Debra's Love

 

Debra’s Love is a Black Domestic Violence program at Freedom, Inc.  It is a culturally-specific and Black-led program addressing gender-based violence.  Our work is focused on Black seniors, women, and queer folks who are victims/survivors of gender-based violence. Although there are many mainstream agencies that provide similar services, Freedom, Inc. remains unique in its focus on programming that is Black-led, queer-friendly, and specific in terms of culture, gender, and age.

What We Offer

In order to heal we must move beyond simply surviving. In order for our communities to be whole, healing has to happen in various areas of our lives.

  • Provide one-on-one case management.
  • Facilitate weekly/monthly groups gatherings/events/conversations.
  • Build strong socially conscious gender justice leaders.
  • Promote and enhance culturally specific/appropriate victim-centered practices/methods to increase safety, achieve justice, and hold abusers accountable.

Our Philosophy

We understand the different cultural and social practices of Black and LGBTQ identities because we are from these communities; therefore, we are able to design each program to meet cultural-, gender-, and age-specific needs of our communities.  We craft our individual case management responses to the specific needs of the individual person as well as create appropriate group spaces where they can interact, build, and share with their peers.  We provide victim-centered prevention, intervention, education, community outreach, awareness, direct services, support groups, leadership development, and legal/housing/economic support services that are appropriately tailored for our communities.

Our Methods of Healing

  • Story-telling and breaking silence. Creating on-going opportunities and spaces for people to share and connect their stories as a way to break the silence and end the shame, so that healthy families and communities can thrive.
  • Reclaiming and loving selves. Move from ‘victim’ to ‘survivor,’ creating new narratives around embracing, accepting, and loving self.
  • Building literacy. Social justice education and analysis around class, ability, gender, and race.
  • Challenging power, control and oppression.  Shift power, end blame, and hold abusers accountable.  Create transformative victim-centered accountability practices that will bring about real justice and healing. Changing abusive social norms, creating a new moral compass
  • Self-determination. Create healthy spaces and opportunity for teens/young adults to lead and thrive. Fierce new queer, fem, gender non-conforming, trans, women, girls, and children.

For more information, contact Jessica Williams - jwilliams@freedom-inc.org