A Message from the Executive Director and the Board President

What a time! During 2020 we were all called upon to be brave, adaptable and flexible. We were challenged, stretched, tested - and unfortunately it has not stopped. We keep meeting what is presented to us - and we keep striving to achieve our mission of building healthy relationships, families and communities free from sexual, domestic and interpersonal violence.

Last year, we transitioned into virtual service provision overnight. We partnered with the LA Mayor’s office and through Project Safe Haven safely housed domestic violence survivors in hotels and provided groceries, case management, and wraparound services. We cultivated online trauma-informed clinical counseling and support groups, creating spaces for healing and connection online. We ran completely virtual education campaigns, training and educating communities on new platforms and working with new partners to ensure that survivors could access much-needed support. We adapted our prevention programs to virtually train youth across the country on healthy relationships. Denim Day was a virtual and viral success! AND we worked diligently to fund and execute the move into our new Metro Headquarters in DTLA.

Through all this, our priority was keeping our staff and volunteers safe and healthy. We know that as first and second responders we must take care of ourselves to be able to continue and maintain the provision of providing services to the communities we serve. We established a Corona Crisis Team made up of managers who monitored the pandemic throughout the year. This group met regularly to review new information and discuss agency issues. We communicated important updates and messages to the staff, reinforcing how important it is for them to work remotely, take care of themselves and their families and follow all protocols to stay healthy and safe.

Accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic with its public health and economic stressors has been the social justice reckoning around race, reignited in the summer of 2020 by the brutal police killing of George Floyd. The impacts of all of these reckonings; health, economic, race, politics at once is huge. All of these issues combined have presented unprecedented challenges and opportunities to transform our cultures and systems to be more life affirming, compassionate, fair and equitable. The opportunities to grow and build back better are as great as the challenge to do so.

Where do we go from here? How will we proceed after the experience of this life and world changing experience? We are reminded of the question from Mary Oliver’s poem, The Summer Day: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Indeed, what will we all do as we move forward into our precious lives?

We are so grateful to our staff, volunteers, funders and donors who continue to be resilient and committed. We are so glad that we were able to keep all of our staff employed and engaged throughout this extraordinary time. We learned how to do things differently and we are thankful to those that have stuck with us and continue to see the value of our work. We pray that as a community and as a country we are able to confront the inequities and inequalities that the pandemic and the reckonings have surfaced and that together we create more peace, more kindness, less violence.

We are looking forward to a better 2021 - and to eventually welcoming you to our new Metro Headquarters, our new brave space and celebrating POV’s 50th anniversary as a pioneering agency committed to social service, social change and social justice.

20 Achievements for 2020

1. POV offered continuous 24/7 emergency services via virtual platforms, with no gaps in services;

2. POV retained its entire 76-person staff, all of whom have been working remotely since mid-March 2020;

3. We served 22,798 individuals, including 111 children ages 0-17 and hundreds of families, with direct services of trauma-informed case management, counseling, legal assistance and advocacy;

4. For the first time in POV’s history, we launched an emergency housing program through Project Safe Haven, funded by the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Fund, providing case management and safe temporary housing placement to individuals and families fleeing domestic violence during the pandemic;

5. Through Project Safe Haven, POV housed 82 families—201 survivors and their children—in safe, temporary housing placements in hotels throughout LA County;

6. Also through Project Safe Haven, POV provided 106 families with emergency funds to help pay for rent, utility bills, food, transportation, clothing, and other critical needs;

7. POV established a direct relief fund and distributed more than $100,000 in gift cards and cash to survivors and their families in 2020;

8. POV held 25 ongoing weekly virtual counseling groups in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language, including Child/Non-Offending Parent groups, Trauma Processing groups; Trauma-Informed Yoga; Still I Rise for Black women; Dance Empowerment; Peaceful and Powerful Partnerships; Domestic Violence Support Groups; Deaf Services Parenting group; Healing Arts; Meditation; and Parenting Psychoeducation groups;  

9. 50 youth from across LA County—more than ever before—participated in POV’s first-ever virtual Youth Over Violence summer leadership institute;

10. POV’s Prevention Team held 62 youth outreach and education events, reaching 397 LA County teens, and our Intervention Team taught self defense skills to an additional 107 youth;

11. 44 community members completed POV’s first entirely online Crisis Counselor Advocate training;

12. POV responded to 12,256 hotline calls through our LA Rape and Battering and Off Limits Sexual Harassment hotlines; While calls related to sexual assault and harassment were down, 57% of these calls were from people experiencing domestic violence;

13. 27% of callers reported multiple victimization (sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse);

14. 27% of Domestic Violence clients received advocacy services and accompaniment for DCFS & Dependency court;

15. POV received funding to develop an entirely online “Domestic Violence 102” training curriculum to help County home visitors and social workers to better identify and report domestic violence, especially when they themselves are delivering services remotely;

16. Our Domestic Abuse Response Team and Sexual Assault Response Team responded to more than 1,529 emergency calls in Los Angeles and Pasadena. 80% of these calls were related to domestic violence, reflecting the dire impact of the pandemic on those experiencing violence in the home;

17. POV successfully raised capital funds through our Brave Space campaign and relocated to new downtown LA headquarters, a key goal of POV’s 2019-2024 strategic plan. Once we can safely return to the office, our new space has 40% more square footage and additional counseling and group rooms to enable expanded direct services to children, youth and families;

18. POV successfully transitioned campaigns and fundraising events into the virtual sphere holding the first ever Denim Day virtual survivor rally and a three part series of Evening Over Violence dialogues;

19. POV established a Corona Crisis Team composed of 8 staff members who met regularly to assess new developments and keep staff informed of remote work timelines, and health and safety measures;

20. POV broadly supported staff wellbeing with extra hazard pay for first-responder staff; monthly stipends for all staff to help offset the cost of printer ink, internet, and other work-from-home expenses; online trainings and resources to help staff better provide services across a range of platforms; the initiation of weekly staff processing groups led by a POV clinician; hiring a consultant to help POV’s Managers Group and Executive Leadership Team to engage in leadership development and team building, including crisis management; and the purchase of dozens of Zoom licenses, hotspots, and laptops to enable intervention and prevention staff to continue offering services via online platforms.

1. POV offered continuous 24/7 emergency services via virtual platforms, with no gaps in services;