Those are some of the key words that describe the actions being taken in our community in 2010. It has been a busy year thus far as our leadership team — the Erase Domestic Crime Collaborative — has worked toward attaining the goals of Strategy 14 of Operation: Safe Community. Those goals are:

• Address domestic violence in all its forms.

• Fill gaps in service systems through a coordinated community-wide response.

• Open and operate a new Family Safety Center.

• Create a Unified Family Court in Shelby County.

Here are some highlights of our ongoing efforts:

The Family Safety Center of Memphis and Shelby County is in the final leg of securing a building to house the Center. The FSC also announced recently that is has been granted $1 million by the Plough Foundation. The money will be used to get the new building ready for service, and to help pay operating costs the first two years.

Solving the problem of too few emergency shelters for victims is urgent. We have found that more shelters are needed and shelters must be managed with optimum use of best practices models.

Memphis Men for Memphis Women was organized to voice men’s concerns about domestic violence. The support group worked with the Memphis Area Women’s Council and held a downtown event that got great publicity. Attorneys, physicians, clergymen, legislators and others — many wearing women’s high-heel shoes — walked downtown as part of the national Walk A Mile In Her Shoes promotion.

Ongoing efforts include Court Watch and other court reform efforts for the best possible operation of the new General Sessions Div. 10 domestic violence court; monitoring the management and operation of the rape crisis center; drafting a safety audit examining the response to DV by various local systems.

Next up: watch for a project to create and disseminate a multi-media outreach tool to educate local employers about domestic violence.

Raising and Erasing
          EraseDomesticCrime.com

Our mission is to connect victims and volunteers to local services and resources, with the goals of rescuing those in danger and empowering those seeking to participate in a community response to domestic violence.

In a clarion call, the community has been challenged to come together in the cause of raising families throughout our city and county, and finding new ways to help erase the violence that occurs too frequently in domestic settings.