.JO MORELAND
STAFF WRITER
ENCINITAS -- A new coordinated approach to helping the county's domestic-violence victims is under way as a pilot program in Encinitas, officials said Thursday.
San Diego County's Domestic Violence First Response Team has been developed to respond to 911 calls involving possible domestic violence and the program will be extended to other areas of the county as money becomes available, county Supervisor Pam Slater said in a press conference at Scripps Memorial Hospital, Encinitas.
"We're going to work to make this a statewide program," said Slater, a former Encinitas mayor.
A key factor in the new program is to have a victim advocate respond to domestic-violence scenes to provide victims with all the information and resources they immediately need.
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Victims to get counseling immediately in response to 911 calls |
Until now, said sheriff's Lt. Jim Cooke, deputies have been responding to domestic-violence cases, determining if an arrest is necessary, documenting the crime and providing victims with a worksheet that has referral information.Victims had to do their own follow-up on referrals, and often they don't pursue that, officials said.
With the First Response Team program, officials said, a victim advocate will immediately counsel and help victims; child protective services workers can protect children from abuse, neglect or exploitation; hospitals will help with medical care and document injuries; and resource centers will provide emergency shelter, counseling and employment assistance, among other needs.
A Domestic Violence Response Team will be on call at all times and Encinitas deputies -- who patrol Encinitas, Del Mar, Solana Beach and the unincorporated areas -- will have assistance options for each incident.
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Police departments in Carlsbad, Oceanside and Escondido are already interested in the program, Slater said.
Jackie Robinson, 44, a domestic-violence survivor, spoke at the press conference. She described how she met the man who abused her while she was in college, married him, endured repeated abuse and left him many times before finally getting away for good.
Neighbors had called police during the incidents, she said, and officers always gave her a pep talk, telling her it was important to break the cycle of abuse for her and her children.
"But if there had been an advocate there who could address the mental abuse, the emotional abuse ... I think I would have left much sooner," she said.
Nick Macchione, deputy director and general manager of the county's Health and Human Services Agency, said the program has been started with a $1 million grant and there is a commitment from the many agencies involved to sustain the project for two years.
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Over the past five years, reported domestic violence has decreased 30 percent countywide from 29,306 cases in 1994 to 20,592 last year, according to San Diego Association of Governments statistics.
During the first six months of 1999, 9,620 cases were reported to county law enforcement officers -- an average of two domestic-violence incidents an hour.
"What we usually find is it's (emergency response) too little, too late," Slater said. |
