Beneficiaries Summaries

The Bethany House of Northern Virginia
Through the vision of Mrs. Doris Ward, Bethany House of Northern Virginia, Inc. was founded in 1979 in response to the unmet needs of victims of domestic violence. While working with families in the District of Columbia, Mrs. Ward became acutely aware of the growing crisis of domestic violence in the metropolitan area and was struck by the absence of independent agencies equipped to handle this problem.

Bethany House of Northern Virginia (BHNV) is a private, 501 (C) (3) non-profit organization sponsored by tax-deductible grants and donations from individuals, various congregations, community organizations, clubs, and businesses and has been an established ecumenical ministry for the past 25 years.

BHNV will provide family with primary support: Shelter Services with a home-like structure in which spouses and children can recover from deep emotional scars and gain life-skills needed for independent living.

BHNV will provide transitional support: Psychological Fellowship with spiritual connections, which facilitate inner healing and Biblical counseling services and Life-skills training.

BHNV will provide Follow-up Support services: Two-year follow-up services designed to assist in preventing the return to an abusive relationship.

My Sister’s Place
My Sister's Place (MSP) is a shelter for battered women and their children. Our mission is as follows: MSP is an interactive community committed to eradicating domestic violence. We provide safe, confidential shelter; programs; education; and advocacy for battered women and their children. Our goal is to empower women to take control of their own lives.

My Sister's Place has been providing services to battered women and their children since 1979. We are committed to assisting women in acquiring the information, resources, and skills to end the cycle of violence and abuse in their lives; and to achieve self-confidence, self-reliance, and independence. We work in partnership with community-based programs and organizations to provide our services.

N Street Village
N Street Village, Inc. is a non-profit social services community founded in 1973 by Luther Place Memorial Church in response to the explosion of the homeless population after the de-institutionalization of chronically mentally ill patients. N Street Village is a caring community that provides a spectrum of services to meet the needs of homeless and extremely low-income women as they move to stable housing and maximum self-sufficiency. Every day (we are never closed) we provide food, clothing, showers, transitional and permanent housing, mental and physical health care, and support to re-enter the workforce. N Street village presently serves over six-hundred women.

Our primary responsibility is to help homeless and low-income women gain and maintain their highest possible level of self-sufficiency and satisfaction in their lives. The N Street Village community emphasizes and promotes a client's strength, dignity, ability and personal responsibility. We support, motivate and empower our clients through active and compassionate engagement. Clients are offered caring relationships as well as concrete resources and services through their interactions with dedicated and responsive staff and through the careful cultivation of an inclusive and hospitable community.

Crossway Community
Crossway Community, Inc. is an entrepreneurial, non-profit organization with a mission to promote learning, creativity, and community for all families. After renovating an abandoned school located on fourteen acres in Kensington, MD, Crossway Community, Inc. opened its doors in the summer of 1990. Since then, Crossway has offered a continuum of integrated educational and supportive services for families of all ethnic and economic backgrounds with a focus on outreach to low-income, at-risk families.

Our Programs:

• The Family Leadership School to end and prevent homelessness, domestic violence, substance abuse, child abuse and neglect and poverty through an on-site supportive housing program for 40 single parent, low-income families.
• The Crossway Community Montessori School to foster positive and healthy child development and school readiness through full-day, year-round innovative education services for children from infancy to age six. Building community and family is at the heart of Crossway Community’s approach to learning. Our programs promote learning, creativity and community for each child in the context of his or her family – his first community.
• The Neighborhood Community Center to build community and generate social capital through recreational and cultural programs and service learning opportunities that offer common connections among families from across the Washington, DC region.

The Children’s Law Center
Founded in 1996, The Children's Law Center helps at-risk children in the District of Columbia find safe, permanent homes and the education, health and social services they need to flourish by providing a comprehensive range of legal services to children and their families. The Center is committed to sharing its expertise with the community, other professionals and policymakers through training, technical assistance and systemic advocacy.

We operate on the philosophy that children’s needs don’t fit into neat, easy, legal categories. Thus, we have expertise in many of the areas that affect children’s well-being – abuse and neglect, adoption, custody, special education, mental health, domestic violence, public benefits and delinquency. Our attorneys help families find housing, furniture and food if it will keep a family together and address a child’s needs.

The cases we handle on behalf of at-risk children fall into several broad categories (Adoption, Custody, Abuse and Neglect, Special Education, Domestic Violence and Government Benefits). But our goal is always the same -- to reduce the risk in children's lives. In 2002, The Children’s Law Center helped more than 400 children and families through these programs:

Family Permanency Project Through staff and volunteer attorneys, CLC helps more than 200 children each year find safe, permanent homes by representing foster and kinship caregivers in adoption and other permanency proceedings.

Guardian Ad Litem Program CLC attorneys help abused and neglected children find safe, permanent homes and ensure that they receive services to overcome the trauma that brought them into the child welfare system by acting as the children’s advocate, or guardian ad litem.

Health Access Project In collaboration with Children’s National Medical Center, CLC helps overcome non-medical barriers to health for poor children.
Protecting Child Witnesses to Domestic Violence Through appointment by the DC Family Court, CLC represents children in custody cases involving domestic violence.

Safe Shores
Safe Shores – The D.C. Children's Advocacy Center was formed as a result of Executive Order No. 94-3 issued by then-Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly on January 10, 1994. This Order established a D.C. Working Group to initiate a Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) approach to the investigation and prosecution of child abuse cases and to create a District of Columbia Children's Advocacy Center. Initially formed under the auspices of Children’s National Medical Center, the Center uncoupled from Children’s in February 1995 when it obtained status as an independent non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.

Safe Shores - The D.C. Children's Advocacy Center is a direct service nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and working directly with child victims of sexual and physical abuse in the District of Columbia. Through its child-friendly facility and multidisciplinary team approach, Safe Shores coordinates the work of medical and mental health providers, social services professionals, victim advocates, law enforcement, and prosecution officials to reduce trauma and promote healing for child victims of abuse.

The DCCAC facility is designed to provide a warm and welcoming place where children and adolescents can feel safe and supported while waiting for forensic interviews, therapy, court appearances, or placement resolutions. The DCCAC is also designed to serve as a coordinating body for the MDT agencies listed above. The Center's staff facilitates cooperation and coordination among the MDT by providing statistical case tracking, bi-weekly team case reviews to coordinate the civil and criminal investigations, joint forensic interviews, trauma assessments, therapy, and pre-trial support for child victims. The staff also ensures that children receive supervision, meals, clean clothes, crisis intervention and other emergency victim services during the joint investigative process.

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