Crisis center at frontline helping victims of abuse

WORLAND – On average, 20 people are physically abused by intimate partners every minute. This equates to more than 10 million abuse victims annually.

The Worland Crisis Prevention and Response Center (CPRC), an organization that has been around for 40 years, provides services to victims of domestic violence, as well as human trafficking, elder abuse and child abuse.

According to the CPRC Director Karina Rice, last fiscal year (July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021) the CPRC served 67 adults and 33 children, some were primary victims and others were secondary victims. They provided 1,300 services overall.

"When an individual comes in, we sit down with them, they share their story with and from there we get an idea of what services they may or may not qualify for," Rice said.

"People come in they tell us why they feel they may be in danger we assess the situation and from there we provide a variety of different services. The biggest one is safety planning, if they aren't ready to leave their perpetrator, we do that," she explained.

Rice added, "Other cases for when they're ready to leave, at times they'll request a protection order, and we let them know that we do that. We actually do three types of protection orders; we do domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault. Depending on what category they fall in we're able to help with those," she said. "And, when they're ready to leave, we set them up with shelter for the night. Because we don't have a shelter here, we set them up with people within the community that allow us to use their services."

Other services include financial assistance. "I'm really glad that we are able to provide some financial help, because when people leave an abusive relationship, I want to say like 90% of the time they're a stay-at-home mom, or they have a job that barely makes ends meet. Probably only applies to one bill or groceries. The beauty of financial assistance is that we can help get them on their feet. So that is a really good service we provide," Rice said.

In some cases, CPRC has been able to help relocate individuals. In the past, they've bought bus tickets for victims and drove them to Buffalo to get them on the bus ride home. They've also bought plane tickets to help get the individuals home.

"If there's a case where they feel it's best they are with a trusted family member, or family members, we'll relocate them back," Rice said. "We just brainstorm how to get them back. A lot of the time they don't have any necessities aside from the clothes on their back, so it's easier to send them on their way to somewhere safer."

CPRC is easily sought out in the community. Along with flyers all over the county, they also have a strong community connection.

"The biggest way people find out about us is through our partners within the community. We do a lot of cross-referring for individuals that may need help from another department. So having that strong community collaboration is important."

The CPRC collaborates with many organizations among the community, including the Worland Law Enforcement, Washakie Medical Center and Department of Family Services. The CPRC provides service 24/7.

Everything said within these meetings is completely confidential. The organization doesn't discriminate against anyone.

Rice says that she's thankful that the community has these kinds of services.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AWARENESS MONTH

According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network's website (nctsn.org), October was first declared as National Domestic Violence Awareness month in 1989. Since then, the month has been a time to acknowledge domestic violence survivors and be a voice for its victims.

Although there has been substantial progress in reducing domestic violence, one in three women, and one in four men have been physically abused by an intimate partner.

Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, treats and emotional/psychological abuse. The frequency and severity of domestic violence varies dramatically.

According to the National Coalition against Domestic Violence's (NCADV) website, 33.9% of women in Wyoming and 30.5% of men in Wyoming experience partner physical violence, intimate sexual violence and/or intimate stalking in their lifetimes. In 2019, 2,037 domestic violence incidents were reported to law enforcement and more than 55% of those cases resulted in arrest. Almost 88% were classified as assaults. Many other incidents went unreported.

Along with those served by CPRC in the last year, the Washakie County Sheriff's Office (WCSO) responded to 28 domestic violence calls, the Worland Police Department (WPD) 31 in 2020. They have responded to 23 and 15, respectively in 2021.

Other calls that had a domestic violence issue sometime during the service call included:

•Assaults 3 in each department in 2020, 7 in 2021 for the WCSO and five for WPD

•Fights, 10 and 14, respectively, in 2020, 12 and 15, respectively, this year as of last week.

•Sexual assault offense 8 and 14, respectively, last year and 15 and 3 respectively, this year.

•Stalking, 1 and 2, respectively last year, 2 and 1, respectively this year.