Domestic Violece Advocate

In 2009 Texas had a reported estimated 194,000 reports of domestic violence. Domestic violence is something that goes on in every community and it involves women, men, and children of all ages. An advocate is one important person in the life of dealing with domestic violence because they are the voice and the ones who speak up for the people being abused. Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of behavior in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. Abuse is physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that frighten, intimidate, terrorize, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure or wound someone (The Hotline, 2012).

In a position like this, and advocate plays a very important role because people who are coming from a place where domestic violence is an issues might be scared to speak up. An advocate can help direct a woman who has come to them with bruises all over her to call the police and make the first step. A lot of people who live in a home where there is abuse are scared to speak out due to the fact that there have been threats to their life or children’s lives have been threatened as well. In fact in 2009, a reported 27% of victim of domestic violence in the past 12 months did not report the abuse to law enforcement (Hanafi, 2009).

Some facts about domestic violence in 2009 for Texas are as followed:

Family violence incidents 194,000

Women Killed 111

Adults sheltered 12,213

Children sheltered15,905

Adults receiving nonresidential services 35,588(i.e., counseling, legal advocacy, etc.)

Children receiving nonresidential services 15,666

Adults denied shelter (due to lack of space) 11.14%

Hotline calls answered179,435 (Texas Council on Family, 2012)

This is where it is real important for the advocate, because they need to be the voice and need to show the people who are trying to...