Wesley House May Become State’s First Family Justice Center
October 6, 2011
By Ida Brown

MERIDIAN —     Wesley House Community Center is poised to be the first in the state to establish a Family Justice Center for victims of family violence and their children.

Casey Gwinn, and Gael Strack, co-founders of the Family Justice Center Alliance in San Diego, Calif., have been in Meridian this week for a study tour of the local facility and to meet with staff from other agencies key to coordinating a multi-disciplinary team who will work together – under one roof – to provide coordinated services to victims of family violence.

"Wesley House is one of the few multi-agency collaboratives in Mississippi where you have a child advocacy center, a rape crisis center – each of these pieces that really fit a family justice center model," said Gwinn, who is president of FJCA.

"You don't have the domestic violence piece here, but you are serving a lot of at-risk families and low-income families. So the multi-agency components of Wesley House are the perfect foundation to build a family justice center. All you have to do is add some more partners," Gwinn said.

Ginger Grissom Stevens, executive director of Wesley House, agrees that the local facility is the perfect site for the family justice center.

"We've already been working in a more holistic, comprehensive approach with other agencies, so we're ready to expand that approach even more to help victims of family violence," Stevens said.

Family Justice Centers are specifically defined in federal law and refer to the co-location of staff members from multiple agencies under one roof. While a Family Justice Center may house many partners, the basic partners include police officers, prosecutors, civil legal service providers, and community-based advocates. The core concept is to provide one place where victims can go to talk to an advocate, plan for their safety, interview with a police officer, meet with a prosecutor, receive medical assistance, receive information on shelter and get help with transportation.

"In most communities in America today, a victim of domestic violence has to go from place to place to place; they have to tell their story over and over again. And they usually give up and go back to the abusive situation because it's easier to stay in the abuse than it is to manage the system," Gwinn said.

"And the system is not trying to do that to people – the police have their culture, prosecutors have theirs, the courts and the medical communities does their own thing. And in that process, intervention just plain fails," he said.

The Family Justice Center approach is based on the San Diego Family Justice Center model, which opened in 2002. The National Family Justice Center Alliance now helps communities develop such centers across the United States and around the world. The Family Justice Center model has been identified as a best practice in the field of domestic violence intervention and prevention services by the United States Department of Justice.

A Family Justice Center model can be expected to offer comprehensive medical and legal services, counseling to victims and children, links to Juvenile, Family and Criminal court, as well as access to on-site professionals providing civil legal services, job training and placement assistance, public benefits assistance, advocacy, and safety planning. It can also provide comprehensive prevention efforts such as outreach to young adults and underserved victims through community education.

Each center is different and is based on the needs of victims in each community, Gwinn said. The on-site partners and services at each center often vary as well based on the unique characteristics of the organizations in a particular jurisdiction. Services may be very limited – such as the presence of police, prosecutors and advocates – as well as very diverse and include full health services, job training, comprehensive and long-term counseling services, camping and mentoring services for children, and a host of other assistance coupled with the basic services from police officers, prosecutors and advocates.

The documented and published outcomes in the Family Justice Center model have included: reduced homicides; increased victim safety; increased autonomy and empowerment for victims; reduced fear and anxiety for victims and their children; increased efficiency and coordination among service providers; and reduced recantation and minimization by victims when wrapped in services and support.

So what's next? After completing a report on their observations this week, Gwinn and Strack, who serves as CEO of FJCA, will return to Meridian in January for Phase I: a two-day strategic planning process.

"This will be an open process with the community – faith, business, service providers, law enforcement, elected officials – to ask the question: What do you want to be happening in Meridian, Mississippi, to break the cycle of family violence?" Gwinn said.

"We'll do a strategic plan, then get about the business of doing it. The plan will have both a short-term set of goals (getting operational here within the next six months) and long-term goals."

The FJCA representatives already envision Wesley House as a campus model for a family justice center – not just for Mississippi, but also other locales

"We can see it happen here because of the strong background of support in the area," Gwinn said.

"What excites us is the level of collaboration and relationship is very impressive. Law enforcement talks to the prosecutors, the prosecutors talk to Wesley House officials and Care Lodge is talking to us, and people are dialoguing and want to work together," he said. "This doesn't happen in lots of places. But here, when you find people who can talk, laugh, play and help people together, you have hope and the chance to do something different."