Mission & Values
Mission and Values
Vision
The Center for Women and Families will become the pre-eminent local and national model in eliminating intimate partner violence and sexual assault in our lifetime.
Mission
The Center for Women and Families helps victims of intimate partner abuse or sexual violence to become survivors through supportive services, community education, and cooperative partnerships that foster hope, promote self-sufficiency, and rebuild lives.
Core Values
Compassion
Accountability and Responsibility
Respect and Dignity
Excellence in All We Do
Three Pillars
- Trauma-Informed Care: The Center follows an organizational structure and treatment framework that involves understanding and responding to the effects of trauma in order to resist re-traumatizing victims. Trauma-informed care maximizes safety, trustworthiness, choice, collaboration, cultural humility and empowerment.
- Prevention: In order to promote safe, just, and healthy environments and behaviors and reduce the likelihood or frequency of violence, The Center is working to reduce risk factors and strengthen resiliency factors at the individual, relational and community levels.
- Advocacy: The Center provides client-centered services that promote healing, empowerment, and self-efficacy through information sharing, skill-building, emotional support, and connection to resources.
Stewardship: We Are Stewards of Trauma and Stewards of Funds.
- Trauma Stewardship: It is a privilege to be entrusted by our community to accompany people in the impact of violence. We aim to be good stewards of the financial support given to us to fulfill this task, of the talented staff and volunteers committed to this work, and of the trauma experienced in our community. Trauma stewardship, as defined by scholars Laura van Dernoot Lipsky and Connie Burk, is “the entire conversation about how we come to do this work, how we are affected by it, and how we make sense of and learn from our experiences.”
- Stewardship of Funds: The Center cannot serve its mission without the support of many funders, donors and communities, and the trust they place in our ability to use the funding provided both effectively and transparently. Our finance staff tracks revenue and expenses to be sure we are honoring the intentions of those who support us and our Board of Directors provides governance over the organization. Additionally, our annual audit provides an independent examination of our financial practices and the accuracy of our external financial reports.
