Family Support Services

Our Supportive Housing program provides transitional and permanent housing for 1 to 3 years for individuals and families impacted by intimate partner abuse. The transitional housing program provides survivors and their children with up to one year of housing at no cost. In lieu of rent, clients commit to saving a portion of their income for use after leaving the program, in order to build their self-sufficiency. Our Permanent Housing program provides survivors and their children with up to 3 years of subsidized housing, with the subsidy decreasing slightly every year in order to foster self-sufficiency. Permanent Housing clients are expected to save less, since they are also paying part of their rent. After three years, our Permanent Housing clients have the opportunity to continue living at their place, with the lease in their name. This program is made possible by the partnerships CORA’s family advocates have created with local landlords who are amenable to renting their properties to CORA clients. In addition to our wraparound services, family advocates provide weekly self-sufficiency workshops for Supportive Housing clients on saving money, how to improve credit, how to find housing, the different types of housing available, and other topics.

We offer individual, family and group counseling for survivors of intimate partner abuse and their children. The overall goal is to help participants learn how to cope with their personal trauma to reduce their trauma symptoms and enhance their sense of well-being. Objectives center around increasing our clients’ repertoire of coping strategies, reducing depression, assisting with short and long-term safety planning and decreasing feelings of isolation. In order to achieve these objectives, support groups and individual counselors address issues that impact long-term healing such as family safety planning, intimate partner abuse education and the effects of child exposure to intimate partner abuse, child development education, parenting skill-building and stress management.

A lot of the work we do at CORA centers around helping children heal from abuse. Our trauma-informed Children’s Program utilizes developmental assessments and parent consultations, transformational art therapy (A Window between Worlds), and early literacy curriculum (Raising a Reader) to promote healing from exposure to intimate partner abuse. Individualized, psycho-educational consultations with parents strengthen their understanding of the effects of exposure to intimate partner abuse on children and family members. Personalized help and support for each child along with artistic and literary activities construct a mechanism for healthy brain development and parent-to-child engagement. Child play groups offered at the same time as adult support groups ensure that no parent misses support groups due to lack of childcare. Additionally, CORA’s Children’s Program Coordinator advocates for clients and their children with local schools and other county resources for children and families.