More Training In Philadelphia To Help Identify Female Victims Of Abuse

By Kim Glovas

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- New funding has been announced to help three leading organizations in Philadelphia identify gender-based violence before it becomes a crisis.

Women's Way announced a three-year commitment to three agencies working to end domestic and sexual violence. $240-thousand will be split by Women Against Abuse, the Women's Law Project and Women Organized Against Rape. Romana Lee-Akiyama is director of Grantmaking and Diversity at Women's Way. She says the city's health and human services workers will be the first line of defense.

"The collaborative will create screening tools and implement training," Lee-Akiyama says, "so that staff at health and human services agencies can identify and respond to domestic and sexual violence in a trauma informed way."

She says many times health and human services workers see abuse victims on the front lines but don't know the warning signs and symptoms until it's too late. The money will be used to train workers in the health and human services sector to identify domestic abuse before it reaches the crisis stage.

"We're really trying to target an incredibly vulnerable population," she says, "and helping the staff that work with the survivors on a daily basis recognize the signs and symptoms that they may be missing."

Lee-Akiyama says the health and human services workers will also be trained to identify when an abusive partner sabotages birth control, or engages in other behavior to control a woman's reproductive destiny.