Not Your Usual Valentines Day (Trigger Warning)
About 25 years ago when the Domestic Abuse Response Teams (DART) were starting as an experiment here in LA, I decided to join the DART car and go out on the late shift to respond to the calls for domestic violence. I was Executive Director at POV then…. still am. I didn’t want to expand the program and send staff and volunteers out in this newish program without experiencing it myself.
It was Valentine’s Day.
How the program worked was that once the police responding to domestic violence calls made sure there was no abuser present and that it was safe for civilians to enter, we would enter the home and make contact with the survivor. The main goal was to provide support, connect, validate and offer advocacy services, and help with restraining orders and case management services, etc. We had teddy bears in the DART car for the kids. There were two of us and we called ourselves DART Car One. The goal was to connect with the survivor as close to the incident as possible. I thought it would be a fairly quiet overnight shift —-after all —it was Valentine’s Day. How wrong I was. We went from house to house, apartment to apartment all night from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM. To this day, I still remember the bruises on faces, and how as the battered victims talked with me the black and blue marks got blacker and bluer. They were fearful and in shock and they were confused as to what to do next. We left our hotline numbers and service referrals. We gave out all the teddy bears we had that night. Some of the women (this night they were all women) did follow up. Some didn’t.
The Domestic Abuse Response Team is a collaboration between police (specially trained DART officers) and well-trained civilian advocates has since expanded and shape shifted over the years in Los Angeles. We now have DART partnerships with four LAPD stations where POV emergency service coordinators respond and provide support to survivors of domestic violence around the clock. The program has now expanded to twenty-one Domestic Abuse Response Teams (DARTs) across the city of Los Angeles.
Every Valentine's Day since then, I can’t help remembering that night when domestic violence didn’t take a breather just because it is supposed to be a hearts and flowers and candy day. I still remember the stories, the faces, the bruises, and how teddy bears can be a momentary distraction (only momentary) for little kids who just witnessed a horrible event that they will never forget.
For more information on our DART program, click here.