Mission Statement

     Help, Incorporated seeks to:

• Improve the quality of life for victims of violence throughout the lifespan by providing holistic services delivered empathetically to empower victims to make decisions that will enhance safety, increase self-worth, promote positive change, and eventually lead to self-actualization.
• Improve the quality of life for those displaced from the workforce by providing services to enhance job readinesss skills.
• Enhance the community's awareness of issues surrounding victimization, including the dispelling of myths, and promote collaborative community action efforts to stop victimization.

Organization Goals

• Provide emergency services in an empathetic manner to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in order to ensure their physical safety and access to available resources, providing advocacy through law enforcement, judical, and healthcare systems.
• Provide a safe environment for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, if needed, which will promote independence and improve their quality of life.
• Provide professional emotional support through individual therapy sessions, group therapy sessions, and on-going support groups to ensure domestic violence and sexual assault surviors' psychological safety through increased self-esteem and improved mental stability.
• Provide workshops, individual sessions, and case management to increase job readiness skills for the unemployed and underemployed of Rockingham County.
• Increase community awareness of domestic and sexual violence issues throughout the lifespan by conducting general presentations and professional trainings in hopes of gaining support for client services.

History

• Help, Incorporated: Center Against Violence has provided comprehensive services to victims of domestic violence for 17 years.  The history of our agency spans 30 years, and today we offer not only basic services for victims of sexual and domestic violence, but unique programs created for those in special at risk populations.
• Help, Incorporated: Center Against Violence was created by the Reidsville Cooperative Christian Ministry in 1971 to provide a crisis and suicide telephone service for Rockingham County, NC residents.  From 1976 until 1998, the agency provided information and referral services.
• In 1982, the agency received grant funds to implement a domestic violence program.  During the next several years, services included shelter referral, court advocacy, and a support group which met weekly.  In 1993, court advocacy began, and in 1994, Freedom House, Rockingham County first and only domestic violence shelter, opened its doors.
• In July 1997, the current Victim Advocacy program began, incorporating law enforcement and hospital advocacy, as well as advocacy through the judicial system.  Scheduled ride-alongs wtih the Reidsville Police Department were initiated this same year, and an advocate was assigned riding time and office time at the department.  The following year, the ride-along program was expanded to the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office.  The ride-along program has currently been discontinued.
• In 1998, the agency began serving Sexual assault victims.
• In 2000, the agency began focusing on Elder Services and in 2001 we began focusing onm Child Services.
• In 2002, the agency joined with Healthcare to enhance Elder Services.
• In 2004, the agency wrote the National Grant for Family Justice Center.
• Help, Incorporated: Center Against Violence employs a highly qualified staff of professionals providing basic and specialized services to victims that range from children to elders.
• Help, Incorporated:  Center Against Violence is 501(C)(3) private non-profit organization.

Accomplishments

• The 2008-2009 year brought collaboration and strategic planning to the forefront.  Help, Incorporated embarked on one of the most monumental tasks since the acquisition and opening of Freedom House, the shelter for battered women and their children--pursuing an accredited Children's Advocacy Center for Rockingham County.  During this same year, the Board of Directors undertook the creation and implementation of a Strategic Fund Development Plan.
• An accredited Children's Advocacy Center has been a long-term goal of Help, Incorporated for many years.  Services for child victims have been strategically increased over the last eight years, and a fully-operational Children's Advocacy Center (CAC) has been listed in the agency's long-range goals since the 2004-2005 fiscal year.
• Help, Incorporated, as the domestic violence and sexual assualt victim service provider for Rockingham County, has recognized the myriad of unmet needs for child victims, beginning with children who had witnessed violence in the home.  Throughout these early years, staff developed a good rapport with DSS workers in the beginning--not wanting to blur lines of where DSS jobs end and staff members, as advocates, begin.  The agency soon increased services to child victims of physical abuse, and later, sexual abuse.  Groups, individual counseling, life skills classes, and advocacy specific to children grew.  In 2004, the Board requested that the staff research the CAC concept--exploring funding sources, service descriptions, etc.
• In the 2008-2009 fiscal year, the Director for the NC Children's Advocacy Centers was invited to address the agency's full Board, and the staff received the go ahead to move forward.  Meetings were set up with the District Attorney, DSS Supervisors, law enforcement supervisors.  Soon forensic nurses and an emergency department  physician were bought on board, as well as plans for forensic interviewing.  A CAC Task Forced was formed, and began meeting.  Multidisciplinary child cases review meetings began in March, 2009, and funding for the next fiscal year was confirmed from the NC Governor's Crime Commission.
• The second accomplishment for 2008-2009 was creation of a Strategic Fund Development Plan for the agency that spans three years.  Thanks to a grant from Z. Smith Reynolds, the Board committed to work with a financial consultant to increase capacity and sustainability.  This year, a spring direct mail campaign was launched successfully, and a donor database has created.
• With the continued commitment of Help, Incorporated's staff, Board members, and citizen's of Rockingham County, an accredited CAC will be a reality in 2009-2010, and the agency's financial future will continue to be strategically augmented so more victims of violence can receive the healing services they need and deserve.
• Help, Incorporated : Center Against Violence is a 501(c) (3) private non-profit agency dedicated to providing  services to victims of violence, as well as unemployed and underemployed  residents of Rockingham County.  The agency is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors, and receives funding mainly through federal, state, and private grants.  Local county government, the United Way, and private donors also provide ongoing funding for agency operations.  The agency also operates resale shops throughout the county to assist with program expenses. 

Affiliations

• Help, Incorporated is a member of the following organizations:  the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the North Carolina Victim's Assistance Network, and the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits.

Equal Opportunity

• Federal and State law prohibit employment discrimination.  It is the policy of Help, Inc. when recruiting, hiring, training, promoting, demoting, transferring and terminating employees or volunteers to comply with those laws which prohibit discrimination as to race, color, religious creed, age, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation or mental or physical disability, unless it is shown that such disability prevents performance of the work involved.