Matt Bell, Regional Director for PacificSource Health Plans, Bev La Chance, Deputy Director, Women’s and Children’s Alliance and Jacquelyn Hanners, Marketing Strategist for PacificSource Health Plans
May 22, 2018
For Immediate Release
PACIFICSOURCE GRANT SUPPORTS CHILD VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
The PacificSource Foundation for Health Improvement Awards the Women’s and Children’s Alliance a $30,000 Healthcare Access Grant
Boise, ID – The Women’s and Children’s Alliance (WCA) has been awarded a grant of $30,000 from the PacificSource Foundation for Health Improvement to provide individual counseling to children who have been impacted by domestic violence. The WCA provides confidential counseling services free of charge through its residential and community client programs to hundreds of children each year.
Research indicates that millions of children in the U.S. are at risk of exposure to domestic violence every year. And, when there is intimate partner violence present in the home, the risk of abuse to the child increases significantly.
Within the last three years, 53 percent of the children living in the WCA’s secure shelter have witnessed abuse in their home and 42 percent have also been victims of abuse themselves.
“Children are often secondary victims to domestic violence as they hear, see and observe incidents,” said Bev La Chance, Deputy Director for the WCA. “Many children that are exposed to domestic violence become fearful and anxious. They keep the family secret and it manifests itself in the child feeling terrible emotional and psychological pain.”
In addition to counseling services for children, the WCA offers safe shelter, case management, court advocacy, life skills classes, financial education, and a variety of other integrated services and programs to women, men and children victimized by abuse.
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