIA is comprised of survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking who want to play an active part in giving back to MSP and improving the response of legal and social services systems to victims and survivors.
Linking Communities, our collaborative project which is creating fully accessible services for survivors who are Deaf/hard of hearing received continued funding and began coordinating workgroups as it entered the implementation phase.
We launched a new source of healing intervention for children: MSP’s Interventions to Mitigate Parent and Child Trauma (IMPACT) Project. This demonstration project has created mobile access to evidence-based, culturally-appropriate therapeutic counseling for families identified through our collaboration with Westchester County DSS.
Lawyers and Paralegal Advocates from MSP's Center for Legal Services went the extra mile to ensure that both safe in-person and virtual pathways to safety planning and legal remedies were available to their clients. The CLS continues to partner with lawyers from the private bar expanding access to legal expertise for vulnerable survivors.
Within the past year, our volunteer program has expanded so much. In total, we have 165 community volunteers, 42 of whom joined us in 2021! Twenty-two volunteers are a part of our Sister-In-Law program, and 8 are language translators. Over 3oo requests for volunteer services were filled—and 240 of those were for telephone interpretations and document translations. We have also hosted 2 series of ZOOM calls for volunteers in 2021, comprised of 10 webinars/meetings to raise awareness of the services that are offered at MSP.
In response to the critical need for housing and services to promote stability and economic advancement, MSP, along with community partners Caring for the Hungry & Homeless of Peekskill (CHHOP) and Lifting Up Westchester (LUW), launched RISE - Rehousing in Supportive Environments creating availability of transitional and rapid rehousing in Westchester specifically for survivors of domestic violence and their families. RISE connects program participants to housing, enhanced by trauma-informed individualized supportive services, giving survivors a realistic chance of achieving economic independence and housing stability with the potential for upward mobility. In 2021, 32 families found safety in new homes through RISE.
We have been so proud to see our clients persevere and move forward in their healing journeys. We are excited to continue providing crucial resources and creating new initiatives to support survivors in 2022 and beyond.