For a woman - or, for that matter, a man - fleeing an abusive situation, finding help and working your way through the system can be confusing and, for some people, defeating.
But not at One Safe Place, one of more than 80 Family Justice Centers around the world, dedicated to bringing together under one roof a number of agencies to provide coordinated services to victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse.
One Safe Place, at 1100 Hemphill St., is part of Fort Worth's Safe City Commission, an umbrella crime prevention agency. The commission also directs programs like Crime Stoppers, which receives tips about crime and wanted criminals, and Imagine No Violence, an artwork program aimed at school students to encourage them to sketch out their ideas to promote a more peaceful community.
"The mission of One Safe Place is to dramatically reduce domestic violence in our region," says Ken Shetter, the executive director of the Safe City Commission. "If we are successful in this, we will further the broader mission of the Safe City Commission to reduce crime and violence in our communities, schools and homes."
One Safe Place opened on Hemphill in a collection of temporary trailers, but moved into a totally renovated 67,000-square-foot building at the same location last October.
"During the two-plus years we were operating in our temporary trailers, we had over 19,000 on-site client visits to One Safe Place. In our first month of operations in the new building, we had over 1,300 client visits," Shetter said.
The concept of a centralized location to deal with family justice issues began in San Diego, Calif., and the San Diego Family Justice Center opened in 2002. In 2003, President George W. Bush announced the creation of the President's Family Justice Center Initiative, with $20 million in funding and a specific objective to create 15 other centers around the nation.
Services available at the totally secure One Safe Place building include criminal justice agencies from the Tarrant County District Attorney's offices and representatives of the domestic abuse and sexual assault units from the Fort Worth Police Department. Counselors meet with new clients and assess their needs and can help with a variety of needs. There is even a mock courtroom so that clients who need to testify can become familiar with the environment of a trial. Also available are full-service childcare facilities, something Shetter notes have often been unavailable in the past to domestic violence victims seeking services. None of the agencies pay rent.
"All of the partners have worked hard in the development of our procedures and the constant refining and improvement of our processes to ensure we are all working together well, and that we are not duplicating services or work," Shetter said.
Also housed at One Safe Place is The Ladder Alliance, a non-profit organization that works with women's shelters, agencies and organizations to provide basic computer skills training and high school equivalency test (GED) preparation to help clients become self-sufficient. The Alliance also maintains a store where clients can earn Success Dollars to buy professional-level clothing when they are seeking a job.
Shetter stresses that the same agencies that have been providing services to victims for years are continuing to do that. "Not only are these agencies now working under one roof, they are now working together, seamlessly integrating the services," he said. "This is important, because when services are scattered across the region and when agencies are not working closely together, it can create dangerous obstacles to victims of domestic violence."
Shetter gives great credit to the Bass family for the initial success of the program. "One Safe Place involves a level of cooperation that is unique to Fort Worth," he said. "We rely primarily on the public sector for our operating resources, but our capital campaign has been completely funded with private sector resources."
The Sid Richardson Foundation made the initial foundational gift of $2 million that challenged others in the community to participate, and Lee and Ramona Bass have been central to our success, both through their generosity and their leadership, he said.
