Program helps domestic abuse victims find help
By:Alec Moore
nbsp; Cellphones have proven to be invaluable tools to women who have been in abusive relationships, said Cathy Cummings, executive director of the Women’s Resource Center in Hillsborough, which recently received an additional 10 cellphones from Verizon Wireless based in Orangeburg, N.Y.
Ms. Cummings said the center has been using donated cellphones for roughly one year in connection with the center’s safety planning measures. Those measures aimed at ensuring a woman’s survival and well-being during potentially explosive domestic disturbances.
Through safety planning measures, Ms. Cummings noted, women are taught how to anticipate potential scenarios that might lead to a domestic dispute and then prepare to escape that situation accordingly.
Safety planning measures include, establishing a buddy system with a neighbor to alert police given a specific signal such as flicking porch lights on and off, keeping spare car keys and finding viable means of escaping from a residence during a domestic disturbance.
Ms. Cummings said the cellphones are particularly valuable for women who are without phone service, a problem abused women often face because their abuser has ripped the phone out of the wall to prevent them from calling the police.
The cellphones used by the center have been programmed only to dial 911 or the center itself.