About Us

CREATING A SAFE ENVIRONMENT

Creating a Safe Environment (C.A.S.E.) Partnership is a faith and

community-based collaborative approach to domestic violence prevention and intervention. We are both people of Faith and domestic violence advocates working to create a culture of peace in our families and communities. We are Dominguez United Methodist Church, a faith based/non-profit organization providing essential social services for poor, families at-risk and Interval House Crisis Shelters, one of the oldest and largest multicultural domestic violence assistance programs in the nation.

Our two agencies teamed up in 2000 in a successful grant bid to fund our services and we were successful in getting partial funding from California Department Health Services, Maternal and Child Health Branch, DV Section.

The CASE Partnership seeks to enhance the response to African American families experiencing or exposed to domestic violence and increase the domestic violence awareness and knowledge of interventions among pastors and leaders of the Black faith community.

Creating a Safe Environment has "made the CASE" and more since the birth of the program through the following:

Designed cultural competency training curricula
Increased the capacity and skills among members of the faith community who provide support to victims and perpetrators of domestic violence
Participated in community health fairs, conferences and regional meetings
Established and implemented a primary prevention social support group called Sisters in Wellness
Designed and implemented domestic violence 101 40-hour pastoral are training series for clergy
Strengthened the network of knowledgeable service providers within the African American community
Encouraged collaboration between community members, the faith-based community and domestic violence advocates

C.A.S.E. AND THE CHURCH

CASE is a unique Domestic Violence Prevention/Intervention Program creating a safe haven for victims of domestic violence through its relationship with the leaders in the Faith community.

The question was asked, "How do you eat an elephant?  The respondent

answered, one bite at a time."  Thus, CASE has collaborated and

developed relationships within the faith community one pastor at a

time in our approach to eliminate the sin and crime of domestic violence.

As a culturally specific faith-based program targeting the Black/African American community, our first contact was with the faith community, namely the Long Beach Ministerial Alliance. We are grateful for those pastors who have responded to the need and the call to work with CASE to create a culture of peace in our churches, in our homes and in the streets. As former Los Angeles Police Chief Parks stated, "We used to think violence start in the streets and moves into the home, but now we know it starts in the home and goes into the street." I postulate, those pastors who have responded to our call, has done so because it has been reveale to them that it is not C.A.S.E. speaking, but the voice of Biblical Hermeneutics speaking to the Church and the voice is saying, "watch persons on the wall, awake from your sleep, now is the time to provide a safe haven for my children, it is time to hold abusers accountable and not compromise the scripture."

Because our primary focus is on breaking the silence of family violence, decreasing the prevalence of intimate partner abuse, and imparting knowledge of domestic violence resources , pastors have allowed CASE to conduct presentations and workshops in their churches. CASE has made presentations at strategic places, Long Beach Bible Institute under the direction of Dr. Garon Harden and other churches in the Long Beach and surrounding areas. From these presentations women have divulged information of abuse and some have escaped the wrath of domestic abuse.

CASE has had the opportunity to collalborate with churches in Long Beach, Compton, Orange County and Los Angeles. In addition to these contacts, CASE has provided training and workshops to leadership in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and, United Methodist Churches. We are proud to reiterate, that some of the pastors have come aboard as collaborators and advocates to provide resources to members of their congregatioin and individuals in the community who have been victimized by family violence and, those facing abuse. Therefore, CASE is heartened by the degree of commitment shown by those who have agreed to work with us. It is apparent we can no longer sweep this subject underneath the carpet, the carpet has gained too much height, and we are tripping and falling. We can no longer expect secular society to provide an answer to a spiritual problem, therefore:

WE BELIEVE, "DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS THE FAITH COMMUNITY'S BUSINESS!"