Sanctuary’s Continuing Care Program provides services to domestic violence survivors after leaving crisis shelter. When they exit Sanctuary’s shelters, battered women know that they and their children will not be alone on the often difficult journeys that lie ahead of them.

Counselors and advocates help clients deal with issues of housing, employment, childcare, community resources, and other critical challenges. This support helps to improve the quality of clients’ lives post-shelter and to reduce the likelihood that clients will return to abusive relationships.

Counselors design a specialized service plan for each client, which can include:

• safety planning for mother and children;
• referrals to resources in often unfamiliar new communities where clients resettle;
• individual counseling for mothers and children;
• advocacy within education, public assistance, and public housing systems;
• other follow-up services.

Support is shaped by each family’s unique needs, and each family may take advantage of one or all of the available services.

The Crisis Shelter Continuing Care Program utilizes student advocates – most of them social work masters candidates – to provide supervised case management (e.g. helping clients secure housing, public benefits, and childcare), outreach to other service providers to establish referral partnerships, and individual and family counseling. Continuing Care staff work one-on-one with families as they prepare to leave Sanctuary’s crisis shelters and once they had moved into their own apartments.