My Sisters' Place and our clients continue to face many challenges during the global health crisis, including:
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Issues faced by individual clients are now far more complex: abusers have found yet another way to exert power and control over their victims – deliberately placing them at risk for infection, taking away masks and keeping them from safety supplies, misleading them about risks, cutting off access to food, taking advantage of their fear and anxiety, manipulating access to children under the guise of “safety”.
- The ability of staff to safely connect remotely to their clients (most quarantined at home with abusers) now requires expanded creativity, flexibility, and logistical machinations. The technology costs the agency has incurred have not been a matter of convenience – they are a necessary attempt to protect our clients.
- Advocates are working to keep up to speed with ever changing health protocols, access to urgently-needed food and medical supplies, financial aid, and other forms of emergency assistance, as well as changes in how to access healthcare and the courts.
- MSP’s Collaboration with Westchester’s Child Protective Services (CPS) has seen a reduction in new cases, as reporters (teachers, school social workers) have lost access to the most at-risk children. But with the “escape” provided by school taken away, hundreds of open CPS cases of child abuse in the context of DV are re-emerging with increased severity.
- With clients desperately seeking legal remedies to which they are entitled, MSP’s legal staff are working to manage court procedures which are changing daily. Obtaining medical and other certifications to support applications has become nearly impossible. Wait times have increased as long awaited appointments and hearings are canceled or postponed. Undocumented clients now fear infection if they are placed in immigration detention.
For more information on how you can support the many programs of My Sisters' Place, please contact
Cheryl Greenberg, Chief Development Officer, at cgreenberg@mspny.org.