The mission of ISF, a non-profit organization, is to prevent family violence and promote the health and wellbeing of each member of the family and their community. Our work is molded by the passionate belief that families everywhere should be able to live whole, healthy, and purposeful lives. Since the early 1990's, ISF programs have focused on training and education, prevention, and policy activities that will better serve the needs of Philadelphia families and communities that are at risk for or are experiencing interpersonal violence. The majority of ISF programs serve Philadelphia families who are traditionally underserved and economically less privileged. ISF leadership provides coalition building, training, education, technical assistance, and consultation. ISF goals include the following:

• To improve community and system responses to families experiencing violence in the home
• To enhance service interventions that work to provide safety and security for all family members and prevent the problems of child abuse and violence against women from re-occurring
• To promote public awareness about the devastating effects of family violence and the possibility for healing and recovery

Below are parts of the puzzle we are trying to piece together to create a comprehensive community safety net.

Some of ISF's programs include the nationally acclaimed RADAR Training Program. The RADAR acronym was created by the Massachusetts Medical Society, and ISF developed it into a comprehensive training program in Philadelphia. Since 1995, ISF has trained over 28,000 medical, mental health, child welfare, early childhood and other professionals to promote family safety and identify and support victims of family violence. The RADAR program has gained national recognition and has been adapted for use in many settings.

ISF works with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and the Philadelphia Department of Human Services to create family violence prevention and intervention models to support the people they serve. CAMP (Children and Mom's Project) is a prevention model that focuses on children's exposure to family violence by working with Philadelphia's pediatric providers and children's hospitals. ISF also works with Early Care and Education (ECE) practitioners to provide professional development to assist them in promoting family safety and resilience in children exposed to violence.

The ISF Campus Dating Violence Project is assessing and evaluating dating violence prevention and responses at three area colleges. The ISF MenCan Campaign develops and disseminates inspiring MenCan family violence prevention materials for organizations, individuals and community groups. A few of ISF programs are highlighted in more detail below.

THE COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER PROJECT

"I had one patient who filled out a survey reporting a history of domestic violence that led to a conversation about her history of rape leading her to move from her home country alone, leaving her children behind, and starting a new life here. She'd been my patient for over a year now, but had never discussed this with me, and it's clearly a very important part of her history."

-Physician interview response regarding usefulness of patient self-report survey

For over 13 years, ISF has worked together with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health (PDPH) to enhance the role that health care providers can play in identifying and responding to domestic violence. PDPH was one of the first Health Departments in the nation to take on domestic violence screening using our RADAR protocol. PDPH currently has domestic violence policies in place for both adult medicine and pediatrics.

Over these years, ISF has continued to investigate various ways of increasing detection rates of domestic violence within health care. In 2007, ISF, in partnership with Dr. Karin Rhodes at the University of Pennsylvania, began a new project testing whether patient self-report health surveys, vs. provider face-to-face screening, could significantly increase domestic violence detection. The study is ongoing, but preliminary results have shown that by giving patients an opportunity to self-disclose their social health risks (including DV), we were able increase domestic violence detection from less than 1% to 27 %.

CAMP (Children and Mom's Project) started at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children four years ago as a collaboration among ISF, Lutheran Settlement House (a domestic violence agency) and St. Christopher's. The goal was to prevent family violence by educating pediatric health care providers on why and how to routinely screen female caregivers of the children that they serve for domestic violence, and providing an on-site domestic violence advocate at the hospital. This program has been extraordinarily successful, producing a demonstrated increase in screening rates, increases in the detection of domestic violence, and increased knowledge and skills on the part of the pediatric primary care staff. To continue the success of the CAMPJ effort, ISF launched a similar program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) primary care clinics where 25,000 children receive care annually. This is another joint effort between ISF and Lutheran Settlement House to develop, implement, and evaluate an intervention designed to prevent child abuse and neglect by addressing the safety of the whole family, particularly the mothers' safety.

CHILD WELFARE

For over seven years, ISF has worked closely with the Philadelphia Department of Human Services (DHS) to create family violence safety, prevention, and intervention models to support the people they serve. ISF's Director of Children and Youth, Marcy Witherspoon, is a Staff Adjunct at DHS and on-site several days a week. Marcy is working toward a "paradigm shift" within DHS to help child welfare professionals become more aware of the need to universally screen all families for domestic violence. She provides on-going training, education, and support to DHS staff and their provider agencies on the dynamics of domestic violence, its effects on children, and effective strategies to address domestic violence in a child welfare setting.

PARENTING AFTER VIOLENCE

"After she (my mom) was able to kind of tell me what it was like for her, then I was able to start to tell her what it was like for me in great detail. It was so difficult for her to hear. However, a couple of years ago, she was able to say to me: ‘that must have been so hard for you; I am sorry that happened.' The fact that she could acknowledge what it must have been like for me as a child was the moment the real healing began. I believe deep in my heart that children need that from their parents."

-ISF focus group study - Adult who grew up in a home with domestic violence

Mothers and fathers who are parenting in the aftermath of violence need intensive and on-going support to become skilled and nurturing parents. To address this need, ISF launched the Parenting After Violence (PAV) initiative in 2005. ISF created the PAV Leadership Team, comprised of national experts, academicians, DHS representatives, child welfare and domestic violence advocates, child trauma specialists, batterers' intervention staff, and providers who work with fathers. The team began exploring ways that both mothers and fathers can restore family safety and help their children to heal when there has been trauma, conflict, and family violence within the home. To date, twenty-two service providers from ten agencies have been trained to implement ISF's Guide for Parenting After Violence, developed by Darla Spence Coffey, PhD.

EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION

"A mom had come into the center to talk to me about her son. I just happened to mention to her that the staff had done a training on domestic violence. The mom got very quiet and then asked if she could have some information."

-ECE practitioner

Young children exposed to domestic violence are very likely to attend pre-school, early learning, and family child care programs in Head Start and Early Head Start, early intervention programs, and family day care programs. Early care and education (ECE) practitioners in all of these settings are uniquely positioned to act as significant protective factors for young children and families living with domestic violence. These practitioners are often called upon to support children and families through the trauma of domestic violence and to contribute to family coping, safety, and healing. They constitute one of the most important systems for addressing young children's needs and their readiness for school. ISF works with ECE programs and coalitions to provide professional development to practitioners to assist them in playing a role in promoting family safety and resilience in children exposed to violence who utilize their services.

ISF has developed a curriculum for the ECE community called C.H.A.N.C.E. (Caregivers Helping to Affect and Nurture Children Early), developed by Ann Adalist-Estrin, MS. C.H.A.N.C.E. provides ECE practitioners with opportunities to learn about the impact of domestic violence on young children and their families and to learn and practice skills for responding effectively. ISF is currently piloting the C.H.A.N.C.E. curriculum at two ECE centers in Northwest Philadelphia. To date, ISF has trained twenty C.H.A.N.C.E. leaders to train in local ECE settings, in college-level early learning programs, and in ECE professional development organizations.

THE AMAZING BRAIN

Working with Dr. Linda Chamberlain and utilizing key principles of neurodevelopment and the latest research on neuroscience, ISF is creating the Amazing Brain Initiative. Together, we are creating a series of brochures specifically geared to parents and teens. They include: 1) The Amazing Brain: What Every Parent and Caregiver Needs to Know; 2) The Amazing Brain: Trauma and the Potential for Healing; and 3) The Amazing Adolescent Brain. Highlighted in each brochure are practical strategies about what can be done to support healthy brain development. The targeted audience is health care, child welfare and early childcare, and education professionals. The goal is to provide training, education and materials for providers, their patients, and parents about the effects of trauma on a child's brain.

As part of the Amazing Brain Initiative, ISF and Dr. Chamberlain are collaborating with Advocates for Youth, a national organization that focuses on adolescent reproductive and sexual health issues, to develop Amazing Brain materials and training to promote adolescents' safety and health.